Now that the Tampa Massacre is over, we can get down to the next big event. The Daytona 500 events begin Tuesday night with the Busch Clash, always one of the best races of the year and it’s the opener.
Your favorite Unicorn got busy this morning, so I’m your substitue quizmaster.
This was one of those random videos that popped up in my Youtube feed.
I had heard this story before, but never really knew any of the details beyond that it actually happened. Growing up, Navy and Marine pilots were frequently around the house; my dad was a pilot (that is story for another time) and we lived in Virginia Beach. It was the 60s to early 70s, and the military did a lot of things that made people with some sense say, “It may work, but not for long.” This was one of the stories I heard when I was probably 10 or so and all the F4 and A6 pilots around said it was basically a suicide run. Everybody knows about the Doolittle Raid and launching B-25s from the USS Hornet, but that was a one way trip, they had no expectation of being able to land on the carrier after the mission.
This was a completely different ballgame, they wanted to be able do it whenever they needed to.
There’s a number of humorous comments on the video page, but this one is my favorite.
“The pilot was able to stop so quickly by dragging his huge balls of steel behind the plane.”
“A day that began with thousands of President Trump’s supporters in Washington for demonstrations turned violent as many in attendance saw Wednesday as a last stand for Trump because Congress was set to confirm that President-elect Joe Biden won the election.
Trump — who lost the popular and electoral college vote — continues to dispute the election results, without evidence, and has encouraged his supporters to attend the rallies. He took the stage about noon to roaring crowds, falsely claiming he had won the election.
Later at the U.S. Capitol, throngs of people pushed past police who were trying to block them from entering the building as lawmakers inside debated counting electoral college votes confirming Biden’s victory. A mob was able to breach security and successfully enter the building, where one person was shot.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2021/01/06/dc-protests-trump-rally-live-updates/
There are a few signs of a false flag operation, not enough to be certain at this point.
The Clownshoe Governor weighs in.
Doesn’t really look like Trump supporters do they?
The situation is fluid at the moment, reports are that one woman was shot inside the Capitol and has now being reported as died.
More on that news later as the reports are confirmed.
I received this email this morning.
ATF is publishing the objective factors it considers when evaluating firearms with an attached stabilizing brace to determine whether they are considered firearms under the National Firearms Act (NFA) and/or the Gun Control Act.
ATF publishes this notice to inform and invite comment from the industry and public on the proposed guidance prior to issuing a final document. Upon issuance of final guidance, ATF will provide additional information to aid persons and companies in complying with federal laws and regulations.
This notice also outlines ATF’s enforcement priorities regarding persons who, prior to publication of this notice, made or acquired, in good faith, firearms equipped with a stabilized brace.
Finally, this notice previews ATF’s and the Department of Justice’s plan to subsequently implement a separate process for current possessors of stabilizer-equipped firearms to choose to register such firearms in compliance with the NFA, including an expedited application process and the retroactive exemption of such firearms from the collection of NFA taxes.
You may submit comments, identified by docket number ATF 2020R-10, by any of the following methods:
All comments must reference this document’s docket number (ATF 2020R-10), be legible, and include the commenter’s complete first and last name and full mailing address. ATF will not consider, or respond to, comments that do not meet these requirements or comments containing excessive profanity.
Written comments must be postmarked and electronic comments must be submitted on or before January 4, 2021. All properly completed comments received will be posted without change to the Federal eRulemaking portal, www.regulations.gov, including any personal information provided.
Here’s a link to the Federal Register item.
Objective Factors for Classifying Weapons with “Stabilizing Braces”
I always had a feeling that as soon as an anti-gun democrat got into the White House it would come up for review. There’s probably a couple of million braces in circulation at this point, and this would potentially make criminals out of people that purchased them while they were legal to own.
This excerpt from the ATF email is a look at where they intend to address this problem;
“This notice also outlines ATF’s enforcement priorities regarding persons who, prior to publication of this notice, made or acquired, in good faith, firearms equipped with a stabilized brace.
Finally, this notice previews ATF’s and the Department of Justice’s plan to subsequently implement a separate process for current possessors of stabilizer-equipped firearms to choose to register such firearms in compliance with the NFA, including an expedited application process and the retroactive exemption of such firearms from the collection of NFA taxes.”
The normal NFA process is expensive and tedious to go through, (I’m going to cut this down to where it applies to short barreled rifles, shotguns and suppressors, there a lot of other items on the NFA list that are not relevant to this discussion)
Generally the process is filling out a Form 1 or Form 4 and submitting it to the ATF along with a set of fingerprints and a check for $200. During this process, approval from the head of local law enforcement is also required. Being approved is not automatic, even if you pass the federal background check, your local law enforcement agency can decline it as well.
The key part of this is that you may not possess the NFA item until your application has been approved and you are physically in possession of the tax stamp and approval notice. There are also regulations regarding the transportation of NFA items across state lines. Since most of the people that will be affected by this are already in possession of the braces, it’s going to be a problem.
By Guest Host Mr. Wizard, as edited by Rogue Unicorn (cuz I had to share the view of MY home in the featured image)
KITDAFBS is busy stalking a deer, so The Wiz has kindly agreed to fill in for him today.
Todays view is of the Western Branch of the Elizabeth River. The Western Branch is a 7.0-mile-long (11.3 km) tidal river which bisects the city of Portsmouth, Virginia. It is a tributary of the Elizabeth River, part of the harbor of Hampton Roads in southeastern Virginia.
Dominion Software finally sent out a spokesperson to declare their system can’t change votes.
Pro tip: Anybody that tells you their software can’t alter the results or can’t be hacked generally isn’t telling the truth.
The First Lady announced a new sculpture would be added to the Rose Garden, sorry but it looks like leftover railroad ties to me.
In case you missed it NY Governor Cuomo is going to receive an Emmy for his daytime Covid 19 briefings.
If there was ever a case of WTF, this has to be it.
My personal favorite of the weekend is when Hillary took the irony meter in to warp speed.
This is what happens when you are too insane for MSNBC. As one of my friends said, ‘seriously’.
Thanks for stopping by. We appreciate that you have other options, and chose our little site. If you like what we offer, go ahead and mash that bell, it should be in the lower right corner, and you’ll get notified every time we publish something new.
Give us a follow on Disqus and Twitter.
We’re looking for a couple of new writers for the site. If you’re interested, drop us a line at the link below.
Any questions, comments, suggestions or tips can be directed here. We’ll get back to you as soon as we can.
By Carol Vaughn and Connie Morrison —
“A Navy aircraft crashed Monday afternoon in a soybean field off Mason Road in Bloxom, triggering a massive emergency response.
The crash was reported around 4:05 p.m.
The plane was a Navy E-2C Hawkeye aircraft, the kind that practices touch-and-go operations at NASA Wallops Flight Facility.
The aircraft was assigned to Airborne Command & Control Squadron (VAW) 120 Fleet Replacement Squadron on board Naval Station Norfolk, according to a statement from Commander, Naval Air Force Atlantic Public Affairs in Norfolk quoted in a U.S. Naval Institute News report.
At the time of the crash, the aircraft was conducting a training flight, according to the statement, which went on to say initial reports indicated no structures or people on the ground were damaged or injured.”
The local story is here: U.S. Navy Plane Crashes in Bloxem
The pilots and crew bailed out safely, with no injuries reported to the crew or on the ground. The E-2C was assigned to Airborne Command & Control Squadron (VAW) 120 Fleet Replacement Squadron on board Naval Station Norfolk.
I’m not going to bore you with the advice you get from TV or the internet. This is specifically the pro tips. If you live in the hurricane zone, you should already know the basics. I’ll give them a quick pass below.
Now we’ll get to the good stuff, a couple of Mr Wizard’s tips and tricks.
One of these can be the handiest item you have in a hurricane, I have a couple of these and bigger is better in this case. Stanley makes them in 300, 600, 700 and 1000 peak amp models. I have the Stanley’s, but Duracell and DeWalt also make good models. Don’t skimp on this one; buy the biggest one you can afford. Be sure it has at least 2 usb ports and a 12v lighter adapter port. One of these can be a difference maker in your sanity if you have a wife and kids at the house. One of these will charge a phone or iPad a dozen times or more. You can also use one to keep your WiFi up with a few simple instructions.
Using a small 12 volt to 115v DC/AC converter can keep your WiFi up in a pinch. Most of the time if our wifi goes out it’s because the power is out, not the cable.
400 watts is plenty for this job, plug your router and modem into the inverter and it will run your WiFi for a day or more. Plug the power inverter into the battery pack and you are set. As an alternative you could have an “Air” card for your tablet or laptop, and it will also work as long as the cell towers are powered.
With a deep cycle RV/Boat battery and an 800 watt inverter you can run an average refrigerator for a day or so if you don’t open it a lot. If you have a boat or RV, you probably already have a deep cycle battery. I realize this isn’t practical for everybody, but I already had it so it made sense for short term power outages. Another tip is use this on the fridge and you won’t need to run a generator nearly as much. Use the battery and inverter on the refrigerator and use the generator to recharge the battery.
Now that WiFi and phones/tablets are out of the way, we’ll move on to washing and cooking. If you have a gas grill, you already know the drill especially if you have one with a side burner. Don’t guess, be sure you have a full tank of propane.
If you are not a camper and already have a camping stove, the Coleman butane single burner stove is a good alternative, they run $20 or so and the butane cans run $2.50 or so a piece. You can get 4 for $10 at Walmart. Mr Wizard and the wife are grumpy without coffee, be sure to add a camping coffee pot to your kit if needed. These also come in 2 burner models but are $75 or more for good ones. They can also boil water or cook small meals easily.
Now we get to hot water. After a couple of days everybody needs a bath. The cheap way is a solar shower, campers use them a lot and generally hurricane season is fairly warm weather. You can get them at WalMart or Amazon. These even work for condo and apartment dwellers if you have a balcony that sees a lot of sun. Be prepared to take a “Navy” shower 20 liters doesn’t last long. The other alternative is an on demand propane hot water shower. If you have kids skip the solar shower and go with the propane shower. They will run on the small green propane tanks or a 20 lb bottle, if you already have a gas grill, it’s a no brainer they run around $100, and you can get one on Amazon or eBay. Get at least a 2.0 gallon per minute model. We use one in our camper, once you get use to it it’s great. Be careful the first couple of times you use it, they make some seriously hot water.
If you are a coffee dog like Mr Wizard, there are a couple of options as long as you have hot water. Folgers Singles, it’s like a tea bag with coffee instead. The other option is a French Press; don’t go hog wild, a $20 press makes as good a cup as a $300 one.
There are a couple of other things to keep handy if it’s going to be a blower. Most houses have the same size windows on them, so keep a couple of pieces of plywood that will cover a window in case it gets broken. Nothing tears up a house faster than water damage. If you take a limb through a window during a storm it can be a real mess. A piece of plywood already cut to size can seal off the window until the storm is over and save a lot of damage. You can duct tape it from the inside or if it’s safe to go outside a couple of roofing nails or screws will hold it until the storm is over. Keep a couple of the heavy duty tarps around if you can, because if you lose a couple of shingles it will compromise the roof on your house, and after a good storm roofers are in high demand. If you can’t fix it yourself, a couple of tarps can save your house until the roofers can get to you. Keep the tarps and a pound of roofing nails where you can find them after the storm.
This is a repost from a couple of weeks ago. Since this one is going to hit the Gulf Coast shortly, we thought it would be a good time to post it again.
TOKYO—The U.S. military said Sunday it has ordered Marine personnel on the Japanese island of Okinawa to stay on base after a coronavirus outbreak involving dozens of cases drew criticism from the island’s governor.
The Marine Corps told Okinawa officials that a total of 61 new coronavirus infections were confirmed among U.S. service members and related personnel on Okinawa between July 7 and July 11, said Marine spokesman Maj. Ken Kunze.
The southern island plays host to more than half of the roughly 50,000 U.S. military personnel in Japan, and tensions are frequent between local people and the U.S. forces over noise, crime, military accidents and other issues.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-locks-down-bases-in-okinawa-after-coronavirus-outbreak-11594538627
Military’s COVID-19 cases growing at twice the nationwide rate
More than 4,100 service members have tested positive for coronavirus since the July 1, according to the Defense Department’s latest statistics, a rise of about 33 percent in the last 10 days. That is more than twice the rate of growth nationwide during the same period, 16 percent, as the U.S. more than once broke its daily records for new cases.
There were three new deaths, all of contractors or civilians, during this period as well.
Defense officials have attributed the recent rise in military cases both to increased testing and to the lifting of shelter-in-place orders in some force concentration areas, while expressing faith that local commanders are enforcing protective measures like social distancing and face covering for their troops.
“While we are seeing some upticks in the same places there are upticks in the civilian sector, again, that is not necessarily overly surprising, in that we have been doing more testing,” assistant defense secretary for health affairs Tom McCaffery told reporters July 1. “And we have been doing testing of those who are asymptomatic.”
The infection rate among service members is now 0.8 percent, compared to 0.9 nationwide. That is the closest the military’s infection rate has come to the general public’s in the U.S., and double what it was in mid-June.
These most recent calculations by Military Times reflect the period between July 1 and July 10, rather than the previous weekly calculations published every Friday. DoD did not post its updated numbers on July 3, despite its current Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule.
Officials have pointed to states with spiking infection rates as possible contributors to new cases.
“In general we are doing more testing, which can lead to more positive cases, which prompts more testing,” Air Force spokesman Lt. Col. Malinda Singleton told Military Times in late June. “Many of our installations are in current hotspots (Texas, Arizona, Florida), which is also leading to an increase in positive cases.”
A native of Roanoke, Virginia, James L. Brooks entered the Army Air Corps in 1942.
Jim attended pilot training at Kelly and Moore Fields, Texas, and upon graduation as a second lieutenant, he was assigned to the 52d Fighter Squadron stationed in the Panama Canal Zone. He spent seven months in this assignment flying the P-39 and P-40 fighters before being sent to San Severino, Italy to join the 307th Squadron, 31st Fighter Group. There, Brooks flew Spitfire MK IXs, P-51Bs and P-51Ds, scoring 13 ½ victories. The 31st Fighter Group has the distinction of being the first American group to land in England. It was the first AAF group to go into action with the invasion forces that landed in North Africa, the only AAF group to have a fighter squadron in Italy, the first to suffer a combat casualty, and the first to destroy an enemy aircraft.
The 31st Fighter Group produced more aces (thirty-three) than any other group in the AAF, and ended the war first in total aerial victories (571) in the Mediterranean Theater. Major Brooks’ career decorations include the Silver Star, the Distinguished Flying Cross, and the Air Medal with twenty-one clusters. Brooks grew up fast as a young fighter pilot and was leading entire fighter groups, fifty-four Mustangs, as a first lieutenant into the heavily defended German oil refineries in Ploesti, Romania in his personal P-51B, named “January” after his birth month. On 18 May 1944, while escorting the heavy B-24 bombers over Ploesti, he scored his first aerial victory, downing a Romanian G-50 fighter. Throughout the course of his time in WWII, Jim would down Me-109s, Ju 87 Stuka dive-bombers, Ju 52s, Fiesler Storchs, and Folke-Wulf 190s. Shortly after his first kill, Brooks went on a three-day leave to Rome and another pilot from the 307th Squadron took “January” up on a sortie. The pilot experienced engine trouble and had to ditch Brooks’ Mustang into the Adriatic Sea.
When Brooks returned to his base in San Severino, there was a brand new P-51D model there to replace his B model. With no real inspiration or girlfriend after which to name his new D model Mustang, he had “February” painted on the nose to follow “January.” Brooks became an ace on 18 July, during a mission over Germany. There was some confusion over the target area and the bombers were not holding to their assigned quadrants. The Mustangs of the 307th Squadron entered combat near Friedrichshaven when they intercepted a large formation of ME 109s. A flight of only four Mustangs took them on, but the overwhelming odds forced them to break off the attack. One ME 109 engaged Brooks, who headed for the mountains at full throttle. Approaching one peak, Brooks waited until the last possible moment to pull up. The ME 109, intent on getting Brooks, hesitated and slammed into the mountain. Brooks finished his combat tour in Italy with 55 missions and 280 combat hours. Brooks had deep gratitude for his crew chief, Staff Sergeant Dill Trest, who kept “January” and “February” in tiptop shape and battle ready at all times.
Accepting a regular commission after the war, Brooks became jet qualified in 1946. On 22 December 1950, while flying F-86s with the 4th Fighter Group during the Korean War, Brooks participated in the first big, all jet air battle at 42,000 feet over the Yalu River. Involved were 12 MiGs and 4 Saber Jets. Following the war, Brooks resigned from the Air Force in 1951 as a major and joined North American Aviation as an engineering test pilot. Over the next six years he logged test flights in all F-86 series aircraft, the B-45 jet bomber, the XF-100’s, and the F-86 rocket augmentation project. He was one of the founders and first president of the Fighter Ace Association and is past president of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots.
Editor’s note: Please watch and enjoy the video. It is a fascinating and heartwarming story.
Today should be a national holiday in honor of the birthday of my namesake Mr. Wizard.
Donald Jeffry Herbert (born Donald Herbert Kemske and better known as Mr. Wizard, July 10, 1917 – June 12, 2007) was the creator and host of Watch Mr. Wizard (1951–65, 1971–72) and Mr. Wizard’s World (1983–90), which were educational television programs for children devoted to science and technology. He also produced many short video programs about science and authored several popular books about science for children. It was said that no fictional hero was able to rival the popularity and longevity of “the friendly, neighborly scientist”.
In Herbert’s obituary, Bill Nye wrote, “Herbert’s techniques and performances helped create the United States’ first generation of homegrown rocket scientists just in time to respond to Sputnik. He sent us to the moon. He changed the world.” Herbert is credited with turning “a generation of youth” in the 1950s and early 1960s onto “the promise and perils of science”.
Born in Waconia, Minnesota, Herbert was a general science and English major at the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse (then called La Crosse State Teachers College) who was interested in drama. His career as an actor was interrupted by World War II when he enlisted in the United States Army as a Private. Herbert later joined the United States Army Air Forces, took pilot training, and became a B-24 bomber pilot who flew 56 combat missions from Italy with the 767th Bomb Squadron, 461st Bomb Group of the Fifteenth Air Force. When Herbert was discharged in 1945 he was a Captain and had earned the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal with three oak leaf clusters.
I’m old enough to admit that I saw the last couple of years of the original TV show as a wee child, and was pretty intrigued by it. I even duplicated a couple of his experiments much to my dad’s dismay. My Mom just about passed out when my dad told her there was a radio antenna 50 ft up in a tree in our backyard. There was another episode when my best friend Mark jumped off the roof of our 2 story house with a fighter drogue chute and drifted about 3 blocks away before coming down across a 4 lane main drag in our neighborhood. I think we were grounded for 8 years over that one (which really lasted a week or two). This Wiz was smart enough to talk Mark into doing it first, he was probably 70 lbs at the time.
