ELL OH ELL

Watching Trump implode at the NABJ conference in Chicago, faced with a huge audience laughing in his face and causing grievous narcissistic injury is just hilarious.

Super lulzy.

I have no idea why he thought his reception there would be any different…

Tab Clearing...

• "Zombie" alt-weekly newspapers are stuffed with AI-generated slop about OnlyFans.


• Why Chinese state propaganda outlets love foreign travel bloggers.


• Shenanigans with the "Public File".

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Automotif DXXVII...

By the early 1990s, the third generation F-bodies from GM were getting long in the tooth. Work was already underway on their 4th gen replacements, but it was decided to give the Firebird and Camaro a light styling refresh to keep interest going until the new versions debuted.

Pontiac replaced the nosecone on the 1991 Firebirds with a urethane "droop snoot" reminiscent of the aero one on the Banshee IV concept car. The ground effects were also changed to match the newer rakish look. Personally, I don't think either was an improvement. The "lidded eyes" of the closed headlights on the '82-'90 Firebirds, done by Jerry Palmer and Bill Porter, were iconic.

While Firebird convertibles were still done at American Sunroof Corporation by performing roofectomies on regular t-top cars, dealers could order them from the factory as convertibles now, rather than having to special order them and have them drop-shipped to ASC.

For a 1991 Trans Am convertible, like the Arctic White one photographed here, you could get any engine you wanted as long as it was the LB9 Tuned-Port Injected 305, rated at 205 horsepower. The vast majority were 4-speed automatic cars, but a 5-speed manual was available.

This one was photographed in July of 2024 with a Nikon D700 and 28-200mm f/3.5-5.6 G zoom lens.

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What in the wide, wide world of sports?

So, a little after seven AM on Saturday morning, a dude here in Indianapolis wanders out to his truck with three kids in tow. He unlocks the truck, retrieves the pistol that he'd had in the cab, cranks a round off into the air, and then hands it to one of the kids, who proceeds to do likewise. The kids then pass it around, each of them popping a few rounds into the sky... at a 45 degree angle, you know, ensuring the bullet will travel as far as possible ...before handing the pistol back to its owner who then empties most of the rest of the mag into the clouds.

It's all on video.

The dude got arrested and, you know what? Good. Lock his ass up for a bit. And he better have to forfeit the blaster, too. Clip a corner off my lolbertarian card or whatever, but maybe gun ownership isn't for him.

Does this look like there's a safe direction in any direction?

Meme Dump...

Tab Clearing...

• Awaiting the Apocalypse With Elon Musk


• Space debris lands on Canadian farm.


• U.S. and Japan strengthening military ties.

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Meme Dump...

Automotif DXXVI...

The car that eventually became known as just the Supra started out as a zhuzhed-up Celica with a snout stretched to accommodate an inline six. In Japan it was the Celica XX, but export models were sold as the Celica Supra.

For the 1982 model year a whole new generation of Celica Supra debuted, the A60. In the North American market these came in two flavors, the P-type and L-type, for Performance and Luxury. The fender flares, rear spoiler above the hatchback, and wide wheels indicate that this Dark Blue Metallic 1983 Celica Supra is a P-type.

For 1983, power would be provided by Toyota's 5M-GE 2.8 liter inline six. A DOHC motor with two valves per cylinder, for 1983 it was rated at 150 SAE net horsepower and 159 lb-ft of torque in U.S. trim.

While not threatening the Corvette on American streets, this generation of Supra was able to give the late Malaise Era Mustangs and Camaros a run for their money, at least in their lower-spec versions. Car and Driver got 0-60 times in the mid 8-second range and clocked a top speed of 115mph, which is pretty comparable to what my 1984 Pontiac Trans Am would do. Unsurprising since that Trans Am had the sluggish carbureted 150hp LG4 305 V-8 and weighed something like 300 pounds more than the Toyota.

The A60 was one of a number of Japanese performance cars in the early Eighties that announced that the era of cars from Japan being viewed as cut-rate econoboxes was well and truly over. Heck, my orthodontist at the time drove a black A60 Celica Supra.

These photos were taken in July of 2024 with an Olympus OM-D E-M1X and a Panasonic 12-60mm f/2.8-4 zoom lens.

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Interception

USAF fighters, usually F-22s out of Elmendorf these days, intercept Russian Tu-95 Bears all the time, but the presence of PLAAF bombers in this story caught my eye:

North American Aerospace Defense Command says it “detected, tracked, and intercepted” four bombers — two Russian and two Chinese — flying near Alaska on Wednesday.

The Russian Tupolev Tu-95 Bears and Chinese H-6 strategic bombers were operating in the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone but “did not enter American or Canadian sovereign airspace,” NORAD announced in a press release after the incident.

The Xi'an H-6 is China's strategic bomber, originating as a license-built Tupolev Tu-16 in the late '50s.

UPDATE: Here's a story from the Beeb on the incident.

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Automotif DXXV...

This '72 Triumph GT6 is an example of the last of the breed. On its third iteration at that point, the Spitfire-based hardtop coupe had Triumph's 1,996cc inline six in place of the original's four cylinder motor. (This is what necessitated the rather prominent power bulge in the center of the hood.)

Triumph developed the GT6 for the street following the success of the aero fastback tops that were applied to Spitfires racing at LeMans in 1965, where they came in 13th overall and first in class.

With a claimed output around a hundred horsepower, the UK domestic models would do 0-60 in about ten seconds on their way to a 112mph top speed. Alas, the 1972 U.S.-market cars had lower compression and a single Stromberg carb in place of the dual SUs, so horsepower was only about 70 SAE net and performance was proportionately stunted.

The photos of this Saffron Yellow 1972 model were taken with an Olympus E-M1X and Panasonic 12-60mm f/2.8-4 lens.

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Car Blog

So, I've put up a blog for just car stuff. Going forward I can cross-post the Automotif pieces there, plus I have an enormous back-catalog of them on this blog that I can port over there and populate it fairly quickly. Hopefully I can diversify my freelance writing career and get some automotive and photography writing in just to see my byline in a few other places before the entire written word industry drowns in a sludge of AI-generated gobbledegook.

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Blog Stuff

I'm debating whether to peel the car content out of here entirely or just cross-post it at a new blog as well as here.

The Automotif posts are fun for me and, well, there are over five hundred of them at this point...

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Automotif DXXIV...

I've shot this '86-'88 S4 Mazda RX-7 Turbo II before, but it's an attractive enough subject that I can't help snapping it it it's parked out on the curb.

Interestingly, those appear to be S5 taillights from an '89-'92 S5 RX-7. I suppose I can't say much, since my '94 SN95 Mustang GT has taillights from a '96-'98 Mustang.

These photos were shot with the Canon EOS-1D Mark IV & EF 24-105mm f/4L IS lens.

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Tab Clearing...

• Being a social media clout goblin is a fraught choice for a career path.


• Home vet tips for the prepper cat owner.


• 94 year-old man finds and restores his dad's car.

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AttackBot

A robotic scout dog that cops can use to knock the various "Internet of Things" devices in your house offline in preparation for a SWAT raid sounds like something out of a Terminator sequel, but here we are.

“NEO can enter a potentially dangerous environment to provide video and audio feedback to the officers before entry and allow them to communicate with those in that environment,” Huffman said, according to the transcript. “NEO carries an onboard computer and antenna array that will allow officers the ability to create a ‘denial-of-service’ (DDoS) event to disable ‘Internet of Things’ devices that could potentially cause harm while entry is made.”

DDoS attacks are a type of cyber attack where a website, server, or network is overloaded with traffic until it is knocked offline. Huffman did not provide any specifics about how a DDoS attack like this would work. But he said DHS wanted to develop this capability after a 2021 incident in which a man suspected of child sexual abuse crimes in Florida used his doorbell camera to see that he was being raided by the FBI and began shooting at them, killing two FBI agents and injuring three others.

At FLETC they even have a training house set up with various web-enabled devices like crib monitors and "nanny cams" so the Feds can practice working in that environment for entries, which makes sense, I guess. Wonder if they have a practice claymore roomba?

The DDoS scoutbot dog is based on this model:

The next 2,000 round test.

The latest offering from Staccato, the Staccato C... (with a brief digression to note that there was a previous, now discontinued, model with the same designation) ...is kind of a big deal for the company. 

In some ways it's a longer-barreled version of the existing Staccato CS and shares magazines with it, and the magazines are the big deal part. Earlier double-stack Staccatos were using magazines whose geometry was inherited from the days when 2011-pattern pistols were expected to run with rounds like 10mm Auto and .45ACP. Because they had to accommodate wider, straight-walled cartridges, that made functioning with the smaller-diameter, tapered 9x19mm trickier.

The new magazine bodies are designed entirely around functioning with 9mm, and are said to make a big difference.

Well, we've got a test pistol and 2,500 rounds of ammo to run through it here, and we're fixing to find out. Look for updates at this blog and a feature length wrap-up in an upcoming issue of Shooting Illustrated.

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Unicorn Sighting

Here's a thing you don't see every day: A genuine, honest-to-Rollie Vincent Black Shadow just tooling down your street.

These things were legends. The mystique surrounding them means that, depending on the particular year model or variation, prices can easily exceed a hundred grand for a nice one... and that one sure looks nice.

That dude has got to have a regular Garage-Mahal of glorious scooters.

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Argh.

Oh, gawd, NBC has some pasture pool tourney in Scotland on this morning, which probably means that half of my usual Sunday morning yelling at senators entertainment is going to be preempted.

Hopefully ABC isn't covering croquet championships or anything. At least I'll have Stephanopolopolopolous.

"If it's Sunday, it's Meet the Press... unless we're preempting it for golf, or motor racing, or the Brightinghamshire Stoats are playing the Twarfton-by-Blight Tea Cozies in the English Premier League."

55 years ago today...

This was The Onion's finest hour.

Meme Dump...

Oh, puh-leeze...

"Vance’s memo and intensive scrutiny of President Biden’s ambassador nominees reflects his view that cultural elitism has infected America’s diplomatic corps and needs to be rooted out through extraordinary vetting efforts, said U.S. officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss closed-door meetings."

Listening to a multimillionaire Yale lawyer venture capitalist rant about “elites” is surreal. It’s like water denouncing wetness.

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Shell Game...

We're having to essentially reboot artillery shell production...

The causes of the shell crisis began years ago. They are rooted in decisions and miscalculations made by the U.S. military and its NATO allies that occurred well before Russia’s 2022 invasion, a Reuters investigation found.

A decade of strategic, funding and production mistakes played a far greater role in the shell shortage than did the recent U.S. congressional delays of aid, Reuters found.

In the years between Russia’s 2014 seizure of Crimea and its 2022 invasion, for example, repeated warnings from top NATO commanders and from officials who operated or supervised U.S. munitions plants went largely unheeded. They advised their governments, both publicly and privately, that the alliance’s munitions industry was ill-equipped to surge production should war demand it. Because of the failure to respond to those warnings, many artillery production lines at already-ancient factories in the United States and Europe slowed to a crawl or closed altogether.

“This is a problem that’s been long in the making,” said Bruce Jette, who served as the assistant secretary of the U.S. Army for acquisition, logistics and technology from 2018 to January 2021.

It's the post-Vietnam situation all over again. The U.S. military has been preoccupied with counter-insurgency warfare for decades and the 155mm shell was not exactly in high demand in Afghanistan, so...

Automotif DXXIII...

This early (2003-2004) Z4 2.5i was BMW's immediate successor to the Z3. It had fully modern underpinnings compared to the Z3, which was running around until the 2002 model year on a semi-trailing arm rear suspension cribbed from the old 1982-vintage E30 3-series. (This was done for reasons of both cost and compactness; from the rear suspension forward the Z3 was pretty much identical to the newer E36 3-series, but its wheelbase was a foot shorter.)

The Z4 had the multilink rear derived from newer 3-series cars, but as a result had a 4-inch bump in wheelbase length over its predecessor. On the upside, handling was improved and it didn't squat like a motorboat under acceleration.

The 2.5i was the cheaper engine option, featuring the 192hp M54B25 2.5 liter inline six. Buyers could also opt for the 231-horsepower 3.0i.

As a fan of the Z3's lines, I dissed the Chris Bangle-era Z4 pretty hard when it debuted, but like most of the Bangle Bimmers, the lines have aged well over time.

BMW insisted on calling it a roadster, but since the car has a permanently-affixed folding top, that's not exactly accurate. It is a sports car, though.

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Automotif DXXII...

We've seen this Lamborghini Huracán and Rolls-Royce Ghost before (here and here) but, hey, these are a couple of really cool sleds, so I'm always gonna snap a pic when I have a chance.

Meme Dump...

Running out of tanks?

Apparently the hardware situation in Russia is starting to feel the pinch of years of warfare:

When the then defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, boasted in December 2023 that 1,530 tanks had been delivered in the course of the year, he omitted to say that nearly 85% of them, according to an assessment by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London think-tank, were not new tanks but old ones (mainly t-72s, also t-62s and even some t-55s dating from just after the second world war) that had been taken out of storage and given a wash and brush-up.

Since the invasion, about 175 reasonably modern t-90m tanks have been sent to the front line. The iiss estimates that annual production this year could be approaching 90. However, Michael Gjerstad, an analyst with the iiss, argues that most of the t-90ms are actually upgrades of older t-90as. As those numbers dwindle, production of newly built t-90ms this year might be no more than 28. Pavel Luzin, an expert on Russian military capacity at the Washington-based Centre for European Policy Analysis, reckons that Russia can build only 30 brand-new tanks a year. When the Ukrainians captured a supposedly new t-90m last year, they found that its gun was produced in 1992.

The tank & AFV production outlook is bad, and the production of artillery tubes is similarly grim for Moscow.

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Future stuff...

I just can't get over how the price on tech stuff has just plummeted. It wasn't that long ago that a 4K 55" TV was a science fiction movie prop. Now BezosMart is blowing the things out for $299 on Prime Day...

You can spend a ton on tablets or smartphones if you want, but you can get a pretty decent one for very reasonable dough if you don't have to have the most memory or megapixels.

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Sorry, guys.

The week... hell, the whole month ...is off to an unbelievably crappy start.

I'll try to cheer up and be funnier.

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Too Much News

Billy Joel could get a whole new verse for "We Didn't Start the Fire" out of any given week since about March of 2020.

This is your reminder to get off the internet, snuggle your [cat/dog/kid/significant other] and go outside and touch some frickin' grass.

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Crapping all over the internet...

Scammy shill reviews and SEO trickery have plagued the internet for... well, about as long as search engines have been a thing, but they're getting turbocharged by large language models and popping up in unlikely places.

There's this one dude who managed to slip his spammy garbage into places like USA Today and Sports Illustrated:

In October, The Verge and other outlets reported on product review articles appearing on Gannett publications like USA Today that seemed to be AI-generated. Gannett maintained that the content was produced by humans and that a third-party marketing firm was responsible. Just a month later, eerily similar review articles were published on the website of Sports Illustrated, but this time, Futurism discovered that the article authors’ headshots were for sale on an AI photo website. Shortly after, Sports Illustrated said it had cut ties with the company that produced the reviews.

The apparent AI content proved embarrassing for nearly everyone involved: venerated publications that hired a third-party marketing firm to produce content were now attempting to defend the work — and themselves — after readers discovered the low-quality junk content on their sites. Workers who had nothing to do with the stories feared it could be the beginning of the end of their jobs. In January, the Sports Illustrated newsroom was gutted by mass layoffs, though much of the staff was later rehired after its parent company found a new publisher.

In both cases, as reported by The Verge, the AI-generated content was produced by a mysterious company called AdVon Commerce, a marketing firm that boasts of its AI-powered products. There’s little information available about AdVon online, as its owners have worked to scrub their names from the internet.

But sneaking content onto sites is one thing. Suppose you could instead just buy the legal remains of a once-respected but now-defunct site and reanimate it, including generating new AI-written articles under the bylines of its former authors?

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Not how that works.

From the department of "Free Speech Absolutism":

In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Musk wrote that X "has no choice but to file suit against the perpetrators and collaborators" behind an advertiser boycott on his platform.

"Hopefully, some states will consider criminal prosecution," Musk wrote, leading several X users to suggest that Musk wants it to be illegal for brands to refuse to advertise on X.

Boycotts are free speech too, Elmo you knob.

Guys like this claim they hate government regulation meddling in business, but when they wind up on the wrong end of the stick, they're all "Please help me, Government! I'm just a smol bean and they're being mean to me!"

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Tab Clearing...

• Hipster Tactical reviews the Archon Type B.


• The value of life experience in being a peace officer.


• Is the auto industry looking at electric cars the wrong way?

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Quest for Drier

As a frequent pedestrian in my neighborhood, an umbrella is a thing I like to keep in the canvas Harry Herpson High School tote bag in which I carry my iPad and a couple foam koozies.

I rarely have to walk far. It's only a few blocks to the store or a restaurant, so unless it's absolutely raining buckets, I don't need some giant mobile domed tent of a brolly.

I had to buy a new one earlier this year and, not knowing anything about which umbrella brands were good or not, I ran into the enshittified search engine on Amazon and got stumped. A little bit of research around the web saw me picking up a collapsible unit from Prostorm.

After six months of use, I gotta say that it was a good call. Reasonably priced, the auto-extend and auto-collapse features are handy. It's like the Microtech out-the-front mechanism, but for umbrellas. It has nine ribs rather than eight in order to add to its sturdiness in windy conditions, and that plus the venting in the deep bowl of the umbrella itself has kept it from getting inverted even in gusty conditions.

Collapsed down, it's only about a foot long and easily fits in the bottom of the tote. This one gets two (dry) thumbs up from me.

Meme Dump...

Automotif DXXI...

An old rear-wheel drive JDM (Japanese Domestic Market) AE86 Toyota Corolla Levin all set up for drifting. Good-looking ride and sounded pretty healthy.

The last generation of RWD Corollas ran from the '83 to '87 model years and are just Peak Eighties for me. Very Synthwave. I could get into driving one, although I think I'd prefer keeping it a lot closer to stock in the wheel & suspension department. You can tell that encountering the wrong speed bump or pothole in that thing would be disastrous.

I mean, neither the Zed Drei or the Mustang has a ton of ground clearance or what you'd call a cushy suspension, but the difference in sidewall height between the two sets of tires makes a world of difference on rough springtime pavement here in Indy.

Myths and Legends

Harrington & Richardson's little .25 Auto, based on a Webley design, is entirely devoid of sights. The smooth curve of the slide's upper surface is unmarred by any notch, groove, or bump.

Bring this up on a gun forum or at the neighborhood gun shop and you will undoubtedly hear the reply "Oh, it's a belly gun!" Longtime readers of this space will know that this is my bête noire because how do you know it's going to be a belly fight? A dude sticks you up from a dozen or more feet away and you're gonna what? Say "Oh whoopsie! Hey, dude, I only brought my belly gun today. Wait right here while I run home and get something with some sights"?

Carrying a gun with not even the most rudimentary sights is like showing up at the golf course with a whole bag full of putters. It displays a failure to grasp the potential requirements. It's not like it conveys any advantage, either. What, does it make this thing faster to draw or something? As if!

Then we have some classic Winchester .25ACP ammunition, the 45 grain "Expanding Point" round, catalogued as the X25AXP. Sometimes referred to as the "Pellet Nose" round, this is a .25 caliber jacketed hollow point with a #4 steel shot pellet seated in the cavity. The idea being that it made the projectile more feed-friendly in older or jankier pocket pistols, but the pellet would push back into the bullet to initiate expansion on impact.

On the downside, it didn't work that way. On the upside, that's a good thing, because the last thing you want your .25ACP bullet to do is expand. The .25 Auto is one of the few handgun rounds that's almost as miserable a performer as popular myth suggests. It's a marginal penetrator under the best of circumstances and doesn't have any oomph to waste on expansion. If you're stuck with a deuce-five, stick with ball.

Automotif DXX...

I will never not photograph this "Bug-atti" Type 35 kit car. The funny thing is that the originals had anywhere between 60 and 130 horsepower, depending on the version, and you can easily get that much and more out of a hot-rodded Beetle motor. I'll bet it's a hoot to drive. Lord knows these folks always look like they're living their best life when they're out tootling around

Meme Dump...

Okay, this is cool...

The original cast of The Avengers assembled again... to dub their lines in the Lakota language.

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Rat Bikes

Of all my cameras, the Olympus E-M1X is easily the least fossil-y. It was announced in January of 2019, meaning it's barely over five years old; a spring chicken among the stringy old hens and roosters in my camera coop. They're still available new-in-the-box, although used copies are only about a third the price of a new one.

Still, although it was announced in 2019, it uses the same Sony-manufactured 20MP LiveMOS Four Thirds sensor first introduced in the 2016-vintage OM-D E-M1 Mark II, albeit backed up with dual TruePic VIII image processors, which gets it close to at least honorary fossil status.

Having, Collecting, Hoarding, Disposing

If you have a hobby that entails accumulating a lot of stuff, have you considered how best to dispose of it when you're gone? Your kids, or other next of kin, may not necessarily be interested in your cameras, guns, or cars.

Some things, like books or action figures or toy trains, are fairly easy to dispose of. Worst-case scenario you can haul the books to Half Price Books and the Beanie Babies to Goodwill.

Other items, like firearms or motor vehicles, may have additional legal entanglements. It's worth thinking about how to mitigated the hassles that'll cause your family ahead of time.

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UFO sighting...

Somewhere on my blog, although I can't find the post right now, are photos of this car in its former home, at the gas station on the corner of 56th Street & Keystone Avenue.

Thanks to Jerry the alert blog reader for sending the link!

(If the link gives you fits, you might try manually copypasta-ing this one "https://www.foxnews.com/lifestyle/missouri-deputies-pull-over-vehicle-resembling-ufo-out-of-this-world".)

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Meme Dump…