QotD: I Hadn’t Thought Of That Edition

"When you think of it, a connoisseur is someone who likes almost nothing of something."

-Mike Johnston, The Online Photographer

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Superfood

Bobbi pointed out that if I could find a way to easily caffeinate that beef broth, I'd have my ideal morning beverage.

She's not wrong.

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Meme Dump

From the last couple days' social media voyaging...

"Doctor, it hurts when I do this."

So, thus far, the Canik has fired 1,610 rounds with 26 malfunctions. That's one malfunction every 61.92 rounds. But we know it didn't like the CCI Blazer Brass 115gr, at least that particular lot, and so what would the numbers look like if we discounted the 160 rounds of that stuff and the malfunctions it induced?

Without the Blazer Brass 115gr, the numbers are five malfunctions in 1,450 rounds, or one in 290. There were ten rounds of Blazer Brass 124gr fired for the chrono. Perhaps unsurprisingly, one of them bobbled the extraction, so if we remove all Blazer Brass numbers, the totals are 1,440 rounds with four malfunctions: 1-in-360.

Then there was that 147gr Federal HST Tactical, whose combination of long cartridge overall length (COAL) and blunt nose caused two failure-to-feeds in fifty rounds. Pull that out, too, and you're left with 1,390 rounds fired with two malfunctions. One of those two was a questionable light strike on a Fiocchi primer, and the other was a failure to eject with the also-weak-but-not-quite-as-weak-as-Blazer-Brass American Eagle 115gr.

In other words, it's entirely possible that I could have come into this test with a case-and-a-half of warm Fiocchi or Remington ammo and a few hundred rounds of 115gr and 124gr JHP, and the gun would have fired 2,000 rounds with maybe one or two malfunctions and I'd be telling you this thing was the best deal since before Springfield started marketing the Croatian Sensation and it still cost $200 from some little importer in Knoxville.

Which brings us around to the big question: What does the difference in price between a TP9v2 and a Gen 3 Glock 19 get you?

This:

Glock 19 went 2,000 rounds with one light primer strike on a round of Brown Bear, plus one bad cartridge from Sumbro that didn't count against the gun.

It's a funny ol' world...

I joked about it yesterday, but you really have to wonder what the Venn Diagram  of "Dudes who were saddlin' up to bust caps over the Bundy Ranch thing" and "Dudes with rifles currently being shooed away from their guard posts at recruiting centers" looks like.
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Fun Facts

Astound and amaze your friends at cocktail parties with the following bits of triviata from teh Feds:

"The most frequently noted location in wiretap applications was “portable device.” In recent years, the use of mobile communications, including text messaging and application software (‘apps’) from cellular telephones, have become increasingly widespread. In 2014, a total of 96 percent (3,409 wiretaps) of all authorized wiretaps were designated as portable devices."

...and...

"Drug offenses were the most prevalent type of criminal offense investigated using wiretaps. Table 3 indicates that 89 percent of all applications for intercepts (3,170 wiretaps) in 2014 cited illegal drugs as the most serious offense under investigation. Homicide, the second-most frequently cited crime, was specified in approximately 4 percent of applications. “Other major offenses,” a category that includes smuggling and money laundering, was the third-largest category and was specified as the most serious offense in less than 3 percent of applications. Many applications for court orders revealed that multiple criminal offenses were under investigation, but Table 3 includes only the most serious criminal offense listed on an application."

Camera decisions...

A gracious reader sent a package containing a couple of 35mm Nikons: An F5 and an FM2n. Prior to this, my Nikon use had been limited to the little entry-level EM and some mid-Nineties consumer-grade autofocus bodies. Handy cameras, but nothing to wax rhapsodic over. The FM2n and the F5 were not like that; I was (am) smitten with those cameras. I'll pull them off the shelf just to handle them, and maybe do a little dry-fire practice, as it were.

Much as with guns, I'm not really a brand fangirl. If I had any sort of brand loyalty, I guess it would be to Canon, since an AF35ML was my first 35mm camera and an AE-1 Program was my first SLR. As a result, when I bought my first DSLR, it was a Canon as well.

I'm not a brand fangirl, but...

Film cameras are fun for me. A hobby. Digital cameras I use for work: Pictures for columns or articles, stuff for the blog, and so forth. If I can share lenses between hobby film cameras and digital work cameras, that's a big savings in money, space, and hassle.

I'm seriously thinking about trading in my three Canon DSLR bodies and my EF-S lenses on a Nikon D300 or even a D700 and just keeping the EF lenses for the EOS film bodies.

"It fell off da truck like dat, Vinnie."

Somehow, two of the latches on my Pelican gun case got popped open during my 4-hr layover in Newark. Wonder how that happened?
— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) April 24, 2015

The latches on my Pelican are hard to pop open on purpose, let alone by accident...
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How often do you back up your photos?

See that green stripe? It's not supposed to be there. This photo's only four years old and this is a 3rd generation copy (SD card to old PC hard drive to thumb drive.) Somewhere along the way, it seems to have gotten a little corrupted.

If it's something precious, a hard copy may not be such a bad idea.

On a tangentially-related note, Keads got some >40-year-old 126 negatives printed out, with probably less effort than it would take to get a term paper off a CP/M-formatted 8" floppy these days.
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Eye In The Sky...

Via email, a satellite's-eye view of the Syrian civil war in Aleppo. Much to look at and ponder, there.
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And Now A Word From Our Sponsors...

I didn't pay much attention to the Robert Scales Atlantic hit piece on the M4 initially. "OMG, teh AR sux!" is kind of the cosmic background radiation of the gunternet and you have to filter it out if you want to pick up any meaningful signals. It wasn't 'til I saw it referenced (favorably, I might add) here that I went and read it.

This led to Facebook discussion about it, and then to one of my 'net friends doing a bit of Googling of Scales' history of editorializing on military topics, and that led to... Well, here, without further ado, let me present the first and maybe only ever guest post at VFTP, because it needs to be read. Take it away, Terence Nelan:

"In the final days of 2014, The Atlantic magazine published an article by Major General Robert H. Scales (retired) which called the U.S. Army's main infantry weapon, the M-4 carbine, "badly flawed."

General Scales begins with President Lincoln and his famous test of the 7-shot Spencer repeater, hoping to show that the right rifle can bring decisive advantage on the battlefield. Skipping a few hundred years, he then blames the finicky M-16 -- the precursor to today's M-4 -- for the death of three of his men in a night attack on his artillery positions at Firebase Berchtesgaden in 1969. This was part of the famous battle for Hamburger Hill.

With his bona-fides thus established, Scales -- sorry, General Scales -- pauses to invoke the troubled F-35 program as an example of military mismanagement, then proceeds to recycle nearly every boneheaded piece of gun-store drivel there is in his attempted indictment of the M-4.

Far more qualified writers than I have taken General Scales' critique of the M-4 apart. Our hostess Tamara Keel delivered an excellent primer and also linked to WeaponsMan's 2-part evisceration of General Scales here and here.  The guys at Firearm Blog got in on the action too. 

If you need more, you can mine the comments on those articles or wander over to Ballistic Radio's torture test in which an (admittedly expensive) AR-15 fired 20,000 round without cleanings or malfunctions. It shot nice groups, too.

After all that, there's nothing fiskable left of the General's original Atlantic article, but there's still a big question still outstanding:  why? Why did he take every rusted-out half truth, lie, and cliché he could find on the M-4,  and package them as journalism and himself as a Noble Reformer? As Tam herself pointed out, the Atlantic piece results in calls to the Diane Rehm show by well-intentioned listeners wondering  "why our soldiers weren't being given the best guns?"

You can't really blame the editors of The Atlantic, who couldn't tell an M-4 from an harquebus. After all, their chosen illustration for the article was a civilian AR-15, tricked out with a Slidefire stock, which is about as useful on a select-fire rifle as a screen door on the space shuttle.  That leaves General Scales himself. He hasn't commented anywhere that I can find on the substance of his work or his motivation for writing it, but a review of his other recent work provides some clues.

On December 6, 2013, he wrote a rebuttal of Dana Milbank's opinion piece in the WaPo that called for the reinstatement of the draft.  The article is mostly tepid, prosaic stuff, but includes a rather astonishing claim.

"Thus, it should surprise no one that better trained and acculturated German soldiers had a field day killing Americans with great skill in the hedgerows of Normandy."

Setting aside for the moment that the Wehrmacht was also a draftee army, the US actually won the battle of Normandy, and drove the Germans out of the bocage. In fact, it was the Allied  drive deep into France that  pushed desperate German generals into the failed plot to kill Hitler.  It's true that the Allies took heavy casualties, but any army attacking into prepared defenses in the Normandy hedgerows would have been bloodied.

We now start to wonder, will General Scales say anything at all to make his point?

Another article, dated October 8, 2013, is pegged to the Medal of Honor award ceremony for Captain William Swenson, who was ambushed by the Taliban in Kunar Province on Sept 8, 2009 . Scales tells us that he broke down in tears during the ceremony. He believes the ambush and the subsequent US casualties could have been avoided  if "some soldier-saving technologies" had been in the field with Swenson and his unit.

He begins with the cell phone. First he scornfully points out the bulky radio shown in Capt. Swenson's helmet cam video, and asks "Why can’t our fighting men and women have cell phones in combat?"

At this point, it is important to note that General Scales bills himself as an intellectual, a thinker, technologist and a 'military futurist.'

It's astonishing then, that he considers cell phone communications a valid choice for military communications, as they are fragile,  insecure, and utterly unreliable. Does General Scales imagine that the US would set up cell towers all over Afghanistan, and that the Taliban would leave them alone?

Police departments, fire departments, military units, hell, even power companies all use radios because they deliver superior range, security and reliability. Although anyone who has seen Lone Survivor knows that even the radios can fail.

The shopping list that follows is even more bizarre.

Although Captain Swenson did have a helmet cam, General Scales wonders why he didn't have a helmet cam capable of sending live video back to the screens in the operations center. Surely that would have convinced the command authority that Swenson's pleas for supporting artillery were valid?

Maybe General Scales -- although he says he was present at the award ceremony -- didn't hear President Obama say "as he returns fire, Will calls for air support. But his initial requests are denied – Will and his team are too close to the village."

Let's assume for a moment there was no village. What sort of infrastructure does General Scales (military futurist!) imagine is required to wirelessly transmit live video streams from the battlefields of Kunar province to the operations center? How much might that equipment weigh? He does not share this with us, as he's too eager to report that one can buy helmet cams at Walmart. This prompts the question "would you go to war and depend on a helmet cam you bought at Walmart -- even if it could broadcast a video stream?"  We are not favored with an answer.

General Scales goes on to complain that Captain Swenson's unit didn't have any drone coverage. He speculates that "had a drone been overhead the Taliban would never have dared to open fire." Drones are slow, lightly armored, and not particularly maneuverable. That's why they fly so high that they are almost invisible and inaudible to people on the ground. Even if there had been one, the Taliban would never have known it, which is of course, the whole point.

General Scales further suggests that the army should have seen fit to equip Captain Swenson with a "sensor that detected movement or the metabolic presence of humans nearby." The military should have this, because such devices have "been in use by civilian security companies for years." Maybe there's a difference between locking down a warehouse in Passaic, NJ and walking a trail up a mountain in Afghanistan. Maybe this is the sort of distinction that falls away when one becomes a military futurist.

The last of General Scales' articles is a long and passionate argument for the creation of special instruction and curriculum focused on strategy and strategic leadership at the new Army University. AU is an Army initiative intended to "build an education enterprise that brings all schools from basic training to the staff college under single management."

This is the sort of thing that a former head of the Army War College might really groove on. Scales gets right down into the weeds in this lengthy article and puts a big emphasis on the creation of distance learning and the creation of new standardized testing, which he compares to the GRE.  He says that a " key assessment would be a 'GRE'- like test of verbal and writing skills provided perhaps by a civilian testing service like ETS in Princeton."

This sounds pretty innocuous. Scales is recommending a technology solution here, but unlike his blithe suggestion that the Army magically transmit live video across Afghanistan, distance learning in offices is a Real Thing that People Do.

So why make an issue out of it?

Because General Scales was made president and CEO of Walden University  -- a private, for profit institution -- in the year 2000, and  promoted to Senior Vice President of Sylvan Learning Systems in December of 2002.  (Source: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Robert_H._Scales,_Jr.) This is not mentioned in the article.

Suddenly, his enthusiasm for distance learning and civilian testing services seems less selfless. Does he also consult for any other companies that make, say, cell phones, or helmet cams, or rifles?

What else has General Scales been up to?

Back in 2008, he was the president of a consulting company named Colgen, which described itself somewhat immodestly as "America's Premier Landpower Advocate."   The Colgen.net site is no longer available, unless you go dig for it at web.archive.org (Link: https://web.archive.org/web/20120622230733/http://www.colgen.net/products.html).

On the site back in 2008, Colgen's business was to assist "landpower Services in creating future warfighting doctrine and operational concepts" and it "translates these concepts into useful strategies and actions for industry, the media, and the congressional and executive branches of government."
 Colgen's "products targeted to these marketing elements including: media commentary, congressional testimony, advice to the executive branch, published works, seminars and conferences."  [emphasis mine] Colgen's "growing list of satisfied clients" includes defense contractors such as General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin.

Note that Colgen clearly states that published works are a marketing product.

If that weren't enough, General Scales played a minor role in a controversial Pentagon program where former military consultants were given preferential access and briefings with the likely expectation that they'd carry water for the Pentagon during their media appearances. How you feel about that program -- described in great detail here -- probably depends on how you feel about the war.

The program was called "psyops" by its detractors, and after it garnered too much attention, it was quietly closed down. The NYT coverage of the program stated that "most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air. Those business relationships are hardly ever disclosed to the viewers, and sometimes not even to the networks themselves. "

The NYT coverage included an email exchange from 2008 which the Times claimed was an implicit trade of good access for favorable coverage. "Robert H. Scales Jr., a retired Army general and analyst for Fox News and National Public Radio whose consulting company advises several military firms on weapons and tactics used in Iraq, wanted the Pentagon to approve high-level briefings for him inside Iraq in 2006. 'Recall the stuff I did after my last visit," he wrote. 'I will do the same this time.'"

Scales says his email was taken out of context and it just meant he'd continue to do a good job as an analyst and consultant.

Was General Scales caught red-handed trading access for positive spin? He claims he never "drank the Koolaid" and he pointed out that he didn't always agree with the administration, or the other analysts.

Maybe so, but when there's money involved, he seems to agree just often enough."

(We were not the only ones to wonder about advertorials, either.)
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Well, it is a desert...

Via SurvivalBlog I was led to a stub of an article on a topic about which I've long wondered. What happens to Phoenix when the drinking straws start making that bubbling sound in the bottom of the cup?

We've built some humongous cities and agricultural areas in the middle of a desert that are awfully dependent on a watershed and various aquifers that maybe ain't gonna keep up with the demand.
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Overheard in the Office...

As Socrates famously asked, "Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?"
— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) July 18, 2014

Does this make me a bad person?

So, here in the neighborhood there was a big tizzy yesterday because an eighth grader late for school at the local parochial kiddie warehouse* said that his absence was caused by "three masked men kidnapping him in a van".

Fortunately "he was able to escape, but not before riding around with the suspects in the neighborhood."

The response to this... tale of woe was to send the neighborhood to DEFCON 1. The school went on lockdown, letters were generated and mailed to parents, detectives patrolled the streets, reporters ran around feeding on gushing emotions, kids walked home in skittish herdlets, and...

...and am I the only person whose initial (and continuing) response was "Wow, I told some whoppers in my time, but I generally had the good sense not to double down when they threatened to get the cops involved"?


*Which happens to be the polling place for Roseholme Cottage.

Fetch my Reynolds Wrap yarmulke...

You know the old saw about how bad weather at election time favors the GOP because, I don't know, only Wall Street fat cats can afford umbrellas and warm coats these days or something?

And remember how George Bush used his evil HAARP technology to cause Hurricane Katrina because he hates black people?

Well, I'm just sayin'...

Maybe it's a coincidence and maybe it's not, but we've got motive and means, here. I think it's safe to tentatively hang the blame for anything bad that happens during Hurricane Sandy on Dubya.

"Instead of the cross, the Albatross / About my neck was hung..."

Every morning during the local TeeWee news, we're being inundated with political commercials to the point that I'm not certain that there are any car dealers or mattress joints still in business, and I'm noticing a pattern: Only one side is mentioning Obamacare.

Every single commercial for a GOP candidate, from Romney on down to the county dogcatcher, is hanging Obamacare on their opponent in a tone of voice that makes it sound like the next thing to eating babies for breakfast.

Conversely, not even André Carson, holder of an hereditary sinecure in the Bluest district in Indiana south of the Chicago 'burbs, is coming out and saying "...and I voted for Obamacare!" in commercials otherwise gloatingly touting his Bolshevist voting record in Congress since he took the seat over from the embalmed corpse of his grandma.

It's almost like it's not polling well or something...

EDIT: Come to think of it, every GOP ad associates their opponent with Obama or the "Obama/Pelosi gang", or similar. For instance, nearly every ad for Mourdock pictures Donnelly with Obama, but not a single Donnelly ad does. Come to think of it, no Democrat ads I've seen for down-ballot candidates even mention the president. Hmmmm...

Here's a puzzler and no mistake:

I would like to see a Venn diagram of the following sets of people:

1. Those who say that rape and other crimes of violence aren't usually perpetrated by masked strangers in bushes, but rather by acquaintances or even family members, and...


2. Those who say you shouldn't own a firearm because statistics show that it is more likely to be used on a family member or acquaintance than on a masked stranger in the bushes.

Discuss
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Executive privilege?

Okay, I've been predicting that Barry would push Holder on top of a grenade for a couple of years now, and it keeps not happening. This latest bit with the Executive Privilege makes me wonder...

A cynic would say that it was exerted because the withheld information could implicate the president in knowing things that the whole administration has pretty much sworn up and down that he didn't know.

A real cynic would say it's because Holder has dirt on Barry.

Now, Obama has, historically, been willing to throw people under the bus so fast that Albert Pujols couldn't hit them, and lord knows he's had ample cause to deflect criticism from his administration in the past by 86'ing what is, at the end of the day, a pretty uninspiring AG.

The guy's a lightning rod for the Right and seems to rate a rousing "meh." at best from his own side, so why aren't his fingers slipping off the front bumper while Barry riverdances on his knuckles?

There's no "Well, maybe..." in Libertopia, dammit!

In the whole "Cart You Off To The Rubber Ramada" discussion, Roomie offers the following argument in opposition to my viewpoint:

You don't own other people; you don't get to control what they do. When you threaten to harm someone -- even yourself -- you're initiating force, attempting to extort something from the persons to whom you are expressing your threat.

You know, I don't think I agree with that. And yet it's an angle I had not pondered before. I'm willing to go sit someplace quiet and chew it over for a bit and see if I still disagree. I think I will, but the very fact that I'm willing to do this is apparently proof that I need to scrape off my Ron Paul bumper stickers and burn my Murray Rothbard books. I just got my wookie suit dry-cleaned, too, dammit!

QotD: Gentlemen's Blood Edition

From Roger, The Real King Of France:

I will argue that this toxic atmosphere was far better than the "comity" we now suffer. No law passed without a fight is far preferable to the nanny state. If the Bladensburg dueling grounds were still active, a whole generation would today have no clue about the names Pat Leahy, Ted Kennedy, or Chuck Schumer.

Perhaps we could get legislation through exempting elected officials from the laws against dueling?