Tuesday Links - 13 October

Miguel Gonzalez starts things off with A bit sad, but no regrets

They say you never realize your last day at something. I just found photos of what was going to be my last project in the studio.

William Teach at Pirate's Cove - Appeals Court Takes Out NYC Climate Scam Lawfare Suit

NYC could not run without fossil fuels. All the cars, trucks, limos, cabs, and ships. Planes and helicopters. About 47% of its power comes from natural gas.

The Silicon Graybeard - NASA issues RFP for private space stations

Today, Friday October 9, NASA released a Request For Proposals (RFP) to the US commercial space industry to develop private space stations that, as early as 2030, will succeed the International Space Station as a place for astronauts to live in low-Earth orbit.

Chicago Contrarian - Two Stories. Two Warnings. How Many More Before Springfield Acts on the SAFE-T Act?

How many more people must be injured? How many more must be killed? How many more families must bury a loved one before Springfield decides that the SAFE-T Act and Illinois' broken warrant system are serious enough to fix? We keep hearing the same political language about studying the problem, looking at the issue, and being open to changes. Meanwhile, real people are paying the price.

Pixy Misa at Ambient Irony - Daily News Stuff 9 October 2026: Wormsmith Edition

Global PC shipments have plunged 20%, shocking industry analysts. (Notebook Check)

Who expected the numbers to be much worse.

One of them tried to blame it on "macro conditions", which is of course pure bullshit, unless he's referring to the scale of the price increases.

Again from William Teach - Use Of AI Can Reduce Film Budgets By Up To 40%

[Lee Sung-gyun, Netflix senior director of APAC production,] gets it: AI is a tool. A powerful tool. But, that is it. It is not sentient. It’s still programming. Powerful programming that can assist and decrease costs while providing a heck of a lot of help.

V. Saxena, The Western Journal at The Gateway Pundit - Stephen King Asks Why Billy Bob Thornton Series ‘Landman’ Was Snubbed by Emmys, and X Schools Him

Oblivious Hollywood dullard Stephen King had the audacity on Thursday to ask folks on social media why a blatantly conservative TV series didn’t get nominated for an Emmy Award this year.

From Wombat-socho - FMJRA 2.0: A Winning Homestand

So after the wretchedness of the previous weeks, Senators fans were able to leave their agonizers at home in their recharging cradles as we swept the Orioles in a three-game series before going 1-2 against the Bravos.

And again from Wombat-socho - Rule 5 Sunday: No Fishy Just Sexy

It’s Marie Dee’s birthday. Happy birthday, Miss Dee.

Contra Costa County Sheriff Backs Down on 2A Suit

California, and its various counties, will bend over backwards to restrict your rights. California Sheriff Backs Down, Ends County’s Ban on 1911s, Red Dots, and Pistol Lights

The Second Amendment Foundation has reached a settlement agreement with the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office over policies that previously prohibited permit holders from carrying handguns equipped with red dot sights or flashlights and an outright ban on the carry of single action only 1911- and 2011-style pistols.

Because you if you have a red-dot or a weapon-mounted light that is an unfair advantage over the bad guys. Or something. I can't even imagine why 1911s or 2011s were banned.

The sheriff ended up backing down in the face of the suit, because it is ridiculous.

“A sheriff does not get to invent a shorter list of approved handguns and accessories than the Constitution allows,” said SAF Director of Legal Research and Education and attorney of record in the case Kostas Moros. “Even though red-dot sights, weapon lights and 1911 and 2011 pistols are in common use for lawful self-defense, Contra Costa treated them as contraband. This settlement ends that unlawful practice, and we are pleased the County saw the error if its ways and resolved these issues.”

Hat tip to Stephen Green at Instapundit.

So flagrant that Sheriff David O. Livingston chose to settle rather than take it to court.

Contra Costa County, California, in in the East Bay part of the San Francisco Bay Area. It runs from a few miles east of Berkley to about 10 miles west of Stockton, east to west, and from the Suisun Bay in the north to San Ramon in the south.

Darwin Award Near Miss on Crown Mountain in British Columbia

Don't use AI to plan your trip into the wilderness. Just don't. From British Columbia, Canada, we get the latest insanity. A teen used AI to plan a hiking route. It trapped him on a cliff.

My last post, on the same issue, but in California, was at the beginning of September.

A teenage hiker in Canada recently became another cautionary tale about the perils of overtrusting artificial intelligence. After relying on an AI-generated route to ascend Crown Mountain in British Columbia, the 16-year-old found himself stranded on a steep cliffside near a climbing route known as the "Widowmaker." The wayward traveler's position was so precarious, that it took roughly three hours to coordinate a proper rescue plan.

Most hiking routes have a lot of information available. Local clubs. These are mostly in national or provincial parks. Topographical maps with incredible detail. And the rescue services probably have some information available as well, so they don't have to rescue people. But AI is all in style or something. Your safety isn't an issue for style.

Generative AI has suggested hungry users add glue to thicken pizza sauce, claimed that snakes are mammals, and advised fixing a broken turn signal with something called "blinker fluid."

Granted, some of that is old info, but it is still funny.

My post on the Mount Shasta incident is at this link, and the article linked above mentions it as well.

Jaguar Tries to Dump Its Woke Image

Is it too little, too late?

Jaguar, now owned by Indian, automotive-conglomerate Tata Motors, abandoned their "all electric" push in January of 2026. This was after their woke rebrand, and their all electric pledge caused sales to slump 98%.

The the original concept car, that they introduced in pink, the Type 00, has now been introduced as the Type 01. They introduced it in silver, with the traditional Jaguar logo, and dumped the androgynous models for Florence Pugh, who plays the new Black Widow in the MCU.

This is the MGUY Australia video Jaguar DUMPS the Tellytubbies for actress Florence Pugh.

Walking With The Angels

Two women with powerful voices singing together. What's not to love?

Doro Pesch has been singing Heavy Metal since she became the lead singer for Warlock in the 1980s. When she was the last member of that band she had to change the name of the band due to legal insanity. So the band has been Doro since the late 80s or early 1990s.

Tarja (she was still using her last name in 2009) was lead singer for Nightwish, and has since had a fairly interesting solo career.

This is "Walking With The Angels" by Doro featuring vocals by Tarja Turunen. It is from Doro's 2009 album Fear No Evil.

There are a couple of live recordings on YouTube, from when they were both at the same festival, and it was included in at least one compilation album.

Good Guys 2, Bad Guys 0

What would you do if you were followed by a car, and then boxed into a dead end? Arrests made after delivery driver defends himself from two shooters | News | KTBS

Investigators say Bumcon and Deangelo Robinson, 22, were following another man while he was making Uber deliveries. Police said the man tried to get away before reaching a dead-end road, where Bumcon and Robinson allegedly opened fire on his vehicle.

The man returned fire, police said.

Two people were arrested and charged with attempted second-degree murder.

The hat tip goes to Colion Noir and his video 60 Rounds, 2 Gunmen, 1 Uber Driver: The Exact FRT Scenario I Warned You About. This is more informative than the link above, but I like to include a news story for completeness.

Detectives found gunshell casings, a ski mask, and gloves across multiple crime scenes. A ski mask and gloves. Nobody accidentally ends up with a ski mask and gloves in Louisiana in October. That's a plan.

The video is just under 8 minutes.

New Data on Good Guys With Guns

John R. Lott Jr. at The Federalist: New Trump Admin Stats Prove Good Guys With Guns Save Lives

The federal government consistently downplays evidence that armed, law-abiding citizens can stop public mass-casualty attacks.

That would mostly be the FBI, The Bureau of Justice Statistics, the ATF, ... In other words, the Deep State that wants citizens disarmed.

Those who manipulate crime data can shape the political debate. The Trump administration has reversed some serious data manipulation that occurred during the Biden administration when it comes to crime.

He starts out the recent CDC decision to republish, and somewhat correct, data on armed self-defense. (See my post from Sunday.)

But the FBI is also part of the problem.

The FBI has also had its own data problems. The FBI defines an active shooter as someone actively killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area. The category can include an incident in which a gunman shoots at a single person and misses, as well as a mass public shooting. But it excludes shootings tied to other crimes, such as robberies or fights over drug turf.

I have seen politicized data firsthand. Until January 2021, I served at the U.S. Department of Justice as senior adviser for research and statistics in the Office of Justice Programs, where part of my job involved evaluating the FBI’s active shooter reports. During my time at DOJ, I found that the FBI had missed or misidentified many cases in which armed civilians stopped attacks.

Click thru for the rest. (Hat tip to Crime Prevention Research Center)

If a Solar/Battery Storage Unit Catches Fire, Is It Still Clean Energy?

They put off huge quantities of toxic gases. This was a Lithium Iron Phosphate battery facility. It is on Prince Edward Island in Canada. A battery fire at a P.E.I. solar farm is finally out. Canada may not be ready for more

The battery storage facility was 2 years old.

The solar farm battery fire in Summerside, [Prince Edward Island], is now deemed out, but fire experts say what happened there should concern communities far beyond the Island.

The blaze at the Summerside Sunbank is believed to have started on Labour Day, Sept. 7, in a battery bank.

According to the StacheD video below, the fire burned for 14 days. That is a long time for a local fire department to have people on site.

As also noted in the video, a lot of these facilities are catching fire in the first few years of their existence. If they are failing when they are only 2 or 3 years old, what will it be like in 10 years?

This is the StacheD Training video BESS Fire on Prince Edward Island: LFP (LiFePO₄) Fire

The Centipede [system name] also uses lithium iron phosphate, LFP. One of the biggest misconceptions I hear is LFP is safe and it can't go into thermal runaway. Is it safer? Yes. Is it harder to get into thermal runaway? Also, yes. But once it goes into thermal runaway, you can get fire. But typically, it likes to just release flammable gases. So, the explosion hazard is significantly more.

So you trade risk of fire, for risk of explosion. Great.

Offensive Comments

I get a lot of comments that are clearly trying to get my blog canceled.

I used to think that most of them were real racist assholes. Some of them probably are. I have come to see most of them as libtarded moonbats, who are trying to get me to post bullshit, so they can attack my blog. I get reported to Google on a somewhat regular basis, and the entire blog, and even the Politics and Guns page - link near the header, and in the sidebar - have been reported, because people talk about guns.

And there are two things the Moonbats hate.

1. Freedom of Speech (How dare you say, or write, something I disagree with!)
2. The Second Amendment (How dare you not rely on the state for everything, even your own safety!)

It you want to spew racial hatred, you can do that on your own time, but not on this blog. If you are not logged into Blogger (the admin site for Blogspot), there is a radio button in the upper, right-hand corner of this page that is labeled "Create Blog." Knock yourself out. You can spew all the hate you want, or at least all of the hate Google will let you get away with. (They have standards. The standards don't always make sense, but they do have them.)

Your racist rants/comments/quips/statements are not welcome here. They are the reason I instituted comment moderation. Well, that and the SPAM. On the whole, you and your ilk are much more annoying than the spammers.

Massad Ayoob on When to Shoot in Self-Defense

People in the gun community know Massad Ayoob. Others may not. He was a police officer, he has written several books on defense, and he has been an expert witness in various cases. I'm not sure how I first ran across his writing, but it was probably the work he does with Backwoods Home Magazine.

This is The Wilson Combat video Critical Mas: When to Fire in a Self Defense Situation.

If you act to the standard by which you'll be judged, you should not be found wanting in the judgment.

The video is three and a half minutes.

He is a former police officer, and that colors his answer a bit. I think in some locations, drawing a weapon, as a civilian, before you are 100% sure you need to use it might be considered "brandishing." Anyway, I like Massad Ayoob, and his advice generally.

The CDC Corrects Its Defensive Gun Use Data

Crime Prevention Research Center has the details. The CDC Corrects its Post on Defensive Gun Uses

The CDC had originally posted an estimate of anywhere from 60,000 to 2.5 million defensive gun uses per year, including instances where the defender never had to file a shot. In response to the gun control crowd, the Biden Administration pulled down the post from the CDC website.

The Trump administration first restored the original data, and have now updated it with a better estimate, though they kept the 2.5 million number and did not use the 3.7 million number.

The CDC has now corrected the information that had been posted and eliminated the lower estimate of defensive gun uses that the NAS report had noted was problematic..The NAS report didn’t make it clear that the 500,000 number was just for handguns, and the top estimate from the NAS report was 3.7 million. But this is a big improvement over what had originally been put up at the CDC website.

I'm sure the gun-hating part of the Left is having a fit.

First He Got Himself Shot

Now He is charged. The fact that he was shot by an ICE agent is just icing on the cake. Austin man shot by ICE agent charged with assault, resisting arrest

Federal prosecutors have charged the Austin man an ICE agent shot earlier this month with a single count of resisting and assaulting a federal officer, according to court documents.

I'm sure that the Left will be protesting something about this.

He knew he was going to be detained, so he fled.

Garces Perez disregarded the officers’ commands to exit the vehicle and he fled the scene. As he pulled away from the scene, his driver’s side mirror hit one of the officers in the torso, according to the criminal complaint.

Click thru for details.

Saturday Roundup of Link Roundups - 10 October

The Right Way starts us off with Top of the News

Fort Hood Killer to Face a Firing Squad - IOTW Report
If you’d like to see just how far Tucker Carlson has fallen … - The New Neo

Wombat-socho - In The Mailbox: 10.07.26

Dana Loesch: Three Years Later – October 7th From Southern Israel
Don Surber: Women lie. Men serve time.

EBL - The Battle of Saratoga

7 October 1777 : Second Battle of Saratoga
AoSHQ: Morning Report 10.07.26

Pixy Misa at Ambient Irony - Daily News Stuff 7 October 2026: Girl With The Gat Edition

Cable lobby groups have announced plans to sue the FCC for (checks notes) not staying bought. (Ars Technica)
Are they supposed to say that part?

Small Dead Animals - Wednesday On Turtle Island

The Democratic Party’s America: The big tent. Victor Davis Hanson – The Cornell case and are we becoming Gondor? Green New Deal. Feminists and the alphabet people.
Stories You Won’t Find At Carney’s CBC: A mandate of none.

Lawrence Person's BattleSwarm Blog - LinkSwarm For October 9, 2026

Stephen Green: “You’ll Never Believe How L.A.’s ‘Ambitious Effort’ to Fix Homelessness Totally Failed.” Oh, I bet I can.
For Democrats, big pots of money that never get used for their professed purpose is the goal.

Again from Wombat-socho - In The Mailbox: 10.08.26

Victory Girls: Trump and A Tale of Two Cities
Watts Up With That: Climate Lawfare Cannot Rewrite Energy History

Vlad Tepes - Oct 7th thoughts, and a lesson on enemy propaganda: Links 1 for October 7th, 2026

Before Israel Buried Its Dead, Canada’s October 8 Alliance of Leftists, Islamists, Unions and Climate Groups Was Already in the Streets

The Glibertarians - Wednesday Morning Links

Get a load of this fucking guy. He very clearly doesn’t know what “free” means. I hope he enjoys his riots.
This gets more retarded by the day. Which should have been expected.

Gates of Vienna - News Feed 10/8/2026

France: Do ‘Compassionate’ Societies Breed Monsters?
French psychologists and educators are blaming decades of permissive parenting and soft-touch justice for violent high school riots involving attacks on police and teachers.

Political Hat - Quick Takes – Hiding DEI: DEI Payroll; DEI Over Editing; DEI Without Statements

When you have to cut your budget… you keep your DEI payroll?
Wokeness over correct English, ‘twould seem.

Once again from Wombat-socho - In The Mailbox: 10.09.26

Chicago Boyz: The Librarian & The Car Keys, Melenchon & The Burning Of France
Da Tech Guy: 100 Word Doctor Who Fan Fiction: An Upgrade at Chauffer

Flopping Aces - The Week in Radical Leftism, 10/09/2026 – More Crazy from The Economist!

Why MAGA hates and loves Europe
Simply put, we love what Europe was and hate what its new leaders and conquerors have done to it.

Maggie's Farm - Wednesday morning links

Gallup: Percentage of People Saying College “Very Important” Sinks To Record Low
Colleges Face Impending Doom: Scrambling to Adjust

J.J. Sefton at Ace of Spades HQ - The Morning Report — 10/9 /26

Genocide by slogan, not fact.
The Vanishing Myth of the Gaza Genocide

Doug Ross - Larwyn’s Linx: ☕️ DISRUPTIVE ECHOES 🦠

Lying Media Ahead of the Midterms? Check. Sasha Stone
In Dearborn, Christians and Jews are second-class citizens Times

I leave you with Midweek Memes from Granite Grok, Wednesday Memes …… from MaddMedic, Your weekly political and current event memes from Wirecutter.

Self-Defense in New York State?

The governor will not be pleased. Homeowner shoots intruder during home invasion in South Glens Falls

If an intruder enters your home at 4:30 in the morning, how would you respond?

Investigators determined that an individual unknown to the homeowner went inside the home and was shot by the homeowner. The homeowner and other people inside the house were not injured.

South Glens Falls, New York, is about a 50 mile drive north of Albany.

The guy who got shot was transported to an Albany hospital and is expected to survive.

Though this sounds like self-defense to me, this took place in New York, so who knows what the DA in Saratoga County, will decide.

Whatever the DA decides, self-defense is a human right. Good Guys 1, Bad Guys 0.

The Level of Stupid, It Hurts

If you wrote this into a fictional story, people would say you were being ridiculous. But it really happened. From Not the Bee: Pennsylvania cops say wife shot husband during argument over gun safety to prove her point

He would leave his 9mm pistol laying around, so she shot him to teach him a lesson. Or something.

Unfortunately, it was the last lesson her husband was ever going to learn.

She is facing charges of criminal homicide, aggravated assault and reckless endangerment.

On the plus side, the gun has finally been stored far away from the children … in the evidence locker.

I fully expect the Clancy Brigade to explain to all of us how this wasn't her fault in about 3 minutes, though it might not get the national attention Clancy got.

Colours

Alice Merton is a singer who grew up in Britain, and Canada, and has a career that seems to have started in Germany. She started with the hugely successful single "No Roots" back in 2017, and followed up the single/EP with an album, Mint, in 2019. I had lost track of her during COVID, but she also released an album in 2022, and a third album in January of 2026.

She is apparently working on another album, as she released a single, that is not on either of those albums, in September.

This song is "Colours" by Alice Merton. It was released as a single on the 13th of September to all of the regular music services.

Where is James T?

The Politics-in-Texas answer to "Where is Waldo?" The Other McCain brings us a current political mystery. Rumors Swirl: Where Is James Talarico?

Have you seen this guy lately? James Talarico is a Democrat, a previously obscure state legislator who is running for a U.S. Senate seat in Texas against the current state attorney general, Ken Paxton. Or rather, I should say, Talarico was running for the Senate until Sept. 26, which was the last time he was seen at a campaign event. He showed up in New York City for a fundraiser with Robert De Niro on Sept. 28, and made a virtual appearance on a teleconference Sept. 30, but no one in Texas has seen him in public for nearly two weeks, and wild rumors are now circulating as to the reason for Talarico’s mysterious disappearance.

The official explanation from the Talarico campaign is that the candidate came down with the flu, but nobody believes that because (a) everything the Talarico campaign says is a lie and ...

Click thru for the details.

And for reasons known only to my subconscious, I immediately went to this clip in my mind.

Friday Links - 9 October

A somewhat abreviated links post this week. Life occasionally demands my attention.

We start off with Light Over Heat with Professor David Yamane and Are Guns Tools or Weapons? Yes.

After some conversation, I tried to take the position with my students that guns are both tools and weapons simultaneously. This mirrors my position that “guns are not one thing, but many—and paradoxical at that.”

William Teach at Pirate's Cove - Huh: McDonald’s Sued Over AI Pricing

Realistically, dynamic pricing for a McDonald’s store, which are franchises, not company owned, can be done without AI, and is something that was done beforehand without AI by the main company

Warner Todd Huston at Chicago Contrarian - Juliana Stratton Hides Behind a Fig Leaf

Democrat U.S. Senate candidate Juliana Stratton is hiding in her basement and refusing to debate Republican nominee Don Tracy as the pair vie to replace outgoing Senator Dick Durbin this year.

The Other McCain - ‘A Reliable Barometer of Wrongness’

How many years have I been mocking Amanda Marcotte? Many, many years. Nearly two decades. She got mentioned in the very first National Offend a Feminist Week announcement back in May 2009, by which time I’d been mocking her regularly for more than a year. It’s been a while since I was compelled to pay attention to her, but then Dana Pico reminded me of her existence.

Pixy Misa at Ambient Irony - Daily News Stuff 6 October 2026: Fih Edition

AI is junk food for the mind: Easy, tempting, and ultimately very bad for you. (The Verge) (archive site)

This is the ultimate demarcation dispute for journalists as they see that precise niche being carved out from under them by Chinese clankers.

Self-Defense in San Francisco

Even the journalists in San Francisco didn't think this was anything other than a happy ending. 73-Year-Old San Francisco Vietnam Veteran Shoots Masked Intruder in the Buttocks After He Drilled Through His Door and Knocked Him to His Hands and Knees at 5 A.M. - USA Carry

A 73-year-old Vietnam War veteran in San Francisco’s Sunset District shot a masked intruder after the man drilled through his front door, forced entry with a large dog, and knocked him to his hands and knees on the second floor. The veteran, who had grabbed his handgun before investigating noises, fired once, striking the suspect in the buttocks.

In what is perhaps the bluest city in Deep Blue California, there are still people who embrace the second amendment.

Of course the DA will decide if the homeowner faces charges, and the injured guy that the cops took to the hospital has not officially been linked to the crime, but I think that will come in time.

The hat tip goes to Mr. Colion Noir and his video Burglar Drills Into A 73-Year-Old Vet’s House… Then This Happened