Friday Links - 8 July

Impro Guns starts us off with a homemade MAC in .38 Special. An unusual caliber for semiautomatic firearms. And this may actually be fully automatic.

A Mac copy constructed from steel box tube ... It apparently fires well enough.

Zerohedge on the fact that unicorn farts are not a viable energy source: Coal Emerges Victorious As Sanctions And Green Policies Backfire Spectacularly. Remember when the Germans laughed at President Trump over worries about becoming dependent on Russian oil and gas?

Hilariously, the push for coal is being led by Europe, ground zero of the "green movement" which finally realized that one can't burn fake virtue or melt posing in front of camera in the winter to keep warm, and is boosting coal purchases to ensure it can keep power flowing to homes and factories after Russia cut gas supplies to the continent. Germany, which not long ago promised to eliminate coal as a power source by 2030, is among the nations now importing more. Economy Minister Robert Habeck called the increased reliance on coal bitter but necessary. Spoiler alert: Germany will not eliminate coal as a power source by 2030, if anything it will be more reliant on it than ever unless it also restarts its nuclear power plants which it, idiotically, shut down not long ago.

Meep at STUMP - NY Corruption: Hochul, Benjamin, and Chester A. Arthur -- Can You Tell the Difference?

Benjamin may be able to beat the rap, because, after all, everybody else was doing it.

He can point to Hochul, after all. She and her folks have been doing much bigger deals, and also the smaller ones he’s been accused of. Nobody has indicted her. Why should he be convicted for bribery when everybody is on the make? We expect those who get favors to be big donors. It’s not illegal!

Rebel News - McMaster University claims to champion diversity and inclusion… unless you happen to be a white male

Tyler says [Professor Jennie] Vengris noted that if a white male were to speak in her class, that class would no longer be a “safe space” for others.

Justifiably miffed, Tyler reached out to the Equity and Inclusion office at McMaster for legal support. Tyler says office staffers agreed that he had been discriminated against and that he had a good case. But Tyler was also cautioned not to file a grievance given that he would be “socially crucified” – whatever that means (no explanation was forthcoming).

The Other McCain - Our Patriotic Duty. (That must have been some 4th of July!)

Jim sent me to Pyro Dudes to grab another 48 shells and 40 feet of extra fuse for the finale.

Good Guy With a Gun Stops Bad Guy

That thing the Left says never happens, happened in Houston. Houston crime: Suspect killed by neighbor after shooting his mom | KHOU

Early Tuesday morning a son, who was acting strangely, shot his mother.

Investigators initially believed the man shot himself, when a neighbor came out and admitted to shooting the suspect to prevent him from killing his mother.

"The son stood over mom, shot her like three or four times, and that's when the good Samaritan took his shot and was able to strike the suspect," Sheriff Ed Gonzalez says.

The mother is out of surgery and expected to survive.

The shooting will be referred to a grand jury. I've been told that all fatal shootings go before a grand jury in Texas.

Defense of self and others is a human-right. This didn't take place in New Jersey. (via Twitter.)

Shooting and Stabbing Might Not Be Crimes in Chicago

Not if Kim Foxx, the non-prosecuting attorney for Cook County, has anything to say about it. Prosecutors decline charges in triple shooting that followed Chicago Pride Parade, also reject felony charges in triple stabbing - CWB Chicago

Last Monday, hours after three people were shot and three others stabbed in separate incidents following the Chicago Pride Parade, city officials offered glowing reviews of their performance.

Everyone responsible for the shootings and stabbings was in custody, they said.

“The next best thing to preventing it is holding the person accountable and making an arrest right away, which is what happened,” CPD Supt. David Brown told reporters Monday afternoon. Police also recovered a gun from the shooting, Brown said.

But keeping violent people in jail is unfair.

Kim Foxx, who is officially known as the Illinois State's Attorney for Cook County, refused to file any charges in the shooting, or her office refused to do so. No one is currently in custody.

While CPD issued a press release stating the woman involved in the stabbing incident had been charged with 3 felonies, they were wrong.

On Wednesday morning, they issued a correction. She had only been charged with misdemeanors.

And the people of Chicago wonder why they have a crime problem.

Obligatory reference to Hobbes' State of War, which exists after the breakdown of law and order. If I hadn't moved out of the People's Republic of Illinois decades ago, I would be doing so right now.

How's That Criminal Justice Reform Working Out?

While he was on Probation, Prosecutors refused to charge him with gun crime. Now he is charged with murder. He allegedly killed a 17-year-old girl at Mcdonald’s last week — a month after prosecutors refused to charge him with a felony gun crime. (And he’s on parole for shooting a gun.)

So they won't charge people for violating the gun laws already on the books, and yet the want more gun laws.

He allegedly killed a 17-year-old girl at Mcdonald’s last week — a month after prosecutors refused to charge him with a felony gun crime. (And he’s on parole for shooting a gun.)

The prosecutor, in addition to the charges specified, said that he had a pending case for "misdemeanor unlawful use of a weapon" not involving a firearm.

But, as CWBChicago has learned, the prosecutor was wrong.

Chicago police arrested Heredia last month and tried to charge him with a felony for possessing a Glock handgun, but prosecutors at the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office refused to approve the felony case.

Why didn't the Cook County State's Attorney charge him with a felony? Because keeping violent criminals in jail is unfair.

But prosecutors didn’t approve the felony. So, Heredia walked out of CPD’s 10th District station on his own recognizance and, according to Sunday’s allegations, he got another gun and killed a teenager at McDonald’s.

They keep releasing criminals, and their crimes keep escalating. I can't even pretend to be shocked.

Anti-Christian Hate Requires Journalist Offer an Apology

How many people have been canceled for not towing the ideological line on everything from Gays on down? Channel Nine in grovelling apology after reporter is seen at Roe v Wade protest | Daily Mail Online

If it weren't for double standards, the media would have no standards at all.

Channel Nine have apologised after a television news reporter was photographed at a protest against the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe vs Wade decision holding a sign mocking Christianity.

So after she was handed a sign, mocking Christianity (she was photographed laughing about it), she posted that sign to her Instagram account.

If she mocked gays, the Cancel Culture would come for her. I wonder what would happen if she mocked Islam? But mock all of Christianity, and an apology is fine. Even though we know she isn't sorry.

Channel 9 (an Australian news outlet) said, "The journalist did not mean to cause any offence." And she has been subject to "counseling" on why being a bigoted POS is a bad look for a journalist.

That is the deepest Bullshit I have read in a long time. Of course she meant to cause offense. And it appears that her camera man is also laughing, though the guy with the broadcast-grade camera on his shoulder in the photo isn't identified.

The media statement goes on to talk about "impartiality" and other 20th Century Journalist values. I don't know why they bother. No one really believes them.

The State of Crime in Seattle

On the surface, this is a fairly straightforward story of self defense. And given it is from Seattle, the Media Bias is only to be expected. Homeowner shoots, kills suspected burglar at north Seattle home

So a guy climbs a fairly substantial fence to get into a Seattle backyard. When confronted by the homeowner, the intruder refuses to leave. Then the media makes it seem like the homeowner executed the guy. The police did not arrest him however. And while the investigation is ongoing, there is probably some element of self-defense not mentioned by media. (They hate gun owners. Why would they do anything except try to smear one?)

The thing that caught my eye is the photo of the alley, where the guy climbed the fence. The fence on (what I assume is) the opposite side of the alley is topped with concertina wire. I will go out on a limb and say that I doubt he climbed over/through concertina wire. (You need special gauntlets just to handle it during installation.)

That fence with the concertina wire seems to be protecting the back side of a commercial building. It is impossible to say what kind from the photo. But apparently things have fallen much farther than I expected in Seattle if neighborhood businesses have taken to using this level of defense against intrusion and crime.

Click thru for the image.

Oh, and self-defense is a human-right.

They Think the Government Will Take Care of Them

And if you believe that the government will take care of you, I have a bridge in New York for sale you may be interested in buying. Here's how much the average working boomer has saved for retirement - MarketWatch

Why bother to save? The government will take care of things. Or so the thinking of most boomers goes.

This post has been stuck in my drafts folder for too long. I almost deleted it, but the subject is very important. Can you retire? Will you do what is needed to retire? For most people I think the answer will be no. They can't give up the new car, the new house, the new kitchen, the new iPhone, whatever. Most people won't even stop drinking $7 coffee because "they're worth it," or something. And besides, the .gov will take care of everything.

The article covers a survey of 1000 working Americans on what they have saved (or don't have saved) for retirement.

Respondents who are still working, with a median age of 60, have average savings of around $112,000.

One quarter of those surveyed, and 30% of millennials, said they were planning to rely on “cryptocurrencies” to finance some of their golden years.

Yes, good luck with that. Meanwhile the crypto bubble continues to deflate.

Americans are always looking for the easy way out. The dot-com bubble of the 1990s, the "you can't lose money in real estate" insanity of 2006 or 2007, and now crypto currency. While crypto isn't as bad as it was, It is solidly in a bear market.

Probably the saddest part of the survey was that around 80% of people expected to see their living standards fall in retirement, while 10% feared they wouldn’t be able to retire at all.

For those who are young, the only answers are to save more, save earlier, and invest better—which usually means investing in long-term assets like stocks and keeping your costs low.

If you start when you're 18, invest 100 bucks a month and get historic rates of return, you will have something like 3 million bucks for retirement. And people always ask, "What is $3 million going to be worth when I retire?" The answer: Exactly the same, whether you have it or not. Oh, and if you wait until you're 30, it is nearly impossible to catch up.

But saving $100 per month in a mutual fund isn't exciting. You can't talk about it over the water cooler at work, or brag about it on F*c*book or whatever the kids are using these days. Crypto currencies are the new dot com stocks. In so many ways.

And of course if you wait until you're 60 to think about retiring, you're fucked. OK not really. But if you still have 20 years left on a 30 year mortgage, you just bought a new car, then you proabably aren't in a position to bank money for retirement. On the other hand, if you driving a solid-but older car, and just paid off your mortgage, then you should be able to save a lot of money in the next few years.

So people will be planing to make Social Security work for them. Really?

That brings me to the second item: Yet more information on how Social Security’s underlying investments are doing.

In a word: Badly. As usual.

The drive for "the easy way out" explains so much in American life today. Math and science are hard, so I will get a degree in underwater basket-weaving, or How to be an offended employee studies, and then when there are no jobs available it is someone else's fault.

And I can't count the number of people who smoked, ate lunch in restaurants everyday, had cable (back in the day), and could tell me with a straight face that they couldn't come up with $100 per month. Some of them spent more than that on beer. Today instead of cable they would have the highest of high speed internet, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, Spotify, or whatever, and still tell me that they couldn't find $100 per month. Not to mention the new iPhone, an iPad, a kindle, a new car (newer than mine anyway) or whatever.

Obi-wan Nairobi - SAS Operator and the DusitD2 Terror Attack of 2019

Popo Medic is a YouTube creator producing some interesting videos. (I can also recommend his video on the 1997 battle of North Hollywood.)

I'm sure I heard about this terror attack when it happened, but there have been many terror attacks on "soft targets" in Kenya, and I didn't pay much attention to this one. It turns out the story is quite fascinating because there was a British Special Air Services unit in Nairobi training the locals in anti-terror tactics. One of the members of the SAS unit got a phone call, and went to the complex to fight bad guys.

I think this is 12 minutes you will find interesting. 12 minutes is enough time for coffee, isn't it?

This is the Popo Medic video: SAS Operator SMOKED These Nairobi Insurgents...

Get Woke, Go Broke

From Ace of Spades HQ we get Woke Superhero Network "The CW" Sold for... Zero Dollars

That's not a joke, the purchaser "bought" it for zero dollars. The catch is that the purchaser, Nexstar, will have to assume $100 million in The CW's debt.

This is another example of the new owner of AT&T/Warner Bros. attempting to shed some of the billions of dollars of the merged company's debt.

And they truly are, or were, the Woke Superhero Network. First, they had every DC superhero in a show. Flash, Green Arrow, Black Lightning, and Supergirl. The Supergirl show turned one of the characters gay in the 2nd season. I believe they had a transgender superhero at some point. (I thought the first 2 seasons were funny... well 1 and 3/4s anyway.) And what they did to Batwoman was a tragedy. Batwoman - not Batgirl - was really introduced as part of The New 52 in 2006 or 2007 (?)^‡. And she was a lesbian, but the tiny minds at The CW only know one way to make a superhero show, and Batwoman from The New 52 didn't fit that mold, so in typical Woke-fashion, they threw most of the intellectual property out the window. How could some people in her life know about her "secret?" That is not how superhero stories are done. (Not on the CW, anyway.)

Anyway back to post at Ace of Spades HQ:

Woke projects do not make money. They only lose money. They can only exist when the projects that can make money are actually making money. In down economies, even the projects that make money don't make much money, and we see how woke these woke corporations really are: Not all that woke.

There is a link to The Critical Drinker's video on the start of Batwoman season 2 at that posting. Here is a link to Drinker's take on the CW FINALLY cancelling that show after 3 seasons.

Honestly, looking back now it's tough to think of any project that began in such disastrously terrible fashion, continued on the same track in the face of all criticism and common sense, and somehow managed to keep itself going for 3 f*cking seasons.

Or as he says, that single show is "a monument to the absolute hubris and insanity of Hollywood."

‡ Yes, I know that a Batwoman character made a brief appearance in a book (or 2) in the 1980s (I believe). Not exactly Kate Kane as introduced in The New 52. As comics go, I enjoyed the first couple of books. I thought the art was amazing, but then I may have been a bit biased toward the subject. It wasn't woke in the sense that it didn't hit you over the head with her sexual orientation. It was there. (She had gotten booted out of West Point under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" before going overseas to train.) But the stories were mostly about fighting crime. Well a good portion of the 1st book was about Batman trying to figure who this new Batwoman really was. Anyway, that's all I've got for today...

I really wanted to like the Batwoman TV show, but apparently the Woke don't think you need good writing if you have a good "Message." And the writing was just awful.

Wednesday Link Roundup - 6 July

Pirate's Cove - Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup – 4th Of July

9. Cold Fury discusses the EPA Supreme Court decision
10. Common Cents Blog says to bring all the kids to a 4th of July parade

Bacon Time!!!! - Sunday Linkage

Freedom Is Just Another Word… - Sunday Memes …
The Daley Gator - A very good read on the matter of abortion

Political Hat - News of the Week (July 3rd, 2022)

Biden’s Sex Police
The White Houses’s new regulations will gut due-process rights for college students accused of sexual misconduct.

Wombat-socho at The Other McCain - In The Mailbox: 07.05.22

American Conservative: Biden’s War for Liberalism, also, Last of the Greatest
American Greatness: The New American Slave Revolt, Led by Clarence Thomas

EBL - Liberty and Independence

Instapundit: Why we celebrate the 4th of July
AoSHQ: Morning Report 07.04.22

A View from the Beach - Backwards Joe, Supes Ready to Undo Election Meddling

Flashback: Dems sought to taint Trump 2016 win, change electors' pledged votes, "While House Democrats' Jan. 6 panel tries to stigmatize scrutiny of disputed 2020 election, key party figures used bogus Russia collusion allegations contrived at behest of Hillary Clinton campaign.6

Gates of Vienna - News Feed 7/4/2022

100-Year-Old Veteran Laments “This is Not the Country We Fought for”
Presented with little comment, aside from to suggest that we take a few brief minutes to stop and listen to what World War II veteran Carl Deke

Don Surber - Highlights of the News

ITEM 12: The Daily Wire reported, "Crosby, Stills & Nash have ended the protest they began against Spotify five months ago over the streaming service’s deal with podcast king Joe Rogan."
Neil Young is still holding out.

Vlad Tepes - From Ukraine to Syria, and shots every nine months: Links 2, July 5th, 2022

4. Why Did Local PDs and FBI Suppress Information that July 4th Killer Crimo Was Connected to Antifa, Progressives and the Occult?
5. U.S. sues Arizona over proof of citizenship voting law

Cafe Hayek - Some Links

Johan Norberg alerts us to this new volume, edited by Karl Wennberg and Christian Sandström, that questions the value of the so-called “entrepreneurial state” and the prospects for success of industrial policy.

Maggie's Farm - Monday morning links

'Urgency is a White Supremacy Value' Says Oregon Health Bureaucrat
Woke Gay Employee in Mourning Who Refused to Work After Roe v. Wade Decision Is Fired

Pixy Misa at Ace of Spades HQ - Daily Tech News 5 July 2022

Private information - including police records - on a billion people has reportedly been stolen and is up for sale for 10 Bitcoin. (Nikkei Asia)
In a novel twist, the data has been stolen from China.

Doug Ross - Larwyn’s Linx: American Grand Strategy: Disguising Decline

• Enes Kanter Freedom Slams NBA’s Ties With China, Calls The League Extremely ‘Hypocritical’ David Hookstead
• No one should be forced to declare their pronouns Joanna Williams

I leave you with That sums it up from Eatgrueldog, Caturday chuckles from Bluebird of Bitterness, July 3rd Funday AM from Woodsterman, and Quick Hits Of Wisdom, Knowledge And Snark #507 from 90 Miles From Tyranny.

US Attorney in Chicago Picking Up the Slack

Let's hope this is the start of a trend. Federal carjacking and gun charges are filed against 3 alleged hijackers, including one who hid in a Northwestern Medical School building - CWB Chicago

Since Kim Foxx can't be bothered to prosecute criminals in the Illinois courts, maybe the US attorney can convince people of the error of their ways.

Two of guys who were arrested after a carjacking had been arrested previously and pleaded guilty to felony unlawful use of a firearm. One guy got 18 months of probation. The other got 24 months of probation. I can't even pretend to be shocked that when they faced no consequences for crime, then they went on to perpetrate more crime.

“Our message to would-be carjackers is simple,” U.S. Attorney John Lausch said in a statement. “Committing a senseless act of violence like carjacking will earn you a home in federal prison for a long time.”

Three men face FEDERAL charges for carjacking and something to do with firearms. (It isn't specified.) Federal firearms charges are typically associated with long sentences. And while there is a federal prison in Indiana, there is nothing to say the feds will send them there.

Someone has to try and bring order back to the streets of Chicago, and all indications are that Kim Foxx is not going to be a part of that solution.

Cops and Politicians versus Gun Rights

On the liberty front, Hawaii manages to be even more screwed up than California. You May Soon See People Openly Carrying Guns In Hawaii - Honolulu Civil Beat

Hawaii has been a "May Issue" state on the subject of concealed carry. And since cops have discretion, they see no reason to let the Little People be armed. "It's for their own good!"

“There’s been almost zero carry permits issued for civilians in the past 20 years,” [Todd Yukutake, director of the Hawaii Firearms Coalition] said.

But with the recent SCOTUS ruling, they know that will change, and they are not happy. (I'm shocked to discover that police don't want to give up their tyrannical power over the citizens.)

Michelle Yu, a spokeswoman for the Honolulu Police Department, says HPD is currently reviewing the ruling and talking with the city attorney and other county police departments about what to do. “The HPD’s firearms permitting procedures are unchanged at this time but are being evaluated in light of the ruling,” she said.

The folks of Hawaii don't even have to wait for a suit to be brought, one is already through the 9th Circuit. (They sided with the gun-controllers - are we shocked?)

Known as a grant, vacate and remand, or GVR, order, the two-sentence statement issued on Thursday struck down a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit that had supported Hawaii laws that had been used to generally deny people the right to carry guns outside the home, with few exceptions.

The high court essentially told the San Francisco-based appellate court: See what the Supreme Court just said in a similar case, New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. v. Bruen, and get it right this time.

So Hawaii may soon have both open carry and concealed carry, but probably at least concealed carry.

New York, and Hawaii, and California, and whatever other states are wrining their hands over the recent SCOTUS ruling should take a breath and realize that what SCOTUS said was that they basically need to adopt a law similar to what Ohio had in January of this year, and for the past 10 or 12 years, at least. (Ohio has another law as of the middle of June, but that is another story.) And not just Ohio, but most of the states. Well, about half the states now have Constitutional Carry, but New York, Hawaii, et al would faint dead away if that is what SCOTUS mandated. It wasn't.

I Keep Forgettin'

During a random walk around the Music videos of YouTube, I stumbled across a bass player who has a couple of videos that I like. The video that reminded me of this song was about the lost art of the song fade-out. One of the few places that bassists usually get to shine, just as the song is ending. That is where today's song comes from.

Michael McDonald, today's featured artist was, of course, a founding member of The Doobie Brothers. He went on to collaborate with many musicians, and have a solo career.

This song is “I Keep Forgettin'” by Michael McDonald from his 1982 album If That's What It Takes.

Paul Thompson is adjunct professor of Jazz Bass at a couple of universities. He has covered some music I listened to, and some I that was new to me. I haven't seen too many of the videos so the jury is out on whether he will become a regular viewing option.

Paul Thompson's video, "10 Bassists That Went OFF During the Fade-Out" can be found at this link.

The NYPD Exodus of 2022

Are we shocked? NYPD exodus 'has become a stampede:' PBA leader Patrick Lynch

The Progressives wanted fewer police. They got fewer police, and they got more crime. They probably wanted that as well.

The NYPD’s rank-and-file took another huge hit in June, as 523 cops are leaving the force, with 123 of those officers resigning — the most in a single month in at least a decade, according to staggering pension fund stats obtained by The Post.

Of the total number of cops exiting, 400 are retiring, according to a police source.

The line at NYPD HQ where officers turn in their ID and shield was described as looking like "a concert ticket giveaway," on June 30th, with 100s of cops lining up.

To date, 2,119 cops have left the job in 2022, with 1,472 retiring and 647 resigning, a 38% spike over the previous record of 1,535 for the first six months of 2020, the attrition numbers show.

And it is noted that fewer cops, will mean more overtime, which eventually will mean fewer cops as more of them burn out.

New York City's vaccine mandate is currently on "pause." If they reinstate it, my guess is that a lot more will be gone.

I am not an apologist for cops. If you read this blog you have probably seen an entry in either the "Cops Behaving Badly" category, or the "Cops Behaving Stupidly" category. Cops generally should strive to be better, and certainly to get rid of bad cops, and stupid cops. But we need to enforce the Rule of Law. Because without order there is chaos, which is what we are starting to see in the large cities. Shoplifting as a way of life, carjacking that results in no time in jail, and more as non-prosecutors like NYC's Alvin Bragg, and Chicago's Kim Foxx decide that punishing crime is an outdated idea.

It is really hard to blame the cops in NYPD, or in any of the big cities, for heading for the exits, when the conditions that they have to work under are so horrible.

Tuesday Links - 5 July

A slightly short Tuesday Links post. Between life and a holiday... Hope everyone had a good weekend.

Techno Fog starts us off with The greatest threat to "democracy" is from our elected representatives.

Federal policies have caused inflation to hit a 40-year high of 8.6% (or, using Carter-era calculations, 16%) for this past year, with energy prices rising 34.6%, eggs up 32.2%, and gas prices up nearly 50%. The cost of meat – ground beef, steaks, pork, poultry – might more than double next year, as the costs to raise livestock skyrockets. The average national price for gas exceeded $5 for the first time in history, causing the typical American household to spend “$160 more on gas a month than a year ago.” Overall, “typical US household is spending about $460 more every month than they did last year to purchase the same basket of goods and services.”

The Other McCain - Annual Bruce Catton Appreciation Post. A History Lesson: You might learn something. (It will only hurt for a minute.)

This is, of course, the third day of the Battle of Gettysburg, the day of Pickett’s doomed charge against the Army of the Potomac’s center on Cemetery Ridge, and Custer’s more successful charge against Wade Hampton’s cavalry brigade in the East Cavalry Field.

Townhall Democrats Burned Money to Meddle in Republican Primaries in Colorado, and It Backfired Terribly

On Tuesday, many primary races took place across the country, including in Colorado, where Democrats made news for meddling in Republican primaries, a move in violation of state and federal law, which backfired terribly. Overall, Democrats looked to have spent what looks to be $14 million, including an estimated $10 million in the Senate race.

Legal Insurrection - Having Scoffed at Trump’s Warnings, Germany Now Fears Complete Russian Gas Cut-Off. A crisis of Angela Merkel's making. Well, others in her government helped.

The U.S. and German media regularly mocked the former president for his prescient warning. Even members of Chancellor Merkel’s government ridiculed him for these earnest warnings. [SNIP]

As Trump’s predictions come true, the German political elites and the media aren’t laughing anymore. And with all German eggs in Putin’s basket, Berlin fears a “gas crisis” that could cripple the nation’s industry and disrupt everyday life.

The Other McCain - A Story Too Good to Check? A story with NO details, just happens to appear to support some Leftist's narrative on abortion.

I don’t trust this kind of “just so” anecdote anchoring a story like this, especially when there is nothing else about the case reported in the story. While I’m not willing to go so far as to call it “fake news,” my editor’s eye immediately noticed the omission of any corroborating details. [SNIP]

Nothing to see here, folks. Just another tiny example of how the news media are slowly destroying their own credibility.

Armed Self-defense - International Edition

South Africa seems to have a strong culture of self-defense. Homeowner shoots at armed intruders

Three intruders allegedly armed with a 9mm handgun and knives ran out of luck in a property in Mulbarton, Glenvista, south of Johannesburg on 2 July.

According to an active security company in the area, Fox Security, the intruders entered a home in Mulbarton, Glenvista and tried to rob a homeowner.

They were armed with knives and at least one pistol. One of the miscreants was shot and killed. Another was shot and wounded. The third bad-guy broke his arm and wrist while running like a rabbit.

You might say that they suffered a breakdown of the victim-selection process.

Fox Security (South Africa is screwed up enough that no one relies on the public police force, but on armed private security) caught the 2 guys who were still alive, and they believe this crew was responsible for string of robberies in the area.

So an armed, law-abiding citizen appears to have put an end to a crime spree.

Self-defense is a human-right. Good Guys 3, Bad Guys 0.

What's the Military Version of "Go Broke?"

They got Woke. Can you imagine how that went? Thanks To Leftist Corruption, U.S. Military Recruiting Is In Total Freefall

The military is facing its most severe staffing crisis since the advent of the all-volunteer force in 1973. In March, the Department of Defense (DoD) announced it would reduce its active-duty end strength by 0.2 percent to a little more than 2.1 million. Pentagon comptroller Michael McCord assured us that it’s “not about making the force bigger. We’re looking at making the force more capable.” But only three months later, word broke that every branch in the military is having trouble meeting its recruiting goals.

The Army lowered its standards; recruits no longer need a HS diploma or a GED, and they relaxed their tattoo restrictions.

So some people have started talking about a draft. And because that is not popular, the people seeking to torpedo it have reintroduced the idea of women participating in the draft. Women’s Draft Registration is Back

David sends us the news that the requirement for women’s draft registration is in the new National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The measure died behind closed doors last year, but is back.

Equal rights and equal responsibilities? The feminists will be screeching about it within minutes of anything like that passing.

I'm an American

It seems a fair number of people are tired of the way The Left is trashing America. One of those people is Jeffery Steele. Listen: Nashville Hall of Fame Songwriter Jeffrey Steele Releases Single ‘I’m an American’: I’m Tired of People Putting Us Down

Nashville Hall of Famer Jeffrey Steele has released a new patriotic single titled “I’m an American” just in time for July 4. In an interview with Breitbart News, the acclaimed songwriter spoke about his frustration with the state of the country under the current administration and said he wrote the song as an appeal to patriotism despite the country’s current decline and the left’s increasingly anti-American sentiment.

This song is "I'm an American" by Jeffey Steele. It was just released on Thursday, June 30th. It isn't part of an album. Not yet, anyway.

No Metal for Mondays this week. It's a holiday.

The Stars and Stripes Forever

I have a post on Chet Atkins in the works. I'm not sure when it will see the light of day. His guitar playing is amazing. But I thought I would include this for the 4th, anyway...

This is "Stars and Stripes Forever" as played on acoustic guitar by Chet Atkins. I have no idea when this was recorded.