Wednesday, March 30, 2011

THE DANGERS OF NUCLEAR POWER IN IOWA

U of I artist's conception of the dangers of Nuclear Power in Iowa.

After the recent disaster in Japan involving the Fukushima nuclear plant, many experts are re-thinking the idea of nuclear power, especially in the dangerously unstable coastal fault zones found in eastern Iowa. Practically wetting themselves over the idea of sowing fear and discord and smacking their lips at the very thought of a major disaster to report, Iowa media outlets have been running amok in an attempt to scare the hell out of people for ratings. The prestigious Des Moines newspaper Prairie Pravda continues to cite University of Iowa Professor Lef Tiste as a scientific expert on the subject of the dangers of nuclear power. Here at Benandbawbsblog, we decided to interview this “expert” to find out just exactly why Iowa’s only nuclear power plant poses such a threat to the people of Iowa and perhaps even survival of the human race, as reported by local network affiliates.

BBB: Welcome Professor. You’ve been on radio and TV a lot lately voicing your concerns about nuclear power in Iowa. What exactly are the dangers to the citizens of the State of Boredom.

PLT: As you would already know if you’d read my award-winning, peer-reviewed book How George Bush Hatched a Diabolical Plot to Destroy All Mankind, all non-green power is bad and dangerous. This includes coal, petroleum products, perpetual motion, cow flatulence, wind, and hydroelectric.

BBB: Wind!?!?Hydro!?!?

PLT: Of course, you dolt. Wind turbine blades have been proven to kill as many as two dozen bats per year and in one $2,754,200 Environmental Impact Study I conducted with a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts I found that any new hydro-electric project could possibly endanger the rare three-toed mugwort.

BBB: Uh, yeah. So just what are safe forms of energy?

PLT: There are none. We should all go back to living in caves and mud huts for the good of our Earth Mother. Except, of course, for an enlightened leftist ruling elite class consisting of, among others, people like myself.

BBB: Yeah, right. So anyway, could you tell us a bit more about the scenario you have been blithering about on TV regarding the dangers of the Arnold Duane Energy Center near Polo, Iowa?

PLT: If you had done your research and read my award-winning, peer-reviewed book Oh My God We’re All Gonna Die Because of Sarah Palin you would know already. But, since you are Tea Bagger scum, I will try to elaborate on my scenario, and hopefully I won’t use words that are too big for your tiny Fox News-programmed excuse for a brain.

BBB: Gee, thanks.

PLT: My computer models suggest that a minor earthquake of as little as 9.8 magnitude on the Richter Scale could create a possible 300-foot high tsunami on nearby Peasant Creek Reservoir, which would crash into the nuclear plant like a gargantuan sledgehammer. This, in turn, could potentially topple the cooling towers, causing a meltdown in the reactor, which would burn down into the center of the earth, feasibly releasing massive volcanic eruptions ten times greater in scale than the 1883 Krakatoa volcano. It is also quite likely that such an occurrence could also perhaps set off a nuclear explosion a hundred times more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which was George Bush’s fault. The radiation from this disaster may create mutated life forms, such as 3-eyed fish, and awaken a slumbering prehistoric monster which could run amok, smashing cities. The imperialist war-mongers of the Pentagon would most likely be unable to stop the beast with their sad, pathetic conventional war toys, which are designed only to oppress the Religion of Peace, and perchance this could conceivably trigger the use of further nuclear weapons. In turn, we can presume that this would cause a Nuclear Winter, likely making sea levels to rise by as much as 320 feet and conceivably wiping out all forms of life on the planet. Then, projections predict, a race of peace-loving, primarily Democrat aliens would most likely colonize Earth and restore it to its pristine beauty. So, I don’t believe my scenario is actually a “disaster” as some of you fools seem to believe, but a righteous cleansing of Giai our Earth Mother from the evils of Western Civilization.

BBB: Riiiggghhhhttt. What exactly do you teach at U of I?

PLT: Teach? Teach?!?!? You simpleton, I’m tenured! I don’t have to teach anything. That’s what grad students are for.

BBB: Well then, what is your degree in?

PLT: Doctorate, not degree, you peasant. No wonder we need a leftist elite to rule this country to keep bumpkins like you from rising above their proper caste in life. Anyway, my Doctorate is in the Socialization of Pre-Colombian Gay & Lesbian Evolution and Basket Weaving.

BBB: You’re shitting me.

PLT: How vulgar. No. You would know this if you had read my award-winning, peer-reviewed book Why Socialism Must Triumph to Stop the Tea Party and Teach the World to Sing in Perfect Harmony.

BBB: By the way, we were wondering just how many copies of these award-winning, peer-reviewed books you’ve actually sold.

PLT: Sold!?!?! SOLD you Capitalist pig exploiter of the proletariat!?!? I don’t write books for money!

BBB: Wow, that few, hunh?

PLT: Well, Mom bought one. Plus I require all my students to purchase two copies of each, in case they lose one.

BBB: There you have it, folks. The danger of nuclear energy in Iowa. From an “expert”.

PLT: And let me remind your readers, assuming they are at least marginally literate, that my latest award-winning, peer-reviewed book Barack Obama: The True Savior Who Must Never Be Questioned will go on sale in student lounges across Iowa next week.

BBB: Yeah, we’ll really be looking forward to that.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

LET'S MAKE IT A VIOLATION OF THE LAW TO CATCH BIG AG VIOLATING THE LAW


We continue to note how the Cream Police, Cow Cops and Goat Gestapo, receiving their marching orders from Big Ag and their bought-and-paid-for congresscritters, are cracking down on the deadly threat of agricultural-related dangers to our well being, such as the Amish, organic food, raw milk, 4-H projects, granny's vegetable garden, etc. so that we may be safely nourished by factory farms and genetically modified food. One gigantic Big Ag entity, under the guise of different brand names, essentially controls every aspect of agriculture in this country from seed to slaughter.


But it's not enough to have a 99% monopoly. No, now Big Ag's duly purchased politicians are trying to make it a violation of the law to photograph or film Big Ag violating the law. THIS links to the proposed law in Iowa; Florida is trying to enact a similar bill. As Orwell said, some animals are more equal than others.


The video below may perhaps not be totally in line with the rest of the story, but it does amuse me, so I don't really care.


Saturday, March 26, 2011

SEMI-AUTO: NOT NECESSARILY A DISADVANTAGE




Militarily, there are certainly good valid reasons for the use of fully automatic fire by dismounted infantry, especially for the Squad Automatic Weapons and genuine light or general purpose machine guns. The use of and need for shoulder-fired full-auto in the individual’s rifle, on the other hand, can be of rather dubious value, except perhaps for room clearing at spitting distances.

Clint Smith of Thunder Ranch probably put it best when it comes to shoulder-fired full-auto rifles: “They only turn money into noise.”

In his extensive study on small arms use during the Korean War, US Army historian General S.L.A. Marshall considered semi-automatic weapons such as the M1 Garand an asset rather than a liability.

Suffice to say now that any trend toward eliminating the semi-automatic, hand-carried weapons in favor of full-automatic weapons in the hands of all infantrymen should be vigorously combated. In perimeter defense, the time almost invariably comes when the automatic weapons run short of ammunition, with the local issue still to be decided. This is the crisis of the contest, when decision may swing either way, depending on which side is most, capable of delivering the last few volleys.

The semi-automatic weapons are conservers of ammunition. Apart from their great value in the hands of a good marksman at any stage of the fight, they compose the weapons reserve which becomes of inestimable value in the last hours when both sides are near the point of exhaustion. In the infantry company data from Korean operations there are numerous examples wherein the retention of the position depended finally on fire from the M1, and rifle fire finally decided the issue. The troops who carry the weapon almost unanimously recognize the vital importance of this factor. On the basis of their experience, they would not concur in any suggestion that the line could be strengthened by fitting it exclusively with full-automatic power.”

The semiautomatic M1 Garand holds the line in Korea.

S.L.A.M. noted there were virtually no occasions in which the M1 Garands ran completely out of ammunition, even when the carbines, BAR’s and machine guns had “shot their wads” entirely. He also claimed that at least 50% of the North Korean and Red Chinese casualties came from small arms, since the Communists quickly adopted the tactic of “hugging the belt”, i.e. closing with UN forces to such short ranges that artillery and air strikes could not be used due to the proximity of friendly forces and the danger of friendly fire casualties. The VC/NVA were also to use this tactic, often effectively, in the Vietnam War to help negate the overwhelming firepower advantage of the American military.

As an aside, while the assault rifle crowd quickly grabbed onto SLAM’s 300-yard figure for all the range that’s necessary for the infantryman’s rifle, they ignored his firm opinions about not needing a full-auto rifle and that the M1 could indeed be effective well past 300 yards if the men were given increased live-fire training.

Full auto fire is especially futile when it comes to the full-power big-bore battle rifles. While a magnificent battle rifle, it was quickly seen that the full-auto capability on the M14 was nothing but a waste of ammunition and in American service the weapon was soon changed to semi-auto only. With the FAL, the sheer uncontrollability of fully-automatic fire led the British and former Commonwealth nations…Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand…to adopt semi-automatic only weapons, the so-called Inch Pattern FAL, L1A1, or SLR (Self Loading Rifle).

This did not appear to handicap the infantry units’ effectiveness when armed with these semi-auto rifles and in fact served to enhance individual marksmanship.

One former British infantryman summed things up well: “The reason as to why the British forces did away with auto fire on their SLR is because it was bloody pointless; if you have ever shot an AK47 then you will know that on auto they shoot up into the air. The SLR would have done pretty much the same! A waste of ammo and tax payers’ money…”

Some estimates claim that American troops in Vietnam, once armed with the full-auto M16, expended around 200,000 rounds of small arms ammunition per enemy casualty. For Aussies of the well-trained Royal Australian Regiment, armed with the semi-auto SLR, 275 rounds were expended per enemy casualty. This while the Aussies looked down on body counts as a measure of success, and tended not to “extrapolate” their body counts to please the brass hats.

The Australian method of fighting involved small, professional and very stealthy patrols in which they usually got the jump on the enemy. For instance, over a third of the Australians’ enemy contacts were ambushes. In 34% of the cases, the Aussies ambushed the VC/NVA while in only 2% of the contacts did the enemy manage to surprise the Australians in their own ambushes. Aussies initiated contact with the VC/NVA over 75% of the time while it was the VC/NVA who initiated contact against American forces 80% of the time.

One SAS study of Australian actions in Vietnam claimed that, despite the usually quite timely and relatively heavy air strikes and artillery support the infantry enjoyed in that war, some 70% of enemy casualties were inflicted with infantry small arms...and the majority of those small arms were semi-auto SLRs.

A continent away, Rhodesian Security Forces fighting Communist terrorists who usually always greatly out-numbered them deigned the use of full-automatic on their South African manufactured R1 FALs.

Rhodesian troopies used aimed single shots or double-taps to break up Communist ambushes.

“Like most of the Rhodesian Security Forces, the change lever on my FN was set for semi-auto only. I had the option of having this changed to include full-auto, but decided against it. Through practice, I could put down a devastating barrage of accurate semi-automatic fire that just could not be matched on full auto. I have never had much faith in full automatic fire capability in a full bore battle rifle, simply because you generally waste ammunition without hitting anything after the first shot has been fired. The recoil generated by the powerful 7.62mm NATO round makes the gun virtually impossible to control…”

Another Rhodesian veteran noted another advantage of well-aimed semi-automatic fire that most people wouldn’t think of.

“Terrorists generally fired on fully automatic – ‘spray and pray.’ This would often start high, and would rise. The indiscriminate use of ammunition on fully automatic usually meant they would run out long before the Rhodesian troops.”

During the Falklands War, British forces were armed with semi-automatic SLRs while the Argentineans had the equivalent Metric FAL with full-automatic capability. Much ado was made about the Argentine forces’ “firepower advantage” with their full-auto FAL’s, but it didn’t change the course of battle.

British Paras re-zero their SLRs on the ground in the Falklands. You'd think someone deploying from 689-foot elevation Ft. Drum, NY to the Hindu Kush would do the same, but you'd be wrong.

One British Para color sergeant didn’t seem to notice a big disadvantage with the SLR’s semi-auto only action: "I picked four blokes and got up on this high feature, and as I did so this troop of twenty or thirty Argentines were coming towards us. We just opened fire on them. We don't know how many we killed, but they got what they deserved, because none of them were left standing when we'd finished with them."

On the other side, most (not all) Argentine troops were poorly-trained young conscripts serving (suffering?) under a frighteningly large number of very bad, abusive, negligent, and self-centered officers who sometimes vanished when the shooting started. Under such circumstances many an FN magazine was dumped in the general direction of the enemy on full auto with negligible effect.

Proving the axiom that there are no bad soldiers, just bad officers, one Argentine infantryman recalled serving under an efficient, conscientious former commando major who trained his troops thoroughly and well. Said the veteran, “I was issued with a FAL 7.62 millimetre rifle… The main emphasis in shooting was making every bullet count.” His company was one of the few to put up fierce resistance and during the Battle of Mount Longdon, even though they were outnumbered, they fought the British Paras almost to a standstill for 12 hours and inflicted heavy casualties.

In 1983, after the Falklands War, a unit of the 7th Gurkha Rifles conducted a joint training exercise with the American 75th Army Rangers at Fort Lewis, Washington. The Gurkhas are a warrior race, and well known as some of the toughest light infantry on the planet; the Rangers were suitably impressed.

“Unlike American forces, who believe in small-caliber, fast-shooting semi- or full-auto rifles, Gurkha riflemen carry British-made FN semiauto only rifles in 7.62mm NATO caliber. Their legendary steel-clad nerves, which according to numerous reports allow them to return slow fire even when being shot at by automatic weapons, account for their philosophy of ‘one kill for one shot’. And that’s how they’re trained…they make every shot count.”…

The Gurkha’s CO said, “We find that the extra weight of the larger caliber doesn’t matter with the Gurkhas, because they’re so strong, but the increased range and killing power possible with the 7.62, plus the effectiveness of aimed fire, makes them a very deadly soldier in combat…”

“Aimed-fire marksmanship is a continuing part of Gurkha training, and they are virtually all expert shots. In the self loading rifle, or SLR, class in the 1981 Bisley Championship shoot in England, the 1st Bn, 7 GR took first place in all-Army competition. They expect to finish first in the 1983 Championships.”

Things to make you go, "Oh shit!"...Gurkhas, Kukris, and SLRs, oh my.

Afghanistan, 1985: An American Army officer and analysis chastised a Soviet force in Afghanistan for shooting up too much ammo on full-auto: “…an air assault company runs out of ammunition in a day’s combat. This is partially due to the Soviet philosophy that small arms fire suppresses enemy fire and eventually may kill the enemy. The West wants to kill enemy with small arms fire and uses crew-served weapons to suppress enemy fire. The standard Soviet assault rifle’s selector switch goes from safe to semiautomatic to full automatic. The West sees semiautomatic as the norm. Perhaps the Soviets needed to devote more time to rifle marksmanship for a guerrilla war. It saves on ammunition and consumption.”

(Pet peeve time. I certainly never saw all this emphasis on well-aimed semi-automatic fire and marksmanship during my service time in various combat arms units.)

Fast forward to Afghanistan 2006. An American Special Forces company and the Afghan Army commandos they have trained move up a ridge to take control of a dominant hill known as Sperwan Ghar to overlook a battlefield where insurgents and conventional infantry are slugging it in order to call in air and artillery strikes.

“A group of insurgents on the top watched the soldiers approaching. When the task force got to within a few hundred meters of the hilltop, the insurgents opened fire from three sides with RPGs and small arms. The commandos fought for 20 minutes, until they nearly ran out of ammunition. They then broke contact and moved back towards the southern edge of the valley to await resupply by helicopter.”

Examining the math, if we assume the “official” basic load of M4 ammunition, 120 rounds, we get ten shots per minute, or one round every six seconds. And this does not include time spent in taking cover, mag changes, movement, stoppages, etc. The unofficial figure I hear bandied about the most for ammo loads in Afghanistan is more often 600 rounds, which would amount to one shot every two seconds.

The report, BTW, did not mention casualties for either side, even though I’m willing to bet the Taliban expended a helluva lot more ammunition than the friendlies did. So much for criticizing the Russians looking at this example of the West’s skill in marksmanship and semi-auto fire, even by elite troops.

For the small group or even larger military units in rough country, fully-automatic rifles can actually be a liability when it comes to ammunition conservation and re-supply. As SLAM noted, full-auto “firepower” poured out early in the fight can easily leave you sucking hind tit and reaching for the bayonet or E-tool when the action comes to a head. Not even modern Western armies can always count on fresh ammunition being only a radio call away when it comes to mountainous country, thick rain forests, bad weather, or intense enemy fire on helicopter LZ’s.

So don’t feel too bad about having “only” a semi-automatic rifle. As Douglas Bell said, “At 600 rounds per minute, how many minutes can you carry?”

Friday, March 25, 2011

Remy: "Why They Fought"

From reason.com: "As American warplanes strategically attack Libya and American boots win the peace in Afghanistan and Iraq, YouTube sensation Remy sings that it is important to remember that our brave men and women are fighting for our rights to let the TSA take full body scans; place our three-ounce toiletries in plastic baggies; protect 16,000 pages of tax code; and ban energy drinks."

Sunday, March 06, 2011

HERES YOU'RE SIGN

Remember when your old school teacher corrected grammar and spelling errors on your homework in bright red marker? Well, it looks like it's time to return the favor to these striking union teachers in Wisconsin.

Save our teachers.


"Unions are my cup of tea." To be technical, with a plural noun, the proper form would actually be, "Unions are my cups of tea."

The proper spelling is negotiations.

I voted for Walker and I am or I'm sorry!


It's or it is all about the collective bargaining comma stupid.

Hey Voss, you're or you are not the boss!

Scott Walker is a bitch, or Scott Walker's a bitch.



Walker, may I "modestly" kick you in the nuts?



While the following signs are correctly spelled, it would seem that perhaps the protesters involved should learn the definition of a new word.


hypocrisy [hi-pok-ruh-see] n. a pretense of having a virtuous character, moral or religious beliefs or principles, etc., that one does not really possess.


Somehow, this last story doesn't surprise me a bit now.

Two-Thirds of Wisconsin Public-School 8th Graders Can’t Read Proficiently—Despite Highest Per Pupil Spending in Midwest



Friday, March 04, 2011

HOLDER HOLDS OUT



In recent testimony before Congress, Attorney General Eric “Heinrich” Holder, under fire from operations so controversial that even CBS news was forced to report them, staunchly defended the policies of the Obama Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, Explosives, BB Guns, Slingshots, Cutlery, and Sharp Sticks.

Facing particular criticism for what he termed “super-secret choco-fudgie” operations such as “Project Gunrunner”, "Project Gun Slitherer", “The Fast and the Furious”, “The Bold and the Beautiful”, “Point Break”, and “It’s Budget Appropriations Time and We Already Killed the Branch Davidians”, Holder lashed back at critics in government and the media.

Senator Grassley,” Holder began in his prepared statements yesterday. “You can kiss my black ass.”

“We all know that Americans…well, except for us oppressed minorities such as Black Panthers, La Raza, and the Muslim Brotherhood…are responsible for everything bad that ever happens in the entire world.” Holder said before the cameras in the Senate Cloakroom. “Now our bizarre passion for selling high-powered weaponry via gunshow ‘loopholes’ and shady ‘sporting goods retailers’ threatens the very foundations of North American civilization, nay, that of the entire world.”

“Now, our superior southern neighbors, the peace-loving leading human rights leader Mexico, which enjoys the third highest standard of living in North America, have had their Utopia turned into a violent wasteland of bloodshed and brutality. All because of Americans…well, white right-wing rural Americans clinging bitterly to God and guns…insisting on the fraud of personally-owned firearms, for which there is no Constitution basis whatsoever, as Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan assures me.”

Eric Holder poses with what he claims are American sporting goods seized from drug lords by Mexican authorities.

“Behind me you see just a tiny portion of the guns sold commercially in the United States at so-called 'Sporting Goods' stores, guns which have given drug cartels the power to make the streets of Mexico run red with blood. Over 90% of these weapons were purchased over-the-counter in Texas and Arizona. What’s that Senator?…Well, okay, the vast majority of them anyway. Actual percentage? Um, a lot of them. Real numbers? Uh, um, actually, well there’s a single-shot .410 shotgun with a bent barrel and no hammer which you can’t see behind me. Yeah! We actually traced that one back to the U.S. Just think of the mayhem and carnage that one must have caused! Never mind it was actually purchased by an ATF agent.”

“That weapon has been traced back to a hotbed of sedition known as Jim Bob’s Beer, Bait & Ammo in Guano, Texas. The Southern Poverty Law Center, a solid and trusted source of information for Federal law enforcement agencies, has released information indicating the strong possibility of firm speculation they just now made up that this store is merely a front for a vicious ring of subversive racist anti-government extremists calling themselves ‘fishermen’ who have possibly been linked to the Tea Parties, the VFW, and the Baptist Church.

The source of the gun(s) which soaked the precious soil of Mexico with blood, according to the SPLC.

“The leader of this vicious gang of cutthroats is purported to be Billy Bob Chumslinger, a noted white person, military veteran, and Christian. For the safety and security of other nations, we must stamp out these kinds of nefarious criminals before they protest the adoption of Sharia law in the United States, fly the American flag, or question our authority by bringing up that most treasonous of all documents, the Constitution.

“As Attorney General, with the full backing of the President, Kenya, and the Third World Shithole Council of the UN, I have found it well within my authority to order a series of surgical Tomahawk missile strikes on this threat to world peace.

“Remember, I’m from the government and I’m here to help you...or else!”