kimmy

While I realize that the easiest thing to do is just delete this nonsense, I think it's also worth pointing out that his visits to this forum are also a violation of the terms of his sentence.

Perhaps, rather than deleting them, his posts could be stored somewhere so that the next time he's arrested they could be forwarded to the legal authorities?

-k

The polls told us all along that the NDP would win this election... but the polls were wrong. Quite peculiar, that. I wonder if the polling over-sampled the NDP-leaning Lower Mainland, and under-sampled the Liberal-leaning rest of the province.

The Liberals didn't just maintain their majority, they actually increased it. I think one has to interpret this as an endorsement of Christy Clark. The BC Liberal campaign put Christy Clark front and center, and the public approved.

Clark has been a controversial figure even within her own party, as the "old guard" never really accepted her. There had been some talk about a party mutiny against Clark right after the election. But I think this result makes that scenario unlikely. She won them this election.

Of course... Clark lost her own seat. Dan Ashton, the mayor of Penticton, won a seat in the legislature. He never resigned as mayor; he is on a leave of absence. There is talk that Ashton may resign his seat in the Legislature and resume his post as mayor, giving Clark the opportunity to run in a byelection. Penticton is a pretty safe seat for the Liberals.

-k

Wasn't sure what forum to file this under. It seems equally applicable to Canada and the US, as both countries have had a multitude of incidents where police have been recorded acting like, well, pigs.

I watched this one this morning:
http://boingboing.ne...shes-phone.html

...in which a police officer, angry at being recorded, alleges that cell phones can be used as dangerous weapon and confiscates it.


A lawyer for the National Press Photographers Association says:

Mickey Osterreicher, general counsel for the National Press Photographers Association, told NBC News Thursday that "it doesn't surprise me that I'm hearing this new wrinkle of a cellphone being a weapon. These are just pretextual arguments that police officers are using to prevent people from exercising their First Amendment rights."

In short, it's BS, and the cops know it's BS, but it's BS that they can use to keep you from recording them.

Courts have maintained over and over again that people have the right to videotape the police when they are on duty, and police have continually fought against that. Why? Because they don't like being held accountable for their actions.

Why should people record the police in the first place? Because stuff like this happens:

http://www.youtube.c...Oy_C_PQiI#t=18s

...and if there is no video of it, the police have total impunity. The obvious and extreme example, of course, is the Robert Dziekanski slaying, where the RCMP "internal investigation" had completely whitewashed the entire incident and cleared the officers involved of all misconduct. Only when the cell phone recording became public did people learn that the RCMP explanation was an enormous stack of lies.


I guess I decided to put this in "Moral and ethical issues" because the issue is "who watches the watchmen?" In an age where we all have video recording devices in our pockets and the ability to publish to the whole world instantly and for free, the police are looking for ways to maintain their "blue cone of silence".


-k

As a continuation of the other thread, which I think fits much better here than in the Science and Technology folder.

I've given up on ever obtaining a Ruger 10/22, and I have ordered a Marlin Model 60 instead. I'm getting the stainless steel/grey laminate model, which is really attractive and should last.  I have heard lots of good things about the Model 60.


Also, I've obtained my second Soviet museum piece, and it's still not a Mosin-Nagant. It's an SVT-40 -- Samozaryadnaya Vintovka Tokareva 1940.  (Samozarayadnaya = Self-loading; Vintovka = Rifle; Tokarev was the designer).

Mine is a 1941 with a 1944 stock.  The stock is interesting, as it's a deep reddish wood, like my SKS. Most pictures of the SVT-40 show a blonder wood, arctic birch. They switched to a heavier, darker colored wood later on as the arctic birch was susceptible to breaking.   These darker stocks were not just heavier, but also thicker. They were made for the ATV-40 (a fully automatic variant of the SVT-40). Arsenals had surplus ATV-40 stocks, as the ATV-40 design was abandoned (it was discovered that the ATV-40 was very dangerous to everybody except the intended target.)  It's a certainty that my rifle saw action during WWII; SVT-40s were issued as quickly as they could be built.  It's likely that mine was issued, broken, and repaired at the arsenal with a new stock.

Also interesting about my rifle: instead of a sling loop screwed to the side of the stock, it has a slot drilled all the way through, with brass inserts to protect the wood-- just like a Mosin-Nagant.  I have not seen any pictures of SVT-40s with this style of stock.  Other than that, it's pretty normal. Six-slot muzzle-break, bronze-colored bolt and bolt-carrier. Came with two-headed oil can, sling, magazine pouch, cleaning kit, and one magazine pinned to 5 rounds.

The reasons I have read why the SVT-40 was less successful than expected are that it was overly complicated, difficult to maintain, and heavy.   I can vouch for all of these.  I received rifle with the trigger group loose in the box; it appears that whoever packed it couldn't figure out how to get it reinstalled. I had to fight with it for about an hour; it's one of the few times in my experience where "hit it with a hammer!" turned out to be the correct thing to do. (I had a rubber mallet, luckily enough.)  The mechanism has more moving parts than the SKS, and it certainly looks like it took a lot more shop-time to build. And it's big, heavy, feels really solid, and would probably be a pain to carry around all day. It's a beast. And I love it.  Something about it is so bad-ass-- probably the ventilated heat-shield for starters.  I disassembled and cleaned and oiled everything, and the action works very nicely. I bought some precision-machined snap-caps for it, and they load and eject beautifully. I am pretty excited to see how it works with live ammo.

-k

Ravens, Packers, and Texans are through to the next round already.

Later today the Seahawks and Redskins will go at it; I think the Seahawks might be a dark horse team this year.

I think that the Broncos are probably the favorites to win it all.

-k