There was a bit of a kerfluffle last week. A group of “intruders with assault rifles” robbed a Walmart in the Houston area.
Television station KPRC reported that the assault rifles were AK-47s.
Today, the HouChron is reporting that they caught the alleged robbers. (Actually, the girlfriend of one of them turned them in.) And…
Yeah. Not so much.
(Hattip.)
Rumor has it that these run for $50,000, so we’re talking lottery territory here. Plus there’s the cost of feeding it .45-70 ammo.
As Sebastian notes, this isn’t technically a machine gun so NFA doesn’t apply. And it would be an awesome weapon for certain stages of Lovecraft action shooting.
(Hattip: The Firearm Blog, by way of Sebastian. I do love the comment there: “I think [Colt’s] marketing strategy is to put a monkey in charge.”)
Edited to add: I can’t directly link to the “Gatling” westerns on Amazon, but here’s the “Jack Slade
This was a bad weekend for WCD. The Saints lost. The Packers lost. Eli Manning won. The only bright spot for us was the Patriots winning, and at this point the best we feel like we can hope for is a New England – San Francisco Super Bowl. And now we have to write this week’s TMQ Watch and see what Greggles has to say. Perhaps there will be photos of pleasant looking cheerleaders to relieve our burden.
After the jump…
This is to document that Lawrence has bet me $5 even money that the Texans will finish better than 8-8 next season.
This does not apply to most of you. However, this blog has a new policy:
We will no longer put ourselves in a position to lose more than $5 to Lawrence on any single bet.
I have not been able to watch it yet (Vimeo is blocked at work) but video of Deviant Ollam’s “Safe to Armed in Seconds: A Study of Epic Fails of Popular Gun Safes” presentation from DEFCON 19 is up.
I find it hard to choose between these two:
from Walter Olson on the always amazing Overlawyered site, and:
from Tam over at her place.
My inability to decide is your gain!
The HouChron has an article about former Houston Rocket Dikembe Mutombo and his involvement in what might charitably be described as a questionable scheme to sell half a ton of gold from mines in the eastern Congo.
Much of the article sounds like the Nigerian 419 scams we all periodically get in our mailboxes. (“In late December, Lawal reluctantly turned over almost $4 million in cash, but only after getting a certificate of ownership and having the gold placed in a secure customs warehouse in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya. A week later, Malonga — and the gold — disappeared. The purported customs facility was a sham.“) I’m more than a little amazed that anyone fell for this stuff.
On my way to breakfast with some friends, we got into a discussion of whether you could get butter from goat’s milk. (I had thought that I’d read elsewhere that goat milk was too low in fat to get butter from. It turns out that not only was I mistaken, but you can purchase goat butter
This led me to the Wikipedia article on goats, which notes:
Somehow, I am less than shocked by this.
I wanted to throw up a link to Zander Robin’s “Kodachrome 2010” documentary on Vimeo, but I felt like I should watch it first.
After watching it…well, there’s some interesting stuff in it about the chemistry involved in processing Kodachrome, and quite a few lovely images, but I really wish there was more to it. At less than 10 minutes, it seems like it is just the beginning of the story of Dwayne’s Photo and the final days of Kodachrome. I know it might have been a tough sell on the festival circuit, but I, for one, would have paid money to see a 90 minute version of this, or to download it from iTunes.
In any case, here’s “Kodachrome 2010” if you want to watch for yourself.
KODACHROME 2010 from Xander Robin on Vimeo.
(Hattip: PetaPixel.)
It was a Wednesday, not a Friday.
Anyway, before the day was out, I did want to mention the WP package on the 30th anniversary of the crash of Air Florida Flight 90.
Oh, wait, it looks like you’ve already called in:
I wonder how you get a job as a Lenin maintainer. Is there an academic course of study you can follow? Is it a two-year or four-year program?
Today’s NYT has an interesting article about an attempt to unearth and recreate the tunnel system used in Stalag Luft III.
It turns out that the team was unable to excavate “Harry”, but they did manage to dig down to “George”. They also constructed a new tunnel called “Roger”, “but in a trench just beneath the surface; anything deeper was deemed too dangerous”. (The original tunnels ran 30 feet below the surface.)
I am looking forward to this documentary showing up on PBS. (At least, I’m hoping it will show up on PBS instead of The Hitler History Channel.) I think this is a review of it from the Telegraph. Here’s a link to an older NOVA documentary. For any of my younger readers who are unfamiliar with the story, here’s the Wikipedia entry to use as a starting point. The Great Escape
We are compelled to note, for those keeping score at home, that Laura Hall’s latest appeal has been rejected by the state Court of Criminal Appeals.
The Belle Meade Country Club (near Nashville) is being sued by a former chef for discrimination.
The twist? He claims he was discriminated against because he’s…Australian.
It is incomprehensible to me how anyone could discriminate against Australians. The couple of Australians I’ve met have been among the nicest people in the world. It would be like kicking a puppy.
Anyway, if this is true, I hope Mr. Jones gets all that he is seeking in damages, and uses the money to open a nice restaurant (barbecued shrimp optional).