The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

In The Mailbox: 07.08.21

Posted on | July 8, 2021 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 07.08.21

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

Thank you, farmers!

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: How’s That Affordable Bail Working Out?
EBL: Gay Pride 2021 – We’ll Convert Your Children
Twitchy: Creepy Porn Lawyer Crying During Pre-Sentencing Speech Is Like Watching Karma In Real Time
Louder With Crowder: Hunter Biden Proposed Unionizing Prostitutes & Strippers
Vox Popoli: “We’ll Convert Your Children”, also, Remember The Yuma!

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Holidays, Baby
American Greatness: Over 30 States File Antitrust Suits Against Google, also, HHS Secretary Becerra Claims “Absolutely The Government’s Business” To Know Your Vaccination Status
American Power: The Full Story On Rachel Nichols’ Comments, also, The Spike In Homocides
American Thinker: Are We Seeing A Cultural Realignment? 
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Big Business News
Babalu Blog: New Leader Of Colombia’s ELN Terrorists Has Long Enjoyed Cuban Protection
BattleSwarm: Texas Special Session Begins
Behind The Black: Today’s Blacklisted American, also, Problems With Blue Origin’s Engine Force More Delays For ULA’s New Vulcan Rocket
Cafe Hayek: Only Monopolists With Sinecures Can Get Away With Such Nonsense
CDR Salamander: Diversity Thursday
Da Tech Guy: Thomas Jefferson Tried To End Slavery When He Wrote The Declaration Of Independence, also, No Surprises From The NSA And Other Matters Under The Fedora
Don Surber: One Tax, One World, One Tyranny, also, The LEGO Insurrection
First Street Journal: Another Two Bite The Dust, also, Killadelphia
The Geller Report: Red China Threatens Japan For Vowing To Join U.S. In Protecting Taiwan, also, Machete-Wielding Minnesota Muslim Stabs Four Women, Is Released The Same Day
Hogewash: Gun Non-Violence, also, Team Kimberlin Post Of The Day
Hollywood In Toto: How Rob Reiner’s Stand By Me Saved Stephen King Movies, also, How The Comedy World Discriminates Against Straight White Men
The Lid: License to Monitor – National Strategies, The Capitol Police, & Tucker Carlson
Legal Insurrection: Some Medical School Programs At Tulane Put On Probation Over “Diversity Concerns”, also, Court Showdown Over Boston “ZIP Code Quota” Plan, Concealment Of Racist School Committee Tweets
Nebraska Energy Observer: Donald Rumsfeld & Other Matters, also, Do You Remember?
Outkick: Maria Taylor Suggests ESPN Drama Qualifies As “Dark Times”, also, LeBron James Leads All Other Athletes In Being Abused On Twitter
Power Line: More Evidence Of The Uselessness Of “Green” Energy, also, A Reminder Of How Stupid Our Media Is
Shark Tank: Murphy Lies About Bombs Being Planted At Capitol On January 6
Shot In The Dark: Let’s Cool Things Down, also, The Memory & Perception Holes
The Political Hat: Euthanasia – Killing Kids, Killing The Mentally Ill, & Killing The Senile, also, Struggle Sessions Come To Illinois Schools
This Ain’t Hell: Sandi Sturgeon, Fake Special Forces Sniper, also, You Thought Your Doctor Asking If You Had Guns Was Bad
Victory Girls: Who Unmasked Tucker Carlson? also, Objectively, No Such Thing As Trans
Volokh Conspiracy: The Case Against Imposing Common Carrier Restrictions On Social Media Sites
Weasel Zippers: Haitian President’s Assassins Captured, also, WaPo Writer Advocates Showing Kink To Kids At Pride Parades
The Federalist: Antifa Violently Attacked Christian Protesters In Broad Daylight As Uninterested Media Sought QAnon, also, I Might Pull My Kids From Public School This Fall For Teaching Them Racism
Mark Steyn: We Came, We Saw, We Left No Trace, also, Insurrection In Legoland

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Category: Linkagery

The Ghost of Andrew Breitbart

Posted on | July 8, 2021 | Comments Off on The Ghost of Andrew Breitbart

Breitbart.com editor Joel Pollak calls attention to an article in the Federalist, explaining how it was that the late Andrew Breitbart made conservatives aware of Critical Race Theory:

Critical race theory has blossomed in the United States into a culture war between institutions and those they purport to serve. As usual, legacy media have colluded to delegitimize any objections by either minimizing the dogma, re-defining it, or denying its existence. Americans ought to consider the media’s frenzy to smear writers exposing CRT in 2012 when examining the reality of today.
After Andrew Breitbart indicated at the Conservative Political Action Conference that he had footage to substantiate that President Barack Obama maintained a relationship with a prominent critical race theorist, it led to a news storm.
Breitbart’s fiery speech led to a now all-too-familiar CRT battle between two opposing media forces. Breitbart.com released footage of Obama speaking at a diversity protest in support of a professor named Derrick Bell, whom the outlet’s former editor Ben Shapiro referred to in an explainer column as “the father of Critical Race Theory (CRT).” Heritage Foundation fellow Mike Gonzalez told me in an email he is more like the “godfather” of CRT.
Bell, a Harvard University Law professor at the time, was overwhelmingly defended by left-leaning pundits, as was Obama. If you can picture it, and hopefully you can given how investigative journalist Christopher Rufo and others have been treated by media today, Breitbart’s writers were lambasted as conspiracy theorists.
Joel Pollak, the editor-in-chief at the time and now the current Breitbart editor-at-large, was implicitly called racist on CNN by host Soledad O’Brien, a “smear artist” in The New Yorker, and told in The Nation he was unreasonably rebuking “intellectual leaders in a long tradition of calling on America to address racial unfairness.” . . .

Read the whole thing. The point is that nine years ago — long before CRT was turning school-board meetings into riots — Breitbart saw in Obama’s defense of Derrick Bell an indicator of where the country was heading. And, as usual, the Democrat-Media Complex (as Breitbart called it) was spinning like crazy, trying to convince their audience that there was no real controversy. Andrew was truly prophetic in his vision.




 

Category: Andrew Breitbart

Late Night With In The Mailbox: 07.07.21

Posted on | July 8, 2021 | Comments Off on Late Night With In The Mailbox: 07.07.21

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

Waifu Wednesday part II

OVER THE TRANSOM
Ninety Miles From Tyranny: The 90 Miles Mystery Box, Episode #1406
EBL: Michaela Kennedy-Cuomo, Demisexual
Twitchy: NYT Wonders Why Sex-Positive Teacher Of “Pornography Literacy” Was Suddenly “Pilloried” By Parents
Louder With Crowder: Donald Trump To File Class Action Lawsuit Against Big Tech
Vox Popoli: Freaking Midwits, also, What Did He Know About Hillary Clinton?

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: The Sexual Revolution Has Left The Left Behind
American Greatness: PA State Senator Mastriano Initiates Forensic Investigation Of 2020 Election
American Power: Rachel Nichols Won’t Be Working Sidelines For NBA Finals After Alleged “Racist” Comments
American Thinker: What If The 2020 Election Audits Show Trump Really Won?
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Hump Day News
Babalu Blog: Cubans Desperate Over Problems With Banco Metropolitano ATMs
BattleSwarm: Reimagining Austin Police – Absolute F***ing Lunacy
Behind The Black: What The Last Six Months Have Revealed, NOAA Struggles With Concept Of Letting Private Sector Build Its Satellites, also, Today’s Blacklisted American
Cafe Hayek: Antitrust & Innovation
CDR Salamander: You Are What You Allow
Da Tech Guy: A Fair Black For Black Trade, also, Biden’s Debacle In Afghanistan
Don Surber: Now They Call Being A Republican Treason, also, Trump Lawsuit Will Protect Lefties As Well As Conservatives
First Street Journal: Administration Stupidity On The Death Penalty, also, Joe Biden’s Solution To “Heat Inequality”
The Geller Report: Rudy Giuliani Offered FBI Proof Of Hunter Biden’s Child Porn, also, Democrats’ Teacher Union Threatens Lawsuits To Defend Critical Race Theory
Hogewash: OK, You’re Crazy, also, Team Kimberlin Post of The Day
Hollywood In Toto: Greg Ellis – “Eventually We’ll All Get Canceled”
The Lid: The Laptop From Hell
Legal Insurrection: Disturbing Reports From Troops & ROTC Cadets Of Woke Military Priorities, also, Bad Orange Woman Says Howard U. “Lucky” to have 1619 Project Fabulist
Nebraska Energy Observer: This Is Why
Outkick: City Of Champions Again – Tampa Bay Wins Second Straight Stanley Cup, also, Jemele Hill Calls Clay Travis An Idiot
Power Line: Tweet War of The Week, also, The Case Of Nikole Hannah-Jones
Shark Tank: Blogger Supports Comparison Of DeSantis’ Press Secretary To Dead Nazi
Shot In The Dark: Smack
STUMP: Mortality Basics With Meep
The Political Hat: The Florida “Transgender Sports Ban”
This Ain’t Hell: Haiti’s President Assassinated, also, Gov. Cuomo Declares “Gun Violence Disaster Emergency”
Transterrestrial Musings: If You Hate The Culture Wars, also, Engineered Cells
Victory Girls: Left Cult Still Pursuing Peak Stupidity
Volokh Conspiracy: Facebook Adds to Its “Hate Speech” Policy
Weasel Zippers: VICE News Whines That Its Reporters Have PTSD From January 6, also, Tucker Carlson Says NSA Leaked His Emails To Journalists
The Federalist: It’s Critical Race Theory That’s Un-American, Not The Laws Banning It, also, When Stores Close Due To Rising Crime, Urban Blight Is Back – And It’s Going To Get Worse
Mark Steyn: Science Silenced, also, Groveling At The Altar Of Wokeness

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Category: Linkagery

In The Mailbox: 07.07.21 (Evening Edition)

Posted on | July 7, 2021 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 07.07.21 (Evening Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

It’s Waifu Wednesday.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Chicago Keeps Surpassing Expectations
EBL: The Tomorrow War
Twitchy: Joy Reid Claims Parents Taking On School Boards Over CRT Are Tied Up With QAnon
Louder With Crowder: Black Dad Hammers School District for Teaching His Mixed-Race Daughter Her White Mom Is Evil – And It Manages To Get WORSE
Vox Popoli: Thomas Wictor Is A Goofball, also, We Are Not Your Leaders

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Husbands Must Not Unburden Themselves
American Conservative: The Latest Presidential Historians Survey Is A Mess
American Greatness: Twenty Questions For Nancy Pelosi About January 6
American Thinker: Are We Witnessing The Death Of America As A Democratic Republic?
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Sinking California News
Babalu Blog: Cuban State Security Ejects Dissident Rapper & Her Baby From Their Home
BattleSwarm: Did Caffeine Create The Enlightenment?
Behind The Black: Today’s Blacklisted American, also, First Images From Ingenuity’s 9th Flight
Cafe Hayek: Antitrust Replaces Knowledge With Ignorance
CDR Salamander: Are You Ready To Listen To Me Now?
Da Tech Guy: Notice The Use Of The Word “All” In This Declaration, also, DaTechGuy’s Two Generation Rule – We Demonize Police At Our Peril
Don Surber: With Trump Gone, Black Lives No Longer Matter To The Media, also, J.D. Vance Grows Up
First Street Journal: Charles Booker Is Running For The Senate, also, This May Not Be A Good Change
The Geller Report: Security Breach Of AZ Election Registration Servers Occurred On Nov. 3 – SecState Hobbs Kept It Hidden, also, Democrat Rep Cori Bush Is Evil & Stupid
Hogewash: A Man’s City’s Got To Know Its Limitations, also, Team Kimberlin Post of The Day
Hollywood In Toto: Are Politicized Awards The New Normal? also, How The Cable Guy Went From Flop To Jim Carrey Cult Classic
The Lid: The Systemic Antisemitism Of The Woke Left
Legal Insurrection: The Disciplinary Railroading Of Rudy Giuliani, also, National Geographic Suggests Independence Day Fireworks Are Racist
Michelle Malkin: The January 6 Video Coverup – The Case Of John Steven Anderson
Nebraska Energy Observer: The Best There Has Ever Been
Outkick: Former ESPN Insider – Woj “Put A Foot” On Black Careers, also, When Woke Collides With Woke, You Get The ESPN Mess
Power Line: Democrats – “We’re In Trouble”, also, Hannah-Jones Flips Off UNC
Shark Tank: Democrats Stick To Lie That Trump Called For Violence
Shot In The Dark: The Black Day, also, Left On The Table
The Political Hat: The Woke Aughebung
This Ain’t Hell: Dan Wall – Still Rocking The Lie, also, Marine Vet Cleared Of Urinating On Taliban
Transterrestrial Musings: S3x In Space, also, A Piece Of Work
Victory Girls: US Womens’ Soccer Team Disrespects Anthem Again
Volokh Conspiracy: SF Bookstore Sues Neighboring Hotel, Includes Comic Book Version Of Factual Allegations In Amended Complaint
Weasel Zippers: Jake Tapper’s Show Has Lost 75% Of Its Viewers Since Inauguration Day, also, Jimmy Carter Thinks Biden “Has Done Very Well”
The Federalist: California Stores Closing Early As Unpunished Theft Explodes, also, Whistleblowing Experts Band Together To Combat Elite Corruption
Mark Steyn: America The Beautiful, also, Independence & Tyranny

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Category: Linkagery

Andrew Cuomo’s Weirdo Daughter

Posted on | July 7, 2021 | Comments Off on Andrew Cuomo’s Weirdo Daughter

“Demisexual” is one of those made-up words used in social-media profiles by young people with mental-health problems, who can now claim as their celebrity role model Michaela Kennedy-Cuomo, who is the youngest of the three daughters of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Kerry Kennedy (the daughter of Robert F. Kennedy).

Ace of Spades summarizes “demisexuality”:

But this is the game: To make everyone LGBT, they invent “queer” labels for straight girls to call themselves.
Shaming straight people — boring, conventional, lame sexual normies — is so vicious, especially to status- and identity-obsessed young girls, that they scramble to find any “LGBT” category to assign themselves to to avoid the stigma of being a mere breeder.
As you can see from her “identity shopping” — notice she never struck upon the possibility that, like 98% of women, she was just a run-of-the-mill straight girl who liked boys.
That was not a possibility — she could never be just that.
She had to have a “sexuality” that made her a star, someone the representatives of the ruling class in her school and in the media counted as interesting, virtuous, and special. . . .
I’ve mentioned this before, but I know (of course) people with high-school age kids, and, with girls especially: They all feel massively pressured to “come out” as some shade of gay or transexual.
Girls are especially susceptible to peer and media pressure, and when everyone in the regular media and on social media is telling you that to be straight is to be a kind of low-class, low-IQ pervert, many, many straight girls are going to decide they’re some kind of bisexual.
Or a “demisexual.”

The “sexuality” promoters encourage impressionable young people to believe that their identity is entirely about their feelings, which of course are wildly confused under a bombardment of sexual stimuli from various media, including the crap they’re watching on TikTok or whatever.

In order for “sexuality” to have any real meaning, however, it can only be as a description of behavior. That is to say, whatever your feelings may be — and what can I possibly know about how someone else feels? — only your sexual behavior has any objective reality. Some of us are old enough to remember that the “gay rights” movement began as part of the “sexual liberation” of the 1960s, when there were actual laws against sodomy — not laws against anyone’s feelings, but rather against behaviors.

Once the demanded “rights” were ceded, however, the militant advocates of sodomy did not cease their demands, but instead went hunting around for new grievances, so that here we are in 2021 — when nobody is stopping Michaela Kennedy-Cuomo from doing whatever it is she wants to do — and she’s deeply confused about the whole “sexuality” thing.

Well, here’s a clue, Ms. Kennedy-Cuomo: When your grandmother Ethel Kennedy was your age, she’d already been married more than a year and had given birth to the first of her seven children. That’s the kind of “sexuality” Americans practiced back in the Good Old Days, when your grandfather was working as an aide to Sen. Joe McCarthy.

Make America Great Again, if you get my drift.




 

Category: Gays

‘Gun Violence’ Propaganda

Posted on | July 6, 2021 | Comments Off on ‘Gun Violence’ Propaganda

Notice the grammar of this headline from CBS News:

More than 180 people died in gun violence
over the July 4 holiday weekend

They use passive voice in the headline, which is contrary to the rules students of my generation were taught in journalism class. This use of passive voice is dishonest, serving to conceal from the reader just who it was that was pulling the triggers in these holiday weekend shootings. And where was it that all these people were dying from “gun violence”?

Were hillbillies gunning for each other in Appalachia? Were these holiday weekend shootings perpetrated by Italian gangsters? Salvadoran MS-13?

The journalists at CBS News don’t seem much interested in the details — who is shooting whom and where? — and so I, a lone blogger, must sort through the various reports for clues. For example, we know that more than 70 people were shot this weekend in Chicago, which thus accounts for more than a third of nation’s weekend shooting total, and as to the demographics of the shooters in Chicago, I think it is safe to say that probably none of them were Trump voters, IYKWIMAITYD.

Let’s go to Cincinnati:

The two people killed late Sunday at Smale Park shot at each other as a result of an ongoing disagreement, Police Chief Eliot Isaac said.
According to police, one person died at the scene and another at the hospital.
Police identified the two people killed as 16-year-old Milo Watson and 19-year-old Dexter Wright Jr.
“There’s been some kind of ongoing disagreement between the two individuals and believe it just spilled over yesterday evening at the park,” Chief Isaac explained.
Three victims were caught in the crossfire, Chief Isaac said.
A 17-year-old female, who was shot, is in critical condition at UCMC, the chief said.
400-500 teenagers were at Smale Park when the shooting happened, according to Colonel Lisa Davis. . . .
The three surviving victims are not being identified at his time.

That story features a mug shot of Dexter White Jr., and while we have no description of Milo Watson or the 500 other teenagers who were in the park at the time of the shooting, let’s just say it’s not likely many of them were Trump supporters. Or NRA members, for that matter.

How about Baltimore?

Violence continued in Baltimore over the July 4th holiday weekend as 14 people were shot, including a 12-year-old and 16-year-old. Five of those shot were killed – including two teenagers.
A 12-year-old boy was shot in the chest in a double shooting early Saturday morning on Annor Court in SW Baltimore. He’s listed in serious condition at last check.
Just before noon Monday, a 16-year-old was shot on McCulloh Street in Upton. A lieutenant on patrol found him with wounds to his arms and legs. He’s recovering at an area hospital.
The Carrollton Ridge neighborhood saw three homicides in four days.
Two shootings were reported on July 4 and eight shootings were reported on July 5, including the fatal shooting of a 19-year-old.
An 18-year-old was shot in the head and killed Tuesday morning.

Who is doing all the shooting in Baltimore? Well, I can tell you that in the 2020 election, Joe Biden got 88% of the vote in Baltimore. And I can tell you that, on the Baltimore Sun‘s listing of the 100 most recent homicides in the city, only one of the victims was known to be white, because most white people don’t want to go anywhere near Baltimore. And what do we know about the Carrollton Ridge neighborhood?

The area currently known as Carrollton Ridge is a low income residential neighborhood directly west of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. Its boundaries are roughly defined by Frederick Avenue to the north, Carroll Park to the south, Bentalou Street to the west and Fulton Avenue to the east. The neighborhood is racially diverse, though predominantly African American.

Forgive me for suspecting there aren’t a lot of Trump voters in that neighborhood. Maybe it’s a stereotype, but in a city where 88% of voters are Democrats, I don’t think very much of the “gun violence” in Baltimore is being perpetrated by Republicans. How about Philadelphia?

A triple shooting at a Fourth of July barbecue in West Philadelphia left two people dead and and a teenager in the hospital.
Witnesses say, at first, they mistook the gunshots around 10:30 p.m. Sunday at 60th and Sansom streets for fireworks. Then they started to run.
One of the victims has been identified as 23-year-old Sircarr Johnson Jr., the owner of Premiere Bande, a clothing store in West Philadelphia. . . .
More than 100 shots were fired. Police ran out of evidence markers.
Johnson’s 21-year-old friend, Salahaldin Mahmoud, was also pronounced dead.
A 16-year-old female was also shot and hospitalized in stable condition.
Police are reviewing footage from surveillance cameras in the area.
And only a few hours later, police responded to the 5900 block of Hazel Avenue in West Philadelphia for another homicide.
Police say a 21-year-old male was shot multiple times just before 2 a.m. Monday.
He rushed to the hospital where he died.
As of now, there is no word on any arrests or a possible motive in these shootings.

Maybe some readers who are more familiar with the area can give us some demographic details about West Philadelphia, but just watching the video of the news report about this shooting, I’m going to speculate that it’s highly unlikely the perpetrators were Trump voters.

Again, I apologize if I am unfairly generalizing based on a handful of anecdotal evidence here. My point is that the phrase “gun violence” is a sort of verbal camouflage used by liberal journalists to obscure the reality of who is actually responsible for the majority of such crimes in America, and to transfer that responsibility to firearm owners in general, most of whom would never commit such lawless violence. In other words, the phrase “gun violence” is a form of political propaganda.




 

Category: Crime

In The Mailbox: 07.06.21 (Morning Edition)

Posted on | July 6, 2021 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 07.06.21 (Morning Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Hope everybody had a good Independence Day weekend and still has all their fingers.
Silicon Valley delenda est.

Remember when Antifa got all outraged that NRA members wouldn’t come to their aid? I remember.

OVER THE TRANSOM
Red Pilled Jew: Jab’s Witnesses & The COVID Cult
Bacon Time: Catsup On A Hot Dog
357 Magnum: Self-Defense In California. Who Knew?
EBL: Dolly Parton – “Color Me America” and X – “Fourth Of July”
Twitchy: Mayor DiBlasio Gets Called out For Spinning NYC Crime Stats, also, “OMG You’re Bad At This!”
Louder With Crowder: Teacher Thinks Ron DeSantis Banning CRT Is Literally The Hunger Games
Vox Popoli: Another False Flag Is Prepped, also, All Ur Patriotism Are Belong To Us
Stoic Observations: The Existential Dilemma Of Black Anti-Racism

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Let Democracy Die
American Conservative: Venice Beach – The Purgatory Progressives Built
American Greatness: The Democratic Party Is Naked & Afraid, also, The Genesis Of Our Collective American Breakdown
American Thinker: Is It A Conspiracy Theory To Say All This Racial Discord Is Intentional?
Animal Magnetism: Goodbye, (Red, White And) Blue Monday!
Babalu Blog: Venezuelans Being Used As Guinea Pigs For Cuba’s Untested COVID Vaccine As Hyperinflation Takes Off, also, Where The UN Stores The Reports On Thousands Of Political Arrests In Cuba
BattleSwarm: Conceptual Criminals Vs. The Art Police, also, Allen West Joins The Texas Governor’s Race
Behind The Black: China Launches Five Military Surveillance Satellites, also, Sunspot Update – The Hot Streak Continues
Cafe Hayek: An As Yet Undelivered Graduation Speech
Da Tech Guy: Five Thoughts About The Chosen Under The Fedora, also, Why I Hate Christian Movie Reviews
Don Surber: Red, White, & Blue Privilege, also, No More Mr. Nice Trump
First Street Journal: Public Support For The Lexington PD, & The Hits To Officers’ Morale
Fred On Everything:
The Geller Report: 1995 – NYT Warns “Most East Coast US Beaches Will Be Gone In 25 Years”, also, Biden Center Got $54 Million From Red China After Launching His Presidential Bid
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of The Day, also, A Man’s City’s Got To Know His Limitations
Hollywood In Toto: Point Break – The Ultimate Summer Movie? also, Nine Critical Takeaways From The Tomorrow War
The Lid: Post-Pandemic Economy Upends Job Market For Low-Skilled Workers
Legal Insurrection: NEA Votes To Push Critical Race Theory Into K-12 Schools Nationwide, also, Facebook Wants You To Identify “Extremists”
Nebraska Energy Observer: Random Observations, also, Loud, Proud, Rowdy, & On A Mission
Outkick: ESPN Quietly Ends Katie Nolan’s Show, also, The Truth Behind The Rachel Nichols/Maria Taylor Leak
Power Line: The Eternal Meaning Of Independence Day, also, Fighting The Evil of Critical Race Theory
Shark Tank: Wassermann Schultz Thinks Americans Aren’t Living Up To Ideals Of Liberty & Justice
Shot In The Dark: The DFL Dictionary – Third Edition! also, Dreaming, American Style
The Political Hat: When In The Course Of Human Events
This Ain’t Hell: Independence Day Thoughts From A Gold Star Mom, also, Back To Normal
Transterrestrial Musings: Lying To The Ghost In The Machine, also, The Billionaire Space Race
Victory Girls: McCaskill Threatens Family With Annual Riot Watching
Volokh Conspiracy: Immigration & The Principles Of The Declaration of Independence
Weasel Zippers: Occasional Cortex Bleats Olympic Ban On Weed Is Racist, also, MSNBC Calls Border Chaos “Nonexistent Crisis”
The Federalist: The NSA Doesn’t Deny Reading Tucker Carlson’s E-Mails, also, Why The Administration’s Lawsuit Against Georgia’s Election Law Is Legal Hot Garbage
Mark Steyn: The Man You Love To Hate, also, An Incendiary Fourth

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Category: Linkagery

‘Light Fuse and Get Away’

Posted on | July 6, 2021 | Comments Off on ‘Light Fuse and Get Away’

Every year, the Fourth of July yields a certain number of tragic injuries caused by fireworks — or, to be more specific in most cases, injuries caused by idiots who disregard the warning labels on fireworks.

The most common serious injuries nowadays seem to be caused by idiots mishandling mortars. If you aren’t familiar with consumer fireworks, a very popular item is the reloadable 1.75-inch mortar, sometimes called “artillery shells,” or just “shells.” Typically, these come in a package of six, 12 or 24 shells, with one, two or four mortar tubes packed into each kit. You can also build racks of mortar tubes, enabling you to fuse together a barrage of shells without having to re-load, but your typical consumer just uses the tubes that come in the package.

A 24-shell consumer mortar kit with 4 tubes.

A 15-shot mortar rack, fused and ready.

Over the years, my sons and I have fired many hundreds of these shells and never had a problem, because we use mortar racks that are connected by timed fuses to finale boards, so by the time the shells start firing, we’re safely back in the spectator area — no problem. The worst mishap we’ve had was what’s called a “flower pot,” where the shell explodes inside the tube; this usually happens because of a malfunction with the “lift” charge (which launches the shell out of the tube). The other thing that can cause a “flower pot” is when someone accidentally loads the shell upside down, with the lift charge firing upward.

Now, if you’re using mortar racks, the result of a “flower pot” can be very bad — it can blow your rack apart, so that the chained fuse is lighting off shells in tubes scattered all over the ground, with stuff firing sideways and causing havoc. We build our racks pretty solid, however, so that the one time we had a “flower pot,” it blew out the mortar tube but didn’t break the whole rack, thank God. On the other hand, imagine what happens if you’re single-firing mortar shells out of the tubes that come with the kit and get a “flower pot.” It can be catastrophic.

“Light fuse and get away” — this warning appears on the labels of all consumer fireworks, and it’s there for a good reason. When you’re dealing with explosive items, proximity matters, but some people don’t take that label warning seriously enough. For example:

A 13-year-old boy was seriously injured by a firework that struck his face on Long Island late Sunday night, police said.
The victim was with a group of teens who were setting off fireworks outside of a Deer Park home at about 10:50 p.m. when a mortar exploded in his face, according to police.
The boy, who was not identified, was taken to Stony Brook University Hospital with serious injuries.
Investigators are trying to determine how the teens obtained the fireworks.

For example:

A man suffered a severe traumatic face injury in Waukegan while lighting off fireworks on Saturday night.
The man, who is in his 20s, was shooting off fireworks around 10 p.m. at a home on North County Street. He was hit in the face with a mortar-type firework, the fire department said.
He was first taken to Vista East Medical Center and then flown by helicopter to Lutheran General Hospital.

For example:

A man has died in a tragic firework accident after a mortar shell exploded inside of a firework tube, sending shrapnel into the man’s body and killing him on-site.
The incident occurred at approximately 12:20 a.m. on Sunday, July 4, in Salamonie Township — about 95 miles northeast of Indianapolis — in Huntington County, Indiana. First responders were called to the scene where a man was injured while setting off fireworks, according to a statement from the Huntington County Coroner’s Office.
When authorities arrived, they say they found the victim, 41-year-old Steven E. Sims of Hartford City, Indiana, with critical injuries to his abdomen.
The Huntington County Coroner said lifesaving efforts were immediately attempted to save Sims’ life, but he ultimately succumbed to his injuries and was pronounced dead at the scene of the accident.

Without knowing the details of what happened in each of these incidents, I’ll tell you that the probable cause of the mortar-to-the-face injuries was that the victims were carelessly reloading “hot” tubes. See, after you a fire a shell, the lift charge usually leaves a few sparks down in the tube, and if you immediately re-load the tube, these sparks can ignite the shell while you’re still loading it and — BOOM! — there goes your face.

The way to avoid that happening is to shake out the tube after each shell, and give it a minute or so to cool off before you re-load, but too many people never even think of this risk or how to avoid it. In the case of the Indiana man who died of abdomen injuries from a mortar explosion, I’ll guess that was a “flower pot” caused by inserting the shell into the tube upside down, and that he did not “light fuse and get away.”

See, that’s what I mean when I say “proximity matters.” Standing right next to a mortar is just not smart. The fuse on a consumer shell usually has a four- or five-second burn time, which is enough time for even a slow person to get 50 or 100 feet away before it fires and yet, it is apparently common practice for people to stand just a few feet away while firing these things, which means accidents can be fatal.

There is no such thing as risk-free fireworks, of course, and in a country where many thousands of people celebrate Fourth of July by lighting off fireworks, some number of injuries are inevitable. But common-sense precautions — e.g., “light fuse and get away” — can reduce the risk.

Don’t be stupid. The penalty for stupidity can be death.




 

Category: Fireworks
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