‘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.

The 24-year-old NHL player who was killed in an accident in Michigan died from a fireworks mortar blast and chest trauma, medical examiner sayshttps://t.co/aa4TJjUx0g

— CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk) July 5, 2021

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

Category: Fireworks

72 Shot in Chicago This Weekend

Posted on | July 5, 2021 | Comments Off on 72 Shot in Chicago This Weekend

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s constituents celebrated the Fourth of July by turning their city into a shooting gallery:

Thirteen people have been killed and at least 59 others wounded since Friday night in shootings across Chicago.
At least seven children have been shot in Chicago since late Sunday afternoon.
Two people were killed and at least four were wounded, including a 12-year-old girl and a 13-year-old boy, in a shooting early Monday in Washington Park on the South Side.
The Washington Park attack happened around the same time that a 6-year-old girl and a woman were shot in West Pullman, and about four hours after an 11-year-old boy and a man were shot in Brainerd on the South Side.
In one of the latest shootings, a 5-year-old girl was injured after she was shot in the leg, according to police.
Chicago police say the girl was in an alley near 117th Street and South Normal Avenue when she was hit.
A six-year-old girl and 43-year-old woman were shot in the 100-block of East 119th Place, police said.
They were standing with a group in the 100-block of East 119th Place at about 1:04 a.m. when police said someone in a gray SUV fired shots in their direction.
The girl was wounded in the hand and transported to Comer Children’s Hospital. The woman self-transported to Roseland Hospital in fair condition.
A 19-year-old man was killed while riding in a vehicle on the Near West Side.
Just after 11 p.m., the teen was riding as a passenger in a vehicle in the 2600-block of West Van Buren Street when someone fired several shots, Chicago police said.
He suffered five gunshot wounds throughout his body and was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital where he was pronounced dead, police said. . . .

The report details further carnage and then concludes:

Last weekend, six people were killed and 68 others were wounded in weekend shootings in Chicago as the city reaches the halfway point of what could be one of its most violent years in decades

So, in just two weekends, the city has had 19 killed and 127 wounded. If the U.S. military were sustaining such an alarming casualty rate in a foreign country, Joe Biden would order a troop withdrawal.

Category: Chicago, Crime

Rule 5 Sunday: Agent Carter

Posted on | July 5, 2021 | Comments Off on Rule 5 Sunday: Agent Carter

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Being (cos)played tonight by Irina Meier. Hope you’re all having a great Independence Day weekend.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

Colonel Stierlitz when? 😉

Ninety Days From Tyranny: Hot Pick Of The Late Night, The 90 Miles Mystery Box Episode #1400, Morning Mistress, and Girls With Guns.

Animal Magnetism: Rule 5 Nork Friday and the Saturday Gingermageddon.

EBL: Nixon In China, Dominion Day Babes, John Adams, Miss Nevada 1959 vs. 2021, Satyagraha, MAGA Help To Seaside, The Ghosts Of Versailles, Dr. Atomic, Sexy Alien Star Seeds, Human Evolution Gets More Complicated, Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Polka Dot Bikini, Marnie, Dolly Parton, Rise & Fall of The City Of Mahagonny, Fashion Friday, Why Is Yale So Racist To Asians?, Whitney Houston, and Akhnaten.

A View From The Beach: Darcy Donovan, Fish Pic Friday – Bailey Griffis, Well, He Has a Point, Tattoo Thursday, The Wednesday Wetness, Tuesday Tune – Sultans, Good News!, The Monday Morning Stimulus and Palm Sunday

Brian Noggle: Ally Sheedy Or Molly Ringwald?

Thanks to everyone for the luscious linkagery!

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Category: Rule 5

Some Civil War Reading With Added Pulp

Posted on | July 4, 2021 | Comments Off on Some Civil War Reading With Added Pulp

— compiled by Wombat-socho

It’s been a while since the last book post, and there’s good news for Civil War history aficionados, so let’s get to it.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

I’m so sorry.

For the past few years, it’s been difficult to get hold of Bruce Catton’s Civil War histories unless you wanted to shell out for used hardbacks or paperbacks. Apparently somebody at Random House has come to their senses and recognized there’s a market for these newfangled e-book thingies, for Catton’s Centennial History of the Civil War, which starts with The Coming Fury (an excellent analysis of the political fuckery that sparked the war), is now available for the Kindle. Catton’s Army of the Potomac trilogy is also now available, and Mr. Lincoln’s Army (Book 1 of the trilogy) is available on Kindle Unlimited in case you aren’t familiar with Catton’s style and want to dip your toe in the water. As if that wasn’t enough, his account of General Grant’s war years (Grant Moves South and Grant Takes Command) is also available in a package deal.

I am frankly unsure why Douglas Southall Freeman has the reputation he does. I tried reading Lee’s Lieutenants when I was younger, and compared to Bruce Catton, I found him turgid and prolix, on a par with the detail-obsessed official histories of the Army in WW2 that were nearly unreadable with their insistence on detailing what every single company of every single division was doing in (for example) the Battle of the Hurtgen Forest. Still, he had quite a reputation back in the day, and you can stick this, too, on your Kindle, and not throw out your back trying to lift the 400+ pages of the original edition.

On to things less serious. I am not much on mysteries, but I do like the noir genre, and the granddaddy of all the trenchcoat-clad private eyes out there is Dashiell Hammett’s Continental Op. Who is he? We never find out. The Continental Op is a nameless man working out of the Continental Detective Agency as an investigator. Murder is his business, and in San Francisco in the 1920s, business is very good indeed. This collection of the fourteen stories involving the Continental Op is a good bargain, especially if you like this kind of thing.

Then we have Sax Rohmer and his (in)famous Chinese super-villain, Fu Manchu. The Sax Rohmer collection by Halcyon Press includes 56 novels and short stories, but I had to struggle to make it through The Insidious Fu Manchu and when I was done had zero interest in reading more. Look, I cut my teeth on Don Pendleton’s Executioner novels, so I don’t mind formulaic plots and cardboard characters, but the protagonists of the Fu Manchu novels are a couple of the biggest morons in adventure fiction. Granted, they are up against an extremely learned (and possibly quite ancient) SOOPER GENIUS, with an enormous army of criminals at his beck and call, but Nayland-Smith and his sidekick Dr. Petrie are constantly screwing up and carrying the Idiot Ball, falling into predicaments that would have left Mack Bolan or Frank Castle aghast at their stupidity. Frequently they are saved only through the intervention of Fu Manchu’s slave girl Karamaneh, who has inexplicably fallen in love with Dr. Petrie. You may like this kind of stuff, but it drove me nuts, and I plan on dumping it off my Kindle to make room for better stuff. Like War Against The Mafia.

Returning to non-fiction, Ernst Junger’s The Storm Of Steel is not as well known as All Quiet on the Western Front, possibly because Junger’s book isn’t nearly as depressing as Remarque’s classic. Junger’s autobiographical account of his service on the Western Front in “The Great War” is horrifying, yes, and he spares you none of the horrors of trench warfare, but on the whole, he doesn’t regret having served and in fact considered it a transcendant experience. I’m not done with it yet, but it’s a good read. The link I’ve provided is to the original 1929 translation; there is a more recent “American English” translation, but in my honest opinion I think that’s a waste of money.

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Category: Books

July 4: Why I Am a Populist

Posted on | July 4, 2021 | Comments Off on July 4: Why I Am a Populist

One evening in the fall of 1997, we finished loading up the U-Haul truck in our driveway in Rome, Georgia. Friends from our church had come to help us with this task, as my wife and I prepared to move our family to Gaithersburg, Maryland. Four days later, I was to begin my new job as an assistant national editor for The Washington Times, and I was both excited and stressed over this new phase of my career as a journalist.

It’s a long way from Rome, Georgia, to Washington, D.C. — more than 600 miles, geographically, but even further, in political terms. Our nation’s capital is a center of power and prestige unequaled in the world, whereas Floyd County, Georgia . . . Well, not so much.

Folks down home don’t think much about power. There isn’t much of it around, and the difference between the most influential and least influential citizens of Floyd County is far less than the gap between any of them and the world-class power brokers in Washington, D.C.

There is more equality in small-town America than there is in the wealthy urban metropolises where the super-rich reside. The media celebrities who will be partying this weekend in the Hamptons do not even consider themselves rich, by comparison to the trust-fund barons and arbitrage wizards of Wall Street. One reason for the liberal tilt of the media is that so many journalists — including millionaire network anchors — are not grateful for their success, but rather are consumed with envy toward the billionaire class. People that most of us would think of as rich (e.g., Joe Scarborough, who gets $8 million a year from MSNBC) walk around with a chip on their shoulder because they’re not really rich, the way Warren Buffett or Bill Gates are rich. But I digress . . .

After the truck was loaded in November 1997, and we were getting ready to pull out for the long drive north, our friend Lamante Attaud shook my hand and said, “Don’t forget where you came from.”

This has been my mission ever since — to speak on behalf of those Ordinary Americans who don’t have access to media platforms, and whose voices are routinely ignored by the power-wielding elites.

Let it not be said that small-town America is homogenous in opinion. No doubt many of my friends down home are deeply divided over the political issues that confront us as a nation and, alas, even some of my close relatives are Democrats. But these divisions of mere opinion are not so significant as the yawning chasm that separates Ordinary Americans from the vast power of the influential elite, and the reason I consider myself a populist is because I know whose side I’m on in that conflict.

Despite everything that might lead me toward a pessimistic view of our nation’s future, I remain stubbornly hopeful, because I know the decency and common sense of Ordinary Americans can yet preserve our liberty, no matter how corrupt and decadent our elite may be.

This is the true cause of our struggle. There is nothing wrong with America that the ordinary citizens of this nation can’t solve for themselves, if only their efforts were not thwarted by the decadent elite.

Thank God for the Supreme Court majority in the Brnovich v. DNC case, which rejected claims by the Democratic Party that Arizona was not capable of running its own elections without federal interference. What this case was really about is not “voting rights,” but rather about centralized authority. Do we really want to say that no local election is legitimate, unless the rules and the outcome are approved by the Powers That Be in Washington, D.C.? I don’t think so, and if there is anything that can unite populists in America, it should be opposition to further centralization of power. You see, the decadent elites love centralized power because the elites exercise enormous influence in Washington, whereas their influence in Arizona (or Georgia) is not so decisive.

Some would say that my populist impulses are rather crude, but I can think of no better rule for public life than this: Figure out what side of the issue the New York Times is on, then join the other side and fight like hell. So here I am, once again asking patriotic readers to remember that the Five Most Important Words in the English Language are:

HIT THE FREAKING TIP JAR!

Maybe I’ll make a last-minute run to buy some fireworks.

Category: Politics

‘Harmful Extremist Content’? Why Does Facebook Want You to Be ‘Concerned’?

Posted on | July 4, 2021 | Comments Off on ‘Harmful Extremist Content’? Why Does Facebook Want You to Be ‘Concerned’?

We need Mark Zuckerberg to protect us from Thought Crime:

An eyebrow-raising new Facebook feature warns users when they might have been exposed to extremist content or if they know someone who is becoming an extremist — prompting concerns it may target conservative voices and stifle free speech.
Screenshots of the anti-extremism alerts circulated Thursday on social media.
One of the prompts asks users, “Are you concerned that someone you know is becoming an extremist?”
“We care about preventing extremism on Facebook,” the prompt goes on. “Others in your situation have received confidential support.”
A second alert read, “You may have been exposed to harmful extremist content recently.”
“Violent groups try to manipulate your anger and disappointment. You can take action now to protect yourself and others,” it continues.
Both of the alerts also redirect users to a support page.
Andy Stone, a Facebook spokesperson, confirmed that the company is testing the prompts as part of a wider approach to radicalization prevention.
“This test is part of our larger work to assess ways to provide resources and support to people on Facebook who may have engaged with or were exposed to extremist content, or may know someone who is at risk,” Stone said.
“We are partnering with NGOs and academic experts in this space and hope to have more to share in the future.”

We may assume that the “NGOs and academic experts” with whom Facebook is “partnering” include the SPLC and other Democratic Party propaganda operatives. Considering that today is the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, I was re-reading Winston Churchill’s History of the English-Speaking Peoples, and what he says about the beginnings of the revolutionary movement in America, which rose from opposition to the 1765 Stamp Act:

With two exceptions it imposed no heavy burden. The stamps on legal documents would not in any case produce a large revenue. The English stamp duty brought in £300,000 a year. Its extension to America was only expected to raise another £50,000. But the Act included a tax on newspapers, many of whose journalists were vehement partisans of the extremist party in America, and the colonial merchants were dismayed because the duty had to be paid in bullion already needed for meeting the adverse trade balance with England. The dispute exposed and fortified the more violent elements in America. The future revolutionary leaders appeared from obscurity — Patrick Henry in Virginia, Samuel Adams in Massachusetts, and Christopher Gadsden in South Carolina — and attacked both the legality of the Government’s policy and the meekness of most American merchants. A small but well-organized Radical element began to emerge.

You see that today we celebrate what “the more violent elements in America” eventually achieved, namely our national independence.

Thank goodness there was no Facebook back then to warn them about “harmful extremist content” from Sam Adams and Patrick Henry.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers! You may also enjoy my patriotic argument: “July 4: Why I Am a Populist.”

Category: History

Khaled Awad Update: Student Visa for Egyptian Who Stabbed Massachusetts Rabbi; Roommates Say He Hated Jews

Posted on | July 4, 2021 | Comments Off on Khaled Awad Update: Student Visa for Egyptian Who Stabbed Massachusetts Rabbi; Roommates Say He Hated Jews

When we first reported on this case, authorities in Massachusetts were still mystified about the motive behind the stabbing of a rabbi in front of a Boston-area Jewish school by 24-year-old Khaled Awad. Some readers may have anticipated this latest development:

An Egyptian man who is accused of stabbing a rabbi outside of a Jewish day school in Boston on Thursday overstayed his student visa and lost his legal status on May 14, Immigration and Customs Enforcement told Fox News.
Khaled Awad, 24, allegedly approached Rabbi Shlomo Noginski with a gun and demanded his car keys, at which point Noginski ran across the street to a park, where Awad stabbed him in the arm multiple times.
He entered the United States two years ago for college, but his legal status recently lapsed.
“Khaled Awad, 24, a citizen of Egypt, entered the United States on a student visa in August 2019,” a spokesman for ICE told Fox News. “However, he failed to stay enrolled as required by law, resulting in a loss of legal status in the U.S on May 14, 2021.” . . .
Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins said her office has launched an investigation into the case but it has not been labeled a hate crime as of yet. . . .
One of Awad’s former friends at the University of South Florida, Eric Valiente, told CBS Boston that Awad was “violent” and “anti-Semitic.”
“He started becoming violent,” Valiente told the local news outlet. “He was very much anti-Semitic. He would say like all types of Jewish jokes. I thought he was joking at first and then I started to see seriousness in his comments.”
Aidan Anderson, a former roommate of Awad’s who is Jewish, told CBS Boston he had to move out and get a restraining order last fall when Awad attacked him in their shared kitchen.
Prosecutors must prove “that a crime is bias-motivated beyond the violent and seemingly targeted nature of the attack” in order to charge a suspect with a hate crime, a spokesman for Rollins’ offfice said. . . .
Prosecutors said in court on Friday that Awad faced charges of battery and theft in Florida and had to be sent to a mental health facility. He had a clean record in Massachusetts.
Awad is currently being held without bail pending a hearing on July 8 to determine if he is a danger to society.

Talk about an open-and-shut case: Jew-hater stabs a rabbi, but you need a court hearing to know whether “he is a danger to society”? And prosecutors aren’t sure they can prove this is a hate crime?

Also, why are we importing Jew-haters from Egypt? Is there a shortage of domestic anti-Semites, so we need to bring them in from foreign countries? Stabbing the rabbis American Jew-haters won’t stab?