"Machetes are like pitbulls"

 

They are indeed.  I've seen them used as fighting weapons far too many times in the Third World, and the damage that results.

Click over to Gun Free Zone's post about that, and watch the video.  WARNING:  It's not for the squeamish or faint at heart.  You'll see a hand chopped right off, among other injuries.

Keep that in mind when you're next threatened by a machete, or a sharpened garden spade, or any improvised edged weapon (not to mention conventional knives).  If you get up close and personal in a knife fight, you almost certainly will get cut, if not much more severely injured.  It goes with the territory.

That's also why I tend towards larger, heavier calibers of handgun when in environments where that sort of danger may be a threat.  I want to stop anyone heading my way with such a weapon in their hands.  Smaller calibers and cartridges may work . . . but then again, they may not.

Peter

"Panic rooms" and "safe rooms" are greatly overrated

 

An article in the New York Post set me to thinking.

New Yorkers are fortifying their homes with panic rooms and bullet-proof doors like never before over fears about crime, migrants and national turmoil — and it’s not just the city’s elite partaking in the trend.

“Not every [customer] is an ultra-rich stockbroker — a lot of them are just people, middle-class kind of people,” said Steve Humble, founder of the home-defense contractor Creative Home Engineering.

“I’d say the pandemic really kicked off an uptick. Business was really good throughout the pandemic time, and it really hasn’t slowed down,” said Humble, who specializes in top-of-the-line secret doors disguised as bookshelves, fireplaces, mirrors, blank walls and whatever else a client can think of to conceal a safety room behind them.

He is one of numerous home-defense contractors who told The Post that the past four years have been a boon for business, with New Yorkers from all walks of life shelling out thousands of dollars to outfit their homes with hidden rooms, bulletproof doors and a swath of other covert security systems to keep the baddies at bay should they come knocking.

The driving force is a decline in New Yorkers’ sense of safety — assaults in the Big Apple reached 28,000 for the first time on record last year  — and the perceptible shift toward volatile instability that many people feel is ramping up across all of American society, Humble and others say.

There's more at the link.

I suppose a panic room might be a defense against a psycopathic nitwit who can't add two and two together to get four.  Such an assailant might not be able to distinguish between his shoe size and his IQ.  However, for almost all other attackers, a panic room simply gives them an excuse to rob the homeowner blind while he/she/they cower in their illusory "safe place", unable to stop them.  What's more, check the police response times in your neighborhood.  It often takes cops ten to fifteen minutes or more to respond to most 911 calls.  During that time, while you're cowering in your safe room, what are the home invaders doing to you and/or your possessions?

It gets worse.  Panic rooms offer an attacker an opportunity to murder everyone in the building, because they make it almost impossible to escape.  If the attacker simply strikes a match or two and sets fire to the place, how are those in the panic room to get away from the flames?  Panic rooms pin down their occupants, fix them in place.  It's no good saying that they can have hidden exits to escape such a fate;  those exits have to come out somewhere, and if (as it almost always is) those exits are on the same property (much less in the same building), who's to say they won't have caught fire by the time those in the panic room want to use them?  And what if they use them, only to emerge surrounded by frustrated attackers who've been looking for them?

Tying yourself down to a supposedly secure location, but one where you're unable to defend yourself against attackers, is a disaster waiting to happen.  I'd much rather harden the exterior of my home, making it as difficult as possible for someone to break in, and then defend my family and property from inside.  Even more tactically suitable would be to prevent the attackers from approaching in the first place.  This is why one should select a home in as safe a neighborhood as possible (although in today's climate of highly mobile criminals, street riots and other crimes, that safety may be illusory).

One last point.  If you're in an apartment building or condo complex, you've made yourself hostage to the security-mindedness and safety-consciousness (or lack thereof) of everyone else living there.  Trapping yourself above ground level is always a security risk.  You don't need an attacker to strike a match:  a domestic accident can start a fire just as easily as a criminal.  How are you going to get out of your apartment and down to ground level?  Are there multiple exits, and paths to reach those exits?  Is the building constructed of relatively fireproof materials?  What businesses or attractive targets are in the building that might attract criminals to it?  Unless and until those questions are satisfactorily answered (and, if necessary, their answers have persuaded you to move to a safer location), a panic or safe room is a lot lower on the priority list.

I won't worry about a panic room.  After eighteen years living (and frequently fighting) in a war zone, I'd rather arm myself and inflict panic on my attackers!

Peter

The madness of bureaucratic edicts

 

I had to do a double-take when confronted with this report from Britain.

Ford could resort to limiting the sales of its petrol cars in the UK, as it struggles to meet the electric car sales targets laid down in the government’s Zero-Emissions Vehicle Mandate.

Introduced at the start of this year, the ZEV mandate requires manufacturers to ensure that a minimum percentage of their overall sales are battery-powered, or face fines of up to £15,000 for every ICE car sold over the limit. This year, the target is set at 22 per cent, however, while EV sales continue to grow due to fleet demand, private buyers are proving reluctant to make the transition and EV targets are looking hard to meet.

. . .

[Ford's] European boss of its ‘Model e’ electric car division, Martin Sander, told the Financial Times’ Future of the Car Summit: “We can’t push EVs into the market against demand. We’re not going to pay penalties. We are not going to sell EVs at huge losses just to buy compliance. The only alternative is to take our shipments of [engine-powered] vehicles to the UK down, and sell these vehicles somewhere else”.

Sander warned that the impact of such a move could mean inflated prices for traditional petrol and diesel cars if consumer demand for ICE engined vehicles can’t be met by potentially limited supply.

There's more at the link.

So a bureaucratic edict founded in "junk science" and hotly disputed by engineers and scientists will result in would-be motorists not being allowed to purchase the vehicles they want, but rather forced to buy alternatives that are less fit for purpose, a great deal more expensive (and polluting) to produce, and requiring extremely expensive battery replacement after a relatively short time in use.  Doesn't that demonstrate the brilliance and ingenuity of bureaucrats?  "If we can't change people's taste in cars, we'll simply force a third party (i.e. vehicle manufacturers) to deprive them of the opportunity to exercise that taste.  That'll show them!"

What's even nicer for them, said bureaucrats are unelected, not subject to public scrutiny in their work, and insulated against kickback from the electorate they're supposed to serve and protect.  This policy is like an automotive version of the famous "Yes, Minister" comedy clip.

Or, there's the old saw from the early days of the computer revolution (which I was taught as an entry-level programmer back in the 1970's):  "If builders built buildings the way programmers write programs, then the first woodpecker to come along would destroy civilization."  I daresay bureaucrats double the destruction factor!

Bureaucrats.  Parasites.  But then, I repeat myself . . .  Sadly, we have too many of them in America.  It's one area where Britain and the USA are proudly emulating one another in grinding their citizens' faces into the administrative mud.

Peter

I need information about solar panels, please

 

I hope some of my readers will be knowledgable enough to help with information about a small solar power installation.  I don't want a whole-house, major-league installation:  just enough to charge a couple of power stations in case of need, and perhaps an additional storage battery in due course.

I note that most of the solar power vendors want to charge several times the actual cost of the solar panels, which can be determined easily enough through looking at importers' prices.  I object strenuously to being "milked" like a cow for all the money they can get out of me!  In particular, many of them won't sell solar panels alone - only as part of an overall "solution" that's far more than I either want or can afford.

I'm looking for panels that can generate 500W-1,000W on a good, clear day, although I can go a bit higher if necessary.  I'd prefer to use 2-4 panels, but not more, for ease of portability.  They'll be mounted on a frame (fixed or on wheels) in my back yard, not on the roof.  They have to conform to these specifications:

• Total voltage:12-150V.
• Total power: 3000W max.
• Uses MC4 connectors or adapters.

If I need to reduce the power to charge smaller power stations, or to connect the panels to a power station for charging it, I'll also need the necessary equipment to do that.  They'll be used with Ecoflow and/or Bluetti power stations ranging from 500W to 5,000W in capacity.

If any reader can advise a reasonably good quality solar panel/s to fit that need, please let us know in Comments.  Please also advise on the type of frame that would be most suitable for the back yard, but would allow the panels to be brought under cover or otherwise protected when a Texas hailstorm arrives.  (Those are no fun:  right now, as I write these words, a team of roofers is stomping back and forth over my head, replacing our shingles as a result of a hailstorm last month.)

Also, if any reader can recommend a good introductory text, or video, or Web site to help me better understand the ins and outs of solar power, I'd be grateful.  Right now, I know only enough to be dangerous.  Thanks!

Peter

This may be TMI, but I know some readers may find it useful, so here goes

 

Regular readers will know that I underwent a kidney procedure last week.  It's a problem that often creeps up on a victim unawares, not revealing itself until it's fairly advanced;  and the consequences of dealing with it may be very uncomfortable and potentially embarrassing.  I'm writing this in the hope it may help readers who may one day face the same problem, so that they have more information than the doctors typically provide.  (I've been very unhappy by the casual, offhand, uninformative way two urologists have dealt with me so far.  Professionalism, it ain't!)

My problem is known as hydronephrosis.  Unfortunately, it did not make its presence felt until it was relatively far advanced, making treatment more difficult and possibly having already caused at least some permanent kidney damage.  Coming on top of another serious medical condition (of which more later), it's an unwanted, unneeded and excessively painful irritation, to put it mildly.

The first procedure, last week, implanted a stent in my ureter (the tube between kidney and bladder) to promote drainage.  Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to have worked as planned.  There's still a blockage, and at least one more procedure will be needed to deal with it.  A third may be necessary, but we're hoping and praying not.  Provided the kidney is still functional, that may make an end to the problem;  if the accumulated damage is too great, removal may follow.

Unfortunately, one of the side-effects of the stent has been to render my bladder completely uncontrollable.  When there's urine in it, no matter how much or how little, it's going to flow, whether I like it or not!  (It's also a rather painful process, but that's beside the point.)  That applies particularly whenever I stand up from a seated or lying position.  Within ten seconds, the urge to urinate becomes unstoppable.  Since I can't always make it to a bathroom in time, that means I have to temporarily wear adult incontinence diapers.

I've been astonished at the varying (in)effectiveness of most of the half-dozen products I've tried.  They almost all displayed one or more problems;  inadequate absorption (leading to embarrassing leaks), tearing, poor fit, discomfort and other issues.  The only one that (in my limited experience) fully lived up to its billing and worked exactly as advertised is the Tranquility Premium Overnight brand.

It's sizing chart was accurate, and its biggest size is definitely adequate for large people (something all other brands of similar size got wrong).  The wrapping claims absorption of up to 34 oz (approximately one quart) or 1,005 ml (approximately one liter), and it lives up to its claim.  Even under the heaviest flows, it stays in place and soaks them up without fuss or bother.  (A daytime version of the same product does almost as well, but the overnight version offers greater absorption, so it's the one I prefer to use).  It's relatively comfortable to wear, although conventional underwear should be worn on top in order to hold it in place, particularly when weighed down by contents, so to speak.

I was disappointed and frustrated to find that other brands simply did not live up to their claims.  I won't list all those I tried, because I don't see any point - none of them were worth what I paid for them.  The Tranquility product is the only one where I've been willing, after trying it, to place a bulk order in the confidence that it'll do the job.  Those of you who may face the need for incontinence diapers at some stage might want to make a note of the name, rather than waste your money on less effective products.  (No, Tranquility isn't paying me in cash or in kind to promote their diapers.  They don't even know I'm writing this.  I just want to let my friends and readers know about something that may be important to them if things go wrong - and believe me, something like this is a pretty fundamental need at times like that!)

I see the urologist again today to discuss the next procedure.  Hopefully, after that's done and time has been allowed for healing, I won't need these any more.  I'll cross my fingers and tie knots in what I can't cross, hoping for the best!

Peter

Battle of the bots: air drones versus ground drones

 

Twitter/X user Yam Peleg brings us a video clip of ground unmanned vehicles (drones) being attacked by suicide unmanned aerial vehicles (also drones).  Go watch.  It's worth your time.

One suspects this may be the future of ground combat between technologically capable adversaries.  Why risk a human life when you can send an automated system to do his job?  And why counter the adversary with a human when another automated system will be at least as, if not more, efficient?

As I've said before, in this technological age, I'm glad I'm not an infantryman any longer . . .

Peter

That's a lot of wind beneath their wings...

 

A report at The War Zone brought back many military (and other) memories.

After an extraordinary career spanning more than 80 years of service, and plenty of operational missions, the South African Air Force (SAAF) is preparing to retire its last C-47 Dakotas. Remarkably, the SAAF is moving to discard its C-47s while, at the same time, elsewhere around the globe, turboprop versions of the venerable transport continue to win orders.

The story of the Dakota in SAAF service stretches all the way back to 1943 when the service was fighting in World War Two. Most extraordinary, perhaps, is that among the very last Dakotas operated by the SAAF, most had been delivered during that conflict, having started life as C-47s manufactured for the U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF).

By June next year the South African Air Force will have been operating C-47 Dakotas continuously for 80 years, albeit much upgraded. Even more astounding is that some airframes still in active service have been there from the start, with the oldest (6825) delivered in Feb 1944.

The SAAF’s Dakota fleet, however, saw its most extensive combat service during the long-running conflict in South West Africa (now known as Namibia) and Angola, supporting South African Defence Force (SADF) units during the so-called Border War between 1966 and 1989. The SADF relied heavily on the Dakota for troop transport, resupply, medical evacuation, paratrooping, and other missions, its importance was heightened by the sanctions on Apartheid South Africa that complicated the procurement of alternative equipment.

By the 1980s, the SAAF operated the largest fleet of Dakotas anywhere in the world — close to 50 in total. However, the demise of minority rule in South Africa, and the end of the Border War, saw the Dakota — and the SAAF more generally — switch increasingly to peacetime missions, especially humanitarian work. At the same time, Dakota squadrons were rationalized, and the fleet was reduced in size.

There's more at the link.

The SAAF's C-47's flew in combat zones many times over the years.  They were the primary transport for secondary military air routes in South Africa and then-South West Africa (today Namibia), with C-130's and C-160's handling the busier routes.  During the Rhodesian War many SAAF C-47's and Alouette III helicopters were "loaned" to Rhodesia, supplementing that country's small Air Force for "Fireforce" anti-terrorist missions and cross-border operations into Zambia and Mozambique.  During South Africa's own Border War in the 1980's they were the shorter-range backbone of air transport operations, including one (shown below) that had an argument with a SA-7 Strela anti-aircraft missile and barely made it back to an airport in time to avoid crashing.

I flew many thousands of miles aboard SAAF C-47's, including one that was so old its logbook recorded it dropping paratroopers at Arnhem in 1944 as part of Operation Market Garden - the so-called "Bridge Too Far" airborne assault.  It was in remarkably good shape for an aircraft that had been "rode hard and put away wet" for almost 40 years by the time I flew in it.  That particular aircraft is still in service, having been converted to turboprop propulsion along with the SAAF's other surviving C-47's.  I also traveled aboard the civilian DC-3 transports of Air Cape, flying along the Garden Route to and from Cape Town.  Even in the 1980's, dirt and grass airfields were still in use at some of the small towns there, with no all-weather runways.  Things could get bouncy during takeoff and landing, and occasionally the pilot would have to make a couple of low passes to chase a cow or two off the runway before he could land!

The SAAF Museum still has a flying example of the C-47 as built, with its original Pratt & Whitney engines.  Here's its C-47 showing off at an air display.  It's not a very good video, but it's the best I could find on YouTube.

I wonder what the SAAF will buy to replace its C-47's?  There's no doubt that it needs a replacement, both for transport and for coastal maritime reconnaissance (both roles currently filled by the C-47), but the SAAF's aircraft fleet is in very parlous condition at present, with a minimal budget and very few skilled maintainers left to keep it flying.  The service is a pale shadow of what it was in the 1980's, when it was undoubtedly the premier air force in sub-Saharan Africa, with skills and operational experience on a par with most NATO air arms.

Despite its age and long overdue need for replacement, it'll be sad to see the last of the SAAF's C-47's take a final bow and retire into history.

Peter

Remember what I said about the FBI?

 

A few years ago I wrote an article titled "The FBI can no longer be trusted in any way, shape or form".  Given the latest news about the shenanigans of the General Services Administration, I'm thinking that warning should be applied to the entire federal bureaucracy, not just the FBI or the Justice Department.  Second City Cop reports:

So the feebs brought along props, used them in "evidence" photographs, then leaked the photos to the media. Laughable. And now it turns out that all those boxes of "classified" documents were:

• actually in the possession of the General Services Administration;
• packed by the GSA;
• delivered to Trump by the GSA;
• who then "tipped off" the feebs about supposed "classified" info.

. . . 

Even a third-world banana republic is more competent framing people that this outfit.

There's more at the link, including a link to another article providing further details.

I hope there will one day be an in-depth investigation into any and every government employee, department, agency and entity involved in the ongoing quasi-legal persecution of President Trump, with condign punishment meted out to everyone responsible for such shenanigans.  That's unlikely to happen under a Democratic Party administration, but there's always a chance that might change - one way or another.

Peter

How long until he's assassinated?

 

I note that the President-elect of Panama has vowed to stop the influx of migrants across his country towards the USA.

President-elect Jose Raul Mulino vowed to shut down a crucial migration gap through Panama that has been used by more than 500,000 migrants over the last year, signaling a shift in the country’s policy as the US continues to battle a crisis at its southern border, according to a report from Voice of America.

“Panama and our Darien [Gap] are not a transit route. It is our border,” Mulino said, according to the report.

Panama had previously helped bus migrants through the critical gap and allowed them to continue their journey north, a policy that has allowed thousands to reach the US border with Mexico.

There's more at the link.

That sounds like good news for us, but it's unlikely to succeed.  For a start, international organizations ranging from the United Nations to NGO's are all trying to facilitate migration from South America through Panama to Mexico, and ultimately to the USA.  To make matters worse, drug cartels in Mexico and countries south are making billions of dollars by transporting such migrants to our borders.  Finally, the Biden administration and the Democratic Party are openly admitting as many migrants as they can, in an attempt to change the future makeup of the US electorate to favor their policies.

With all those interests arrayed against him, how can President-elect Mulino hope to succeed?  I'm willing to bet large sums of money that he'll be "persuaded" through bribery and/or threats (the infamous "plata o plomo" question) to change his tune.  If he doesn't, I'm equally willing to bet that he'll be assassinated or otherwise removed from office (a fraudulent, rigged investigation for corruption, perhaps?) as quickly as possible.  He threatens too many powerful, rich constituencies with his proposal, and they won't stand for it.

I certainly hope he succeeds with his proposed policies . . . but I don't think he stands a snowball's chance in hell.  The forces arrayed against him, politically, criminally and monetarily, are simply too powerful.  I'd love to be wrong about that, but I doubt it.

Peter

How badly is the next harvest already affected?

 

As if we didn't have enough problems with our food supply already, it appears that the recent solar storms have created new difficulties for farmers.

The solar storm that brought the aurora borealis to large parts of the United States this weekend also broke critical GPS and precision farming functionality in tractors and agricultural equipment during a critical point of the planting season.

. . .

“All the tractors are sitting at the ends of the field right now shut down because of the solar storm,” Kevin Kenney, a farmer in Nebraska, told me. “No GPS. We’re right in the middle of corn planting. I’ll bet the commodity markets spike Monday.”

. . .

“Due to the way the RTK network works, the base stations were sending out corrections that have been affected by the geomagnetic storm and were causing drastic shifts in the field and even some heading changes that were drastic,” the dealership told farmers Saturday morning. “When you head back into these fields to side dress, spray, cultivate, harvest, etc. over the next several months, we expect that the rows won't be where the AutoPath lines think they are. This will only affect the fields that are planted during times of reduced accuracy. It is most likely going to be difficult—if not impossible—to make AutoPath work in these fields as the inaccuracy is most likely inconsistent.”

These automated systems have become critical to modern farming (often called “precision agriculture”), with farmers using increasingly automated tractors to plant crops in perfectly straight lines with uniform spacing. Precision agriculture has greatly increased the yield of farms, and a 2023 report by the US Department of Agriculture noted that more than 50 percent of corn, cotton, rice, sorghum, soybeans, and winter wheat are planted and harvested with “automated guidance.” Many modern tractors essentially steer themselves, with the oversight of a farmer in the cab. If the planting or harvesting is even slightly off, the tractors or harvesters could damage crops or plant crooked or inconsistently, which can cause problems during the growing season and ultimately reduce yield.

There's more at the link.

I called a couple of farming friends and asked them about this.  All agreed that for the big commercial farms, it might be a very serious problem indeed.  It seems that big automated tractors and other machinery electronically map the location of the seed rows they plant, and use those maps throughout the growing season to navigate to them to spread fertilizer, pull weeds, and eventually harvest the crop.  If the initial maps are not accurate, then future work on those seeds might miss them by feet or yards, meaning that they won't be properly fertilized and protected during their growth.  The harvest from those rows might be reduced substantially as a result.

Can farmers compensate manually for this failure of their automated systems?  I have no idea.  I presume that once seeds start to grow, the plants can be seen with the naked eye and fertilized, weeded, etc. accordingly, but how many commercial farms are set up to work that way?  As far as I know, most of them reduce their workers to a bare minimum prior to harvest, because automated systems do most of the work formerly done by hand.  If they have to revert to the old ways to care for a proportion of their crops, is that even possible today?  Do they have enough staff and older-style equipment to do so?

Another question is, how many farms, and how many seed rows, have been affected?  If farmers planted (say) 10% or 20% of their crops for this year in an inaccurate fashion, will yields be reduced by a similar proportion?  That might be disastrous for contracts, futures trades, exports, and all sorts of other industries that rely on farm production as an input for their own business activities.  What's more, I don't know whether crop insurance, that would pay out if bad weather, drought, fire, etc. affected a farm's production, will pay out over navigational errors like this.  I don't think the problem has ever arisen before, so it's possible the insurance policies don't even mention the issue.

I suspect smaller farms won't be as badly affected, as they're less likely to be able to afford the (very expensive) GPS-guided farm equipment involved.  However, they also don't produce a large proportion of the crops in this country.  "Big Ag" might be in for a torrid time this harvest season - and what will that do to food prices and availability, not just in this country, but around the world?  Commercial farms all over the world use the same technology these days, so the issue is unlikely to be confined to the USA.

Yet another reason, IMHO, to make sure our emergency preparations include a reasonable amount of food in reserve, just in case.  I'm going to keep an eye on the cost of frozen and canned vegetables, flour, etc.  I suspect some may become a lot more expensive as shortages bite.

Peter

Memes that made me laugh 209

 

Gathered from around the Internet over the past week.  Click any image for a larger view.

Sunday morning music

 

I'm enjoying the music of a late Baroque composer new to me, Johann Wilhelm Hertel.  He was prolific, leaving a very large corpus of music on his death, but is little performed today.

Here's his Concerto for Oboe in G Minor.  The soloist is Meike Güldenhaupt, performing with the Main-Barockorchester Frankfurt.

You'll find more of his works on YouTube.

Peter