Showing posts with label Detroit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Detroit. Show all posts

Saturday, November 7, 2020

"Vote rigging: How to spot the tell-tale signs" + an Update

From Nitay Arbel at his blog Spin, Strangeness, Charm comes a link to this BBC item from 2016, on vote-rigging election fraud in Africa.

Or Detroit, Philadelphia, Wisconsin, Tucson...

Vote rigging: How to spot the tell-tale signs

(Should open in a new window.)

In his own post, Mr. Arbel offers this summary of the Beeb article:
  • Anomalously high voter turnout. Even countries with mandatory voting (like Belgium or Australia, where you can get fined for not voting!) only reach 90-95% turnout.
  • Conspicuously high turnouts in specific areas. “Why would one particular area, or one individual polling station, have a 90% turnout, while most other areas register less than 70%?”
  • A large percentage of invalid votes/voided ballots. (I’d make an exception for countries with mandatory voting, like Belgium, where a certain percentage of voters would deliberately void their ballots by, e.g., writing helpful anatomical suggestions across it.)
  • More votes than ballot papers issued
  • Results that don’t match. (Even in Africa, citizen poll observers increasingly use cell phones to document vote counts.)
  • Inordinate delay in announcing the result: this can often reflect the need to either manufacture more of the desired votes, or to go back and disqualify more of the undesired votes. 
UPDATE: Mr. Arbel has posted three "Videos Worth Seeing".

To me, the most astonishing thing about the blatant fraud is that it is so blatant. Plus, frankly, Larry Correia is right (as usual):
I am more offended by how ham fisted, clumsy, and audacious the fraud to elect him is than the idea of Joe Biden being president. I think Joe Biden is a corrupt idiot, however, I think America would survive him like we’ve survived previous idiot administrations. However, what is potentially fatal for America is half the populace believing that their elections are hopelessly rigged and they’re eternally fucked. And now, however this shakes out in court, that’s exactly what half the country is going to think.
I am sure you never would have thought anyone would tell you a blog post discussing the process of auditing the books would be interesting, but if you think about it, if anyone could make it so, Larry Correia is The Man, and the application to election fraud is pretty clear.

Friday, June 19, 2020

Juneteenth

This is Juneteenth.

I had long known that on June 19th, 1865 -- Juneteenth -- the Emancipation Proclamation was announced in Texas.

That's the short version, of course, the "I learned it in elementary school" version. (Actually, I think it was in junior high.)

What I did not realize was that the man doing the announcing was General Gordon Granger. General Granger had been my great great grandfather's corps commander at the Battle of Chickamauga.

I'm not claiming any deep personal connection. It's unlikely General Granger had a clue who some random rifleman in Company K of the 22nd Michigan was, and G'G'Grandfather was still convalescing in a hospital in Detroit a year and a half after the battle, so he probably never saw Texas.

I think what impresses me more than the (tenuous) connection is the fact that, this morning, I actually learned something from a Pubic Service Announcement on TV.

Sunday, May 28, 2017

Product review, Detroit Holster "Hastings"

(Consider it a "First Impressions" review, with a follow-up to come, if you like...)

Some time ago I became aware of an outfit calling itself "Detroit Holster".

While not one of the Big Names in kydex benders, they have gotten good reviews, which intrigued me as a native of the Motor City.

As a native Detroiter, I confess to getting a bit of a kick from the fact that most of the holsters are named for significant Detroit roads: the 8 Mile (thank you, Slim Shady), the John R, the Dix, the Hastings...

When I signed up for Tom Givens' Combative Pistol class at the end of June, I decided that I needed an out-of-waistband holster for my Sig P320 Carry, with Streamlight TLR-1.¹

Most of the Big Name kydex benders are advertising a 6-8 week lead time, or more, whereas Detroit Holsters says
CURRENT LEAD IS APPROXIMATELY 2-4 WEEKS.  ** Most “8 Mile”, “Hastings”, “John R” and “MoTown”, models without light/laser are currently shipping in about 1 – 2 weeks **  
I placed my order for a Hastings OWB holster on Monday, May 15nd.

It arrived up on Friday, May  26th.  Note that the disclaimer says "without" light/laser, this was with.

With the Hastings, you have a choice between a paddle, and Tek-Lok; I went with the Tek-Lok, because I've seen paddle holsters come out on the draw²...

Holding the holster in my hands fit was very tight, enough so I was wondering if the draw would be awkward.

Based on 15 or 20 minutes of dry practice, draw and present, holster, repeat, the concern was not warranted. I'm hardly Mr Coordinated, so I'm sure the draw wasn't pretty, but I had no problems.³ With the Tek-Lok the holster does stick out far enough to be less than ideal for concealability, but that's what the Sub-Compact P320s are for.

I got black, out of some sort of frugality. They have lots of colors available. And patterns. Including The Colors and the Lone Star Flag. The gun is Flat Dark Earth, I probably should have spent the extra fin or sawbuck and gone with FDE or Coyote, but...

Pictures follow. Not sure what trick of the light caused the flat black holster appear to be brown in the pics...
Detroit Holster's Hastings OWB Holster.
©2017 DW Drang & The Cluemeter

Holster and gun.
©2017 DW Drang & The Cluemeter

Front view.
Like most holsters for light-bearing handguns, retention is on the light, and is pretty tight.
©2017 DW Drang & The Cluemeter

Back view of the Tek-Lok.
©2017 DW Drang & The Cluemeter

Business end view. That's the cell phone flash, not the light itself.
©2017 DW Drang & The Cluemeter
Regulars will recall I had Holster Issues at Ernest Langdon's Tactical Pistol class last October; while it is too soon to say that I, personally, will perform any better at Tom Givens class next month, I certainly should be better off, equipment-wise. (Not blaming the gear for my being behind the power curve, but I made some dubious decisions that resulted in self-induced snake-bite...) My review of the Tom Givens class will certainly include a more detailed gear review, so stay tuned..

I may need to order myself a Hastings in Old Glory for my 1911 Rail Gun w/Surefire U400.

Unless Detroit Holsters offers a custom "Spirit of Detroit" pattern4...







***
1. While I hate it when we, as Gun Geeks, start getting all specific about the gat we have, what features or options it has, etc., when buying a holster the specific model and any options, such as a light, matter.
2. This might have been operator error, i.e., not ensuring everything was securely in place, but still...
3. Wilderness Frequent Flyer belt, if anyone is wondering. 
4. The Spirit of Detroit - Wikipedia

Sunday, September 25, 2016

Short Takes

Things I feel like I ought to have something for, but not a lot...
***
Burlington: How many heard the shooter described as "Hispanic-looking" and thought "Oh, bioy here we go again"?

Now, a 20 year old Turk living in America for years may or may not be a Muslim, or a devout one,at any rate, but I can just picture the meeting where some brasshat vetted the APB and said "Yeah, so what does 'Levantine' mean again? Yeah, that's what I thought, no."

At least the warnings against "backlash" don't seem as severe as usual. Or even the media are getting tired of them.

OTOH, I haven't been watching the press conferences because every time they come  on there's Governor Inslee hinting at gun control to come...

Even if all he had was what looks like a Ruger 10/22. Damned Fudd guns.

BTW, that mall which is said to have been posted, I am told that only the theater there is posted.  Like many states with licensed carry, IF every public entrance  is clearly posted, then you can be asked to leave if caught; if you return armed, or refuse to leave, you can be charge with misdemeanor trespass.
***
Charlotte: Looks to me like, even if he didn't have a gun in his hand, the police had every reason to believe he was going for one.

And even if they were wrong, burning down the city is not a good way to get your point across. Look what it did for my hometown...

Also, blocking the Interstate is not a good idea, especially when you ar doing it in such a manner as to give motorists reason to believe that you are threatening them with grave bodily harm.

You might then give them reason to believe that their best course of action will be to put it in drive (or maybe "low") and move forward. 
Note that "drive on" is not meant to mean "deliberately run people down." But is they are pounding on your car, yelling threats, throwing rocks, trying to rock it and overturn it, well, they're playing stupid games, they should be prepared to win stupid prizes.

***
Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners has determines that the proper response of Los Angeles' Finest to armed suspects should be to... run away.

LAPPL - Los Angeles Police Protective League: Police Commission tells officers to run away, or else
The officers didn’t run away. The Commission, armed with video and their own political agenda broke down the footage frame by frame to determine that in the course of seconds, the first officer whose “position initially provided Officer C with a position of tactical advantage” lost the advantage as the suspect charged him. They wrote, “this advantage rapidly diminished as the Subject continued her advance, leaving him with neither distance nor effective cover as the Subject approached the space between two parked vehicles by which Officer C was located.”

Suspect charging from the front. Vehicles on either side. Where do you “redeploy?” Run backwards. This is absurd and it’s dangerous. What happens if the officer loses his footing with a charging suspect? What happens if the suspect runs into a nearby home or store and confronts its occupants with her weapon? What if the suspect also had a concealed gun? What is created when an officer turns tail and runs away is a large target. It’s called a back. The officer would put their lives in further jeopardy by running away if the suspect had a gun. At this close range, running away would create a self-caused danger to the officers and the public.

Chief Beck, who has absolutely no problem finding fault with officers, agreed with these officers’ actions. The Commission, with a grand total of zero years of experience in law enforcement, overruled the Chief’s decision. The Commissioners created an alternative set of facts that acknowledged that the officer was right to believe his life was in jeopardy but found fault with the officer shooting the knife-wielding suspect because the officer should have run away.
Hmmm, I wonder how the mayor would feel if his protective detail yelled "gun!" and...ran away?



Tuesday, January 26, 2016

One would think...

...that the owner's manual for an automobile would include information like what replacement windshield wipers it takes, and how to replace them, would one not?

If one drives a hand-me-down* Dodge product, one would be wrong.

Thanks, Obamamobile!

***
*I expressed my distaste for buying an Obamamobile, but Mrs. Drang was convinced she needed a car that size.
Note that several years later she went to a Ford Fiesta.
That reminds me, I think I'll check out the owner's manual on that thing...

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Neither Ford nor Mopar...

A few other sets of wheels that caught my eye at the Federal Way Lions Club Car Show.

Nissan S-Cargo. Who knew the Japanese were given to whimsical punning car names?  Of course, lately they've just had a computer generate meaningless ones...

 Myself, I tried to avert my eyes and ignore the thing, but Mrs. Drang wanted pictures, and her Korean phone refused to take it.
 Mu high school buddy Jimmy had a Chevelle SS.  Good times, good times...

Yes, a VW Beatle..
A bit customized...
Did I say "a bit"...?
When they fired it up, it sounded not unlike a top fuel dragster...

Ponies, and their siblings






This next one is just gorgeous.
Growing up in Detroit, of course, even if one did not have a direct connection to the auto industry, you probably had a relative who worked at one of the plants or maybe in an office.
Not surprisingly, tyhe Henry Ford Museum/Greenfield Village held a classic car show every year, and one of the guys' fathers won with his painstakingly restored Model A.
I told this guy I thought that he'd win, too, if he wanted to flat-bed this back there...



Apparently I didn't get a pic of the rumble seat...
 64 1/2!






Mopar!

The local Lions Club had their annual car show a couple of weeks ago, the photos have been languishing on my hard drive...



As much as I liked my Dakota, I wouldn't own one again until someone I trust assures me that they've started putting a decent transmission in them, something that will stand up to 75k+ highway miles, no towing.
That said, a Shelby Dakota is tempting...


 Not really Mopar, per se, but fully accessorized...


This baby is for sale...

Our pokey little motoring show, held in the local shopping mall parking lot for the last half-dozen years or so, is turning into quite the concourse...

Monday, August 26, 2013

The news from home

Inbox clearing of some news items from my hometown, Motown:
Art Follows Money. Detroit Has None. | Via Meadia  The Detroit Institute of Arts has quite a collection, including a fascinating set of medieval and renaissance armor and weapons

Also, “We Don’t Need Monet—We Need Money” | Via Meadia.  It would be nice of Dad could continue to draw his pension...

If there is one person responsible for the conditIon Detroit is in now... How Coleman Young Ruined Detroit | Power Line

Just a week or so after the NYPD got spanked for it's "Stop and Frisk" policy, the DPD decides to doub;e down on stupid: Detroit police 'stop-and-frisk' policy - Fox 2 News Headlines

Related?: No Charges for Detroit Cop who Snatched Phone from Reporter, Stole SIM Card, so it Could "Not be Used as a Weapon" | PINAC

For anyone wanting a good look at the rise and fall of an American city, I highly recommend Loren Estleman's "Detroit Crime Series."*



*In chronological order as the stories take place:
His Amos Walker stories also take place in and around a dying industrial wasteland.
Many of the late Elmore Leonard's novels also take place in Detroit.

Thursday, August 1, 2013

I did not know that

I did not know that Marge Piercy is from Detroit.

Then again, I'm about 99.99% sure that this is the only thing by her I've read:
Attack of the Squash People by Marge Piercy
And thus the people every year
in the valley of humid July
did sacrifice themselves
to the long green phallic god
and eat and eat and eat.
They're coming, they're on us,
the long striped gourds, the silky
babies, the hairy adolescents,
the lumpy vast adults
like the trunks of green elephants.
Recite fifty zucchini recipes!

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

As a native of Detroit I find this appalling

See, people still recoil when they learn that I'm from "Murder City", even though many cities had higher murder rates than Motown for most of those years. And, in truth, Detroit has been a rougher town than most, going back to Pontiac's Rebellion, at least.

Still.

Time For That ‘National Conversation’ About Chicago: 11 Shot, Three Dead Today | Jammie Wearing Fools, and Instapundit » Blog Archive » GUN CONTROL ON RAHM EMANUEL’S WATCH: Chicago murders top Afghanistan death toll. (h/t Bill.  Among others.)

And my guns are at fault? Taking my guns away from me will fix violence in a town where everything I own was illegal until recently, and the Powers That Be are fighting every change every inch of th way?

These Windy City types need to keep in mind that, when Al Capone tried to move into Detroit, the Purple Gang ran him out...


Sunday, June 24, 2012

Kinda surprised it took this long...

My father sent me this news item today:
Two firefighters hurt as blaze doused at old Redford High School | The Detroit News | detroitnews.com
Detroit— Two firefighters were injured battling a two-alarm blaze that has been extinguished at the former Redford High School.
Fire officials received a call at 9:56 a.m. Thursday and found the three-story brick building ablaze.
No one was inside the building at the time of the fire but the school suffered extensive interior damage, Detroit fire Lt. Gerod Funderberg said. The blaze began in a second-floor gymnasium.
Funderberg said the two injured firefighters were taken to the hospital. One suffered from heat exhaustion and the other suffered a twisted knee, he said.
Meijer Inc. plans to build a 217,000-square-foot retail and grocery store at the site at Grand River Avenue near Six Mile in Detroit.
The company's plans call for demolishing the school, which opened in 1924 and closed in 2007.
Does Ted Nugent know that our alma mater caught fire?  Does he know it closed, and is going to be turned into a Meijer's Shifty Takers Thrifty Acres?  Does he care?

Note I don't ask if he knows that he and I went to the same high school. Let alone cares...

Saturday, May 12, 2012

R.I.P.

Carrol Shelby, 1923-2012.

Go like hell.

UPDATE: Original post made from The Salt Mines on my cell, so no links.

Carroll Shelby - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Carroll Shelby, Creator of Cobra Sports Car, Dead at 89 - Driver's Seat - WSJ

Thus far, I have few real regrets in life. Passing on the Omni GLH1 I found in the used car lot up the street from Mrs. Drang's house when we first started dating, and not hanging on to the 68 Mustang2 with the 318 Cobra Jet I bought as a commuter for my summer job at Chrysler's while in college are two. For the first I had no need of a second car, and for the Mustang, well, there is no way I could have invested the time, money , or effort to rebuild that, um, rusty, abused thing.


1. "GLH"="Goes Like Hell"--a turbo-charged 4-banger econo-box! With no external signs of that, if you overlooked that air intake in the hood.
2. Among other things, the preferred method of dealing with snowy and icey roads in Southern Michigan at the time was to liberally apply sodium chloride, and this had been a "winter car", so it was pretty "holey"--I lost some fishing gear from the trunk that way. Also, the engine mounts were bad, and the water pump vibrated so much the fan mounting bolts had cut the mounting holes into slots--it was several cut water hoses before I figured that out. The headlights worked, but the dash lights didn't, nor did the fuel gauge. Yeah, I sure do miss that car...

Monday, May 7, 2012

*snicker*

Now, growing up in Detroit, Unlimited Hydroplane racing on the Detroit River was a big deal every summer.

Imagine my surprise on settling in Seattle and learning that the same ritual occurs every summer on Lake Union Washington; Mrs Drang heard as much about Miss Pay 'n' Pack and Miss Budweiser growing up as I did.

Today at work I learned that The Salt Mines are going to sponsor their own entry in this year's Seafair races: Miss Management.