Friday Night Open Thread

Posted by Basil on 18 December 2020, 10:00 pm

I love Weird Al.

Do you have something you’d like to share? A link? A joke? Some words of wisdom? A topic to discuss? It’s our nightly Open Thread, and you have the floor.

Choose Your Weapon

Posted by Oppo on 18 December 2020, 8:00 pm

From a young age I was aware of the contention between advocates of Ginger vs. Mary Ann, and the M16 vs. the AK-47. While thoroughly conversant in the minutiae of the former, I didn’t know the finer points of the latter debate until I read this article:

World’s Best Rifle? Russian AK-47 vs. U.S. M-16
nationalinterest.org | Dec. 11, 2020 | Fritz W. Ermarth
…
Like the M16 and many other rifle arms since the early 1900s (and a few pistols, most notably Israel’s Desert Eagle), the AK-47 is gas operated. That means that the recycling of the action after a round is fired is not the product of the blowback of the fired round, as in most pistols and a few submachine guns like the old Thompson, but by the pressure of the hot, highly pressurized gas in the barrel of the newly expended round. Through a little port in the barrel, this highly pressurized gas can push back to operate the action and reload another round for fire, whether automatic or semiautomatic.
But there is a big difference between the Kalashnikovs and the M16 types. The former use a plunger-type action, essentially a rod whose front end captures the pressure of the round ignition, pushing the rod back to recycle the action. This is called a long-stroke gas piston. The latter use a hollow tube to return the gas pressure to the action to be recycled, which is called direct gas impingement. The AK-47 is more reliable in dirty conditions than the M16 variants, while the latter is more accurate in combat situations. Here’s why: the AK-47 design protects the action from contaminating powder debris. That way, it doesn’t foul up so quickly—but it has a long metal rod bobbing back and forth that interferes with accurate shooting. The gas action design of the M16s doesn’t have that long rod bouncing in the way, so it is more accurate in automatic or rapid-fire semiautomatic action. But it brings the polluted gas back to the action, and therefore fouls more easily than the AK-47. We’ve dealt with this problem for decades now, and we are still struggling with it.

Please excuse the fact that this is filed under the category “One-Shots.”

It’s the New Man-Made Global Warming

Posted by Oppo on 18 December 2020, 6:00 pm

Coroner: State Included a Murder-Suicide in Grand’s COVID Deaths [Winter Park, Colorado]
Sky-Hi News | 12/16/2020 | Amy Golden
The Grand County coroner is disputing the number of COVID-19 deaths the state is reporting for the county.
Brenda Bock told county commissioners on Tuesday that the state is reporting two additional COVID-19 deaths in Grand, which she believes should not be included.
The coroner maintains that only one person in the county has died from COVID-19, while two more people have died with it, for a total of three COVID-related deaths in the county. However, the state is reporting five for Grand.
In disputing the numbers, Bock explained that a couple who died of gunshot wounds late last month have been included in the state’s numbers. The state told Bock those deaths are included in the count because the two tested positive for COVID-19 within 30 days before their death.
Bock called the state’s reporting “false and misleading.”
“The two cases were autopsied, and the cause of death was listed as ‘blunt force injuries due to a gunshot wound,’” Bock said of what police determined to be a murder-suicide. “Nowhere did the pathologist say COVID was the cause of death.”

Montezuma County Disputes Colorado State’s Coronavirus Death Count: Man With Staggering .55 Blood-Alcohol Content Dies; Officials Call It A COVID-19 Death
Durango Herald | 05/14/2020 | By Jim Mimiaga
The Montezuma County Coroner’s Office is disputing the state’s claim of a third fatal case of the coronavirus in Cortez, saying the person died of alcohol poisoning.
County Coroner George Deavers said the person tested positive for COVID-19, but an investigation by him and the pathologist determined the cause of death was ethanol toxicity. The person’s blood-alcohol content was 0.55, or almost seven times the legal driving limit of 0.08 in Colorado, Deavers said. A BAC of 0.3 is considered lethal.
“COVID was not listed on the death certificate as the cause of death. I disagree with the state for listing it as a COVID death, and will be discussing it with them this week,” he said Tuesday.

Swiped Off the Internet: I Sort of Remember

Posted by Oppo on 18 December 2020, 4:00 pm

I Think We Can Guess the Answer

Posted by Oppo on 18 December 2020, 2:00 pm

As Leftists Double Down on Lockdowns, Are We Being Played?
American Thinker | December 14, 2020 | Andrea Widburg
I’m a pandemic skeptic.  I know that the Wuhan virus is real and dangerous for some people.  Still, I cannot get excited about a disease with an average 99% survival rate.  I believe that the Democrats weaponized the virus to defeat President Trump, and I think Democrats are still working the virus to weaken working- and middle-class Americans (i.e., Trump-supporters) while enriching the Democrats’ corporate cronies.  I’m cynical, paranoid, or a realist — or all three.  This weekend, information emerged supporting my viewpoint.
We keep being told that Americans are dying like flies, far in excess of their normal numbers.  I accept that there are excess deaths.  I’m sure that the virus increased our annual death rate in spring, when many elderly people died in the first wave after Democrat governors trapped them in retirement homes and then sent in infected people.  I’m also sure that more Americans are dying from cancer, heart disease, depression, suicide, murder, and spousal abuse thanks to the cruelty of the lockdowns.
What offsets all this is that fewer Americans are dying from the flu.  That’s either because masks help prevent the flu (although we’re told our mask use is all wrong for stopping the virus) or because a lot of the deaths marked as Wuhan virus deaths are in fact flu deaths.  No matter — take a gander at these data:
Deaths in the USA over the years…
2010: 2.5M
2011: 2.5M
2012: 2.5M
2013 :2.6M
2014: 2.6M
2015: 2.7M
2016: 2.7M
2017: 2.8M
2018: 2.8M
2019: 2.9M
2020: 2.5M (as of November)
Where is the massive spike?(h/t @MillerStream)
— Dr. David Samadi, MD (@drdavidsamadi) December 13, 2020

Conclusion: By now, it’s well known that Covid tests give false positives. How many of these false positives are actually “the flu”? How many are just “the common cold”? Why does the CDC report daily case numbers & deaths for Covid and not for the flu?
— Harvey Staub (@HarveyStaub1) December 13, 2020

These assertions are contested. Argue among yourselves, humans.

– Emu