Utilitarian beauty

Cleaver, made by knifemaker Todd Hunt, of Seymour, Indiana.

You have the Right to remain silent....

But not until they tell you that you do.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court says prosecutors can use a person's silence against them if it comes before he's told of his right to remain silent.

Read the whole thing.

I wonder if this would allow a presumption of guilt to attach itself to Lois Lerner?

Yeah, probably not. The rules only apply to us. Not them.

All knowlege is valuable.

That's my motto anyway. Here's a couple of things that are (or could be) good to know.

That's a phonetic alphabet, as most of my readers will know. Everyone sees people use the words on gun-centric or patriot type blogs now and then. Usually in the form of Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (What the Fuck), Tango Uniform (Tits Up), etc. It can be fun. I've done it myself. Almost everyone can figure out what the intended spelling is when they see the words (Whiskey is W, Tango is T, and so forth). They do this and think that they know how to use the phonetic alphabet.



But how many people are fluent enough in it to actually seemlessly comunicate over a static ridden radio or bad phone line - the way it was intended to be used? Can you think of a longish word in your head and smoothly spell it using the correct phonetic words without having to struggle to remember?

If you want to learn to do this, I found it helpful when I did it to first memorize the phonetic alphabet, and then as I was driving around town at work I would pick street signs and billboards and try to spell the words using the phonetic alphabet. It comes in handy for me when I'm having to talk to dispatch on the radio at work. Do this during your commute to and from work and in a very short time you'll be reeling it off like a pro :)

Not having ever been in the military myself, I found the following chart interesting...

An old partner at work and I developed a similar, but much shorter, set of hand signals. We used them when working skittish animals and we didn't want to shout to each other or use the radio to give away someone's position. I like this expanded and better set of signals. They could be useful in many situtations during hard times, both to communicate quietly with people - or to understand what other people might be communicating to each other.... but only if you take the time to learn them.

Girl Friday - 6/14/2013 - Natalia Velez

This week's Girl Friday is Columbian model

Natalia Velez

Hit the jump for more...

There's a what, running where?

We get most of the calls that we run at work from our voicmail system. Some of the calls, though, come to us from Police Dispatch. Since we're Animal Control, they tend to put the "new people" in charge of dispatching to us so they can learn the job without risking human lives. Makes sense.

Unfortunately, some of the Dispatch Noobs don't do as well as others. The newbie we have now is difficult to understand at times. When you ask her to repeat something, she'll usually say it exactly the same way. Usually this is irritating.

Sometimes its funny.

Dispatch: "Police Dispatch to Animal Control"

Me: "Animal Control, Go Ahead."

Dispatch: "Small Black Man running down the street. 1st Street southbound from Main. PD is enroute also."

Me: (WTF.. A small black man???) "Dispatch say again, you were unreadable."

Dispatch: "Small Black Man running down the street. 1st Street southbound from Main. PD is enroute also."


Me: "Uhh.... a small black what?"

Dispatch: "Spelling: L-A-M-B"

Cupboards still bare....

Ms Paladin and I went to Cabelas last weekend, 'cuz its CABELAS. I walked down the ammo aisle to have a look-see. I haven't been ammo shopping since the most recent ammocalypse following the gun ban scare.

Shit.

Used to be three aisles for ammo. Shotgun shells, rifle, and handgun. Now they've combined rifle and pistol into one little aisle... and there's still lots of empty spaces on the shelves. Plenty of 7.62x39 at a decent price, which was nice, but absolutely no ammunition for any handgun I own (38 spl, .357 magnum, 9mm, .380). I had hoped that things would have improved over the past couple of months. Guess not.

Don't get me wrong.... I'm not out of ammo. Back when you could still find range fodder easily I was on the shoot one - buy two program. I still have plenty set aside, but it makes me reluctant to go to the range and shoot up what I have until things get back to "normal".  I'm also playing with the notion of buying another handgun in a caliber that I don't currently stock.... but I'd like to be able to, I don't know, SHOOT IT.

Unprepared Panic Gun/Ammunition Buyers are really starting to irritate me. Maybe this will finally be the impetus for me to take the re-loading plunge.

When I was taking this picture....

I had the caption already in my head before I pushed the shutter button....