Now this is funny

Apparently now exercise in an exercise in "white supremacy".   I guess somebody had better warn all those wonderful black athletes out there about this.  With this logic, Jesse Owens wasn't a hero who destroyed Adolf Hitler's attempts to portray Germans as a "master race", but rather someone working to further enshrine Jim Crow.  I'm guessing this would have come as something of a surprise to him, to put it mildly.

Really, one has to wonder whether progressives really believe the things they say, or whether they're really Klansmen in disguise trying to get black people killed by worsening an already horrific rate of cardiac disease and diabetes.  The more I see out of these guys, the more that second hypothesis makes sense.

File under "collusion"

Apparently officials at the Centers for Disease Control removed statistics on defensive firearm use from public view after pressure from the Brady Campaign/Handgun Control/Violence Policy Center.   But don't worry, public officials aren't in the pocket of leftist interest groups, except they are, just like with the Twitter censorship files.

In related news, Transportation Secretary Peter Buttigieg did the nation a favor by going on maternity leave (again) during tense negotiations for rail union contracts.  Ordinarily, I'd be in favor of him, say, actually being on the job during a tense time like this, but given the condition of the streets of South Bend, maybe it's better he was sipping port instead.

Interesting bit of smuggling

Five Russian nationals (and two emigres) have been charged with arms smuggling into Russia, including about 375 pounds (thousands of rounds) of  what appears to be .338 lapua and 6.5mm Creedmoor sniper ammunition.   Now granted, these are two of the best long range rounds out there, but it's also worth noting that Creedmoor and Lapua ballistics are actually fairly comparable to that of the 30.06, a round which Russia has had access to for 80 years.  It's also worth noting that the Lapua was developed in the 1980s, and the Creedmoor in 2007.  There is really no rocket science to effective long range rounds, so it's telling that Russia desires to import this.

I don't know exactly what is going on here, but reports like this, as well as those suggesting that Russia was starting to use 40 year old artillery ammunition (have they never heard of "FIFO" in the Russian Army, use the old stuff first?), suggests that Russia has been dealing with some serious issues that are only now coming up.

Wouldn't like to be a Russian soldier in Ukraine, to put it mildly, with this kind of record.

Genius in administration

Secretary of Transportation Peter Buttigieg, tasked in part with nagging the rest of us to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to stop global warming, apparently is flying around in private jets.  As I've said more times than I care to count, I'll start taking global warming seriously when guys like Buttigieg do.  

Genius in legislation

Oregon's new gun control law apparently bans pretty much every weapon used by the police, and does not have an obvious exception for the police.   Oopsie.  Or maybe it's by intent to turn the whole state into a "Mad Max" kind of war zone?

No matter where you stand on guns and the Second Amendment,

...you've got to be scared at President Biden, who noted yesterday that he's trying to "limit the number of bullets in a cartridge."  Given that the number of bullets in a loaded cartridge is always 1, or possibly zero in the case of a "blank", the only thing that could be done by passing a law or regulation to "limit the number of bullets in a cartridge" would be to possibly ban shotgun shells, which are (along with other long guns like rifles) responsible for the fewest firearm murders, accidents, and suicides.

It's bad enough that our President does not apparently know what "shall not be infringed" means, but it's even worse that Biden doesn't even know basic terminology and facts about the debate.  If you want to reduce gun (and overdose) deaths, you stop allowing "big players" (including government) to bend markets to their whims, reduce barriers to effective mental health care, and finally you prosecute the "minor" gun crimes like straw purchases and illegal possession of a firearm.  

On the flip side, even if you completely banned assault weapons, and were completely effective and nobody substituted another weapon for an "assault weapon", you would save maybe a few hundred lives per year.  Let's go with what might work.

Brilliance in rhetoric

Putin's New Stalin's cook, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has "warned" the U.S. not to designate his "Wagner Group" as a terrorist organization because, apparently, organizations designated as terrorist organizations sometimes act like terrorist organizations.  Yes, I'm sure that it wasn't the desire to attack the U.S., but rather the shame at being called what they were and are, that inspired Al Qaida to attack the Twin Towers.

In related Stalinist news, Russian troops are being sent into battle with "stylish" uniforms (some designed by Raisa Gorbacheva, a.k.a. Mrs. Mikhail Gorbachev) and gear that is leading to.....Russian soldiers dying of hypothermia.  Writing as a guy who's camped at -20F while hunting (starting the day at about 0F), let's just say that it's not a good sign that Russian uniforms are not working when the nighttime mercury is getting to 20F in Kharkiv.  They have apparently taken lessons from the Wehrmacht instead of Tolstoy.  

(for reference, one of the blankets I used while camping at -20F was a Soviet surplus blanket....I'm guessing some of those poor guys would love to have that about right now)

Say what?

Navy spokesmen have admitted that none of the 18 midshipmen who asked for a religious exemption to the vaccine mandate received one, but that none of them are being denied a degree or a commission.  One has to wonder exactly what is meant by the requirement, then.  Perhaps they're just giving them horrible postings that are not desired?  Somehow I'm guessing that people are being "rather creative" in their public relations in Annapolis.

In other news, the U.S. is still in the World Cup, and Germany and Mexico are not.  Looks like the end times may be upon us.