Six more weeks of winter?
The groundhog (Marmota monax), also known as the woodchuck, is a rodent of the family Sciuridae, belonging to the group of large ground squirrels known as marmots. Today is the day we honor them.
(from Groundhog Day) Once a year, the eyes of the nation turn to this tiny Pennsylvania hamlet…
Punxsutawney Phil… the world’s most famous weatherman, the groundhog… who, as legend has it, can predict the coming of an early spring. The question we have to ask ourselves today is, “Does Phil feel lucky?” Then it’s the same old schtick. The guy with the big stick raps on the door. They pull the little rat out. They talk to him. The rat talks back, and then they tell us what’s gonna happen.
Isn’t he cute?
You like your guys with prominent upper teeth?
“This February at: and seconds… Punxsutawney Phil, the seer of seers… prognosticator of prognosticators… emerged reluctantly, but alertly… in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania… and stated in Groundhogese… “I definitely see a shadow. ”
Celebrate the holiday, you’ve earned it. ‘I’ve got you, babe’ (Credit to Sonny & Cher)
I didn’t mention MLK Day on the blog. Does this make up for it?
Italian–American Groundhog
Bullet Points:
** Is this PaulM?
** Seid Mir Muhammad Alim Khan was the last emir of Bukhara, ruling from 1911 to 1920, right at the moment when the old world of Central Asian monarchies was coming to an end. When the Red Army approached Bukhara in 1920, the emir discovered that almost no one was ready to defend him. After the bombardment of the Ark, he fled — first to eastern Bukhara, then to Afghanistan, where he lived in exile until his death in 1944. In Afghanistan, Alimkhan remarried and had children. His family stayed there for decades, until 1979, when the war forced them to leave. They eventually settled in the United States. One of his daughters later worked for Radio Liberty, which feels almost ironic, considering her father’s fate.
** When you send your daughter off to be educated.
** In Los Angeles.
** Canadian life? In Chinese…
** The Real History of Islam with Raymond Ibrahim – Well done for a short.
** What are you doing to save the planet?
** Barrel racers have skills. Should you date one? Up to you. Raise your daughters to be dangerous, not delicate.
** Five things will kill a man graveyard dead. An AF Special Forces guy who lives near me suggested he was going to take a down-and-out sort on a target-shooting session. I said, “I only have two words for you – Chris Kyle.” I know the person in question…
** Looking for work – Job Opportunity!
** Trust fund babies are discussed here. I’ve seen a few pull out of the death spiral, but most never develop the kind of character those who have struggled to develop do. I have known a few wealthy people who have said, “I will never burden my children with money.” They love their kids.
** It’s not such a big thing in the US anymore. But if you want to rake in some easy money in the EU or Canada, here you go! Go GREEN to get the green.
** What is the point of a college degree?
** Oh, what fun you can have with a G-550
** Over a million Russian men have been killed, disabled, or are missing in Ukraine. Over a million additional Russian men have left to avoid service in Ukraine.
Would the New Face Launch 1000 ships?
Will Russia Cede Vladivostok to its Ally Red China?
Or will China merely march in and take it from a Russia that has gored its ox in Ukraine?
My friend, Claudio, and I discussed this in face-to-face square-offs. And there was a Strategypage opinion on the matter. Let’s go first to Strategypage.
(Begin Strategypage) China is having more difficulty recovering Russian territories on China’s Pacific coast. This includes the Russian city and port of Vladivostok. More than a hundred years ago, Russia forced a weakened China to surrender most of Manchuria and what eventually became the city and port of Vladivostok. For over a thousand years, this area had been occupied by the Chinese, who called the largest city Yongmingcheng, Hǎishēnwǎi, or Hai Shen Wai, depending on who was ruling the region.
Vladivostok also served as a naval base for Russian warships in the Pacific. Russia wants to hold onto Vladivostok because it is the major Russian possession on the Pacific coast. Despite that, if China applies enough pressure, Russia might be persuaded to part with Vladivostok and avoid a nuclear war with China.
Currently, Russian military forces are weak. The Russian army is largely committed to the war in Ukraine, and the Russian fleet is divided between the Northern Fleet in northwestern Russia, the Baltic Fleet in the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea Fleet in the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea flotilla, and the Pacific Fleet. The Russian Navy has 180 major warships, including corvettes, destroyers, cruisers, an aircraft carrier, and 79 submarines. There are also over a hundred smaller auxiliaries, including patrol boats, minesweepers, landing ships, transports, as well as aircraft for maritime patrol and naval base defense.
China and Russia negotiated an agreement in 2008 that immediately returned to China 18,000 hectares of uninhabited territory near the Pacific Coast. Chinese maps still show much larger inhabited Russian territories as regions claimed by China. This includes Vladivostok. Russia sees this as a concession too far. If China strongly insists while Russia remains militarily weak and unwilling to wage a nuclear war with China over the issue, the Chinese demands may be met.
Russia should also keep in mind how forcefully China took back Hong Kong from the British. According to several treaties between China and Britain, Hong Kong was returned to China in 1997. This was after 156 years of British rule that brought security and much prosperity to the territory. British rule spared Hong Kong from the civil wars and general mayhem occurring in China. During World War II, Hong Kong was occupied by Japanese troops from late 1941 to August 1945. After the war, Hong Kong quickly recovered economically. Since Hong Kong returned to Chinese control in 1997, the area has become a special economic zone that, despite some meddling by corrupt Chinese officials, has prospered. China expects the same pattern to occur if it regains Vladivostok.
So far, the Russians are not as willing to cede Vladivostok as the British were to cede Hong Kong. China may offer Russia an offer they can’t refuse to get Vladivostok back. Such a demand risks nuclear war, but China believes Russia won’t risk it. Not only does China have a growing number of ballistic missiles in silos aimed at Russia, but larger, more modern, and reliable conventional forces. Even before Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, this was the case. With the enormous losses Russia has suffered in Ukraine, the disparity between Russian and Chinese conventional forces is even greater. Chinese conventional forces aren’t going to advance on Moscow and St Petersburg. Instead, the Chinese army is capable of taking the Russian Pacific Coast territories.
Russia might threaten nuclear war over this, but the Chinese ground forces can quickly overwhelm the depleted forces by troops sent to Ukraine, Russian forces on the Pacific coast, and then demand peace talks. Russia has already threatened NATO countries with nuclear attack over Ukraine, making similar threats to China means Russia could find itself confronted by the prospect of a two-front war that it is incapable of winning. (End Strategypage)
(VM Commentary) China would love to have Vladivostok, but it’s Russia’s only warm water port, and other than their facilities in the Sea of Okhotsk (Petropavlosk Kamchatski, etc., which can be bottled up in the Sea of Okhotsk very easily), there is very little infrastructure on that end of the 11 time zones. If they lost that, they’d lose Siberia – and the Tyumen Region, which is the peach China is really after – Russian Oil. Without oil and Siberian resources, there’s not much left to Great Russia. During WW2, the Russians moved their infrastructure east of the Urals, Yekaterinburg (Catherine-the-Great’s City) – that’s what China wants. Everything east of the Urals. It would never settle for only strategic Manchuria while the oil wealth is a hundred miles away.
Russia would launch its nukes to save that because (other than Ukraine, and we know how that’s working out), there’s not much else that matters financially. Yes Moskow and St. Petersburg are where the rich people live and where the power resides, but the real money is in Siberia and the Tyumen Region. The Russians hollowed out their Siberian Army and sent it to Ukraine, where it has been turned into scrap because they know that they’ll use nuclear weapons to halt a Chinese advance into Eastern Russia. It’s all they have. China can roll the dice on that if it wants to, but the Russians would launch against the big cities and ports, not just to halt the advancing Communist Chinese ground armies. That area is absolutely existential to Russia.
The only portion of the Russian navy that is not completely rotten is the small, operationally effective fleet of 16 SSBNs. The Russian surface fleet would not last long against a concerted Chinese onslaught. The Russians do have SSNs, but they are spread thin. Because the Russians are not a trusting lot, the Strategic Rocket Forces are a distinct branch, separate from the Navy, focused on silo-based and road-mobile ICBMs. Control over both lies with the general staff and the president (Putin). For the Chinese to keep from being obliterated at somewhat point-blank range, they’d need to co-opt BOTH the Strategic Rocket Forces and the Naval SSBN commands in the Northern and Pacific fleets. (For the most part, the SSBN’s go into the Arctic Ice and don’t move until their patrols end.) Thus, the VM Commentary departs from that espoused by Strategypage. (End VM Commentary)
From the Mail Bag:
Q – What flavor is a fentanyl lollipop from the first aid kit?
A – Mixed berry – or so I’ve been told.
Identify the Aircraft
1
2
3
Parting Shot
End
(1) I think that’s the Douglas Jetmaster.
(2) Never seen that nose turret on it, but the rest looks like the XB-19.
(3) E-37B. L3/Harris.
– Kle.
Very good!!
There’s a meme out there showing a guy chopping through ice while asking “Where’s that groundhog”. He didn’t look happy.
Launching ships – heading the other direction, maybe…
Five things – didn’t mention supersonic telephone poles.
Chopping through ice to find the frozen hog. Portends a long winter
1 – Douglas XB-43 Jetmaster – 2 prototypes made – never put into production
2 – Consolidated XB-24N Liberator prototype
3 – EA-37B Compass Call – A Grumman G-550 Converted by L3Harris – Repeat from yesterday
Outstanding
You must get your data on Russian losses in the SMO in Ukraine from Facebook where you get everything else.
There are a number of sources out there. Pick your source. You can opine that the Russians haven’t lost their prime armor too, but evidence is strong that they have – and most of their naval infantry strength.
I watched a video where a Uke M-113 with a .50BMG and 4 dismounts took most of a Russian trench/dugout line. And then they got stopped after taking two ground casualties so an 8 man unit joined them and they pushed the Russians into the last dugout, where a Uke tank basically ran it over and over and over and over and did a track-steer spinout on top of it and that’s all she wrote.
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Another video showed Russians in seized-SUVs trying to drive through trenches and watercourses in order to get close to or through Uke lines. And it went about as well as you’d expect. 3 SUVs with 4-5 Russians each, all splattered over the terrain. Yes, the Rus got close, but since they didn’t have handgrenades, nuclear weapons or horseshoes, none of it mattered.
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There’s lots of intel out there not on facebook. And even if you take all the intel from both sides and accept only 25% is factual, it’s still very very bad for Russia.
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A longer campaign than against the vaunted Germans in WWII and they’ve basically broken down to WWI trench warfare with Russian gains measured by meters and losses measured by kilometers. Tanks? Planes? Rockets? Missiles? Subs? Warships? Russia had, I repeat, had huge numbers of supposedly working units and now they’ve lost huge amounts of tanks, planes, rockets, missiles, subs and warships. Their vaunted artillery has been reduced to using old tanks as SPGs, which means building berms for the tanks to rock up on as Russian tanks have crappy elevation in comparison to western tanks. Their towed artillery was blowing up from being shot out after the 2nd year of the war.
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Russia now is reliant on North Korea and Red China for a lot of munitions and other supplies. Russia is reliant on the very people that want everything east of the Urals. Which is something I’ve been saying since the beginning of the war after the scandal of the 100km Chinese tires came out in public.
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Maybe if Russia had made it to Kyev in Year 1, but, no, there’s no chance of winning now. Every Uke in the Ukraine (there’s a whole heck of a lot that got out) is serious about killing the Rus. And the Rus just upped the age of conscription and callback.
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And you know what? You can blame the Donks and whomever was skin-puppeting Biden for this. For all of it. Trump 45 had Russia on a leash. But when the stealection occurred, Russia got a tacit A-Okay from our Donks that invasion was good and allowed. Feckless Donks. Screwing up the world at every possible chance. Dang-it, there should be some hangings for what was done to international peace by the Donks. Or that’s my take on it. None of this would have happened if we had a strong president in the office. But, no, gotta steal it and put a puppet regime in charge and we (the world) are still paying the price.
The Ukes exaggerate Russian losses but when you look at their order of battle before and after, it’s shocking. I don’t think that the million man loss (all categories, KIA, WIA, and MIA) is a bad number. The Russians will have a classified number, of course and the USA and others will also have that classified number. The WIA numbers will be staggering when you consider the totality of the people who have been cycled to the front and understand that wounds including severe frostbite are NOT all battle-related. I have no idea what the food poisoning numbers are alone given the circumstances that the Russians (and Ukes) face.
Target rich comment environment this morning…
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‘Helen of Troy’ revisited: Because they must, gotta fiddle with history standards. I’ll take Diane Kruger over…well…never mind. Maybe Nolan will film it in Minneapolis with out of work Learing Center Somalia extras to complete the Woke trifecta.
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LA/Cali Fraud (that’ll make Minnesota look minuscule by comparison): The perpetrators know they are getting close to ‘having a problem’ so are working overtime to distance themselves from their criminal activities. The ‘fall guy’ will tell all.
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College Degree (hearing Dad, Part 2): Swore Sheridan knew my dad, who told me the same thing…except the last part…conveniently left that out (something abut focusing on your work without frivolous distractions). “It’s a high class work permit, tells an employer you started something, showed up on time every day, were self-directed, learned something, and successfully completed it.” (Not so much anymore)
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Sheridan has put more truth in Landman, semi-offsets Hollywood weird bubble propaganda with his total straight talk reality. He came full circle with the ‘Christian’ aspect with what occurred in a later episode during cheerleading practice.
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As for fence hopping…to prove I still can: Last week! (How’d you know?)
Could hear dad in my ears afterwards (always after)- “Pay attention, you’re not 40 anymore, hell, you’re not 60 anymore…and use your head, that’s why God invented gates.”
MrsPaulM standing over me, “You can’t be hurt, we have a house to build!”
Me: “I’m okay, soft landing…pass the Vitamin-I please.”
(Note to self — Verify whether the fence rail can handle the extra desserts over the years that would have easily handled the ‘more svelte and limber’ 18yo self.)
Identify the Aircraft:
1. Douglas XB-43 Jetmaster
2. Later model of Consolidated B-24 Liberator
3. L3Harris EA-37B Compass Call. Also, yesterday’s APC.
Yes indeed.
Fentanyl lollipops are typically raspberry-flavored or more broadly berry-flavored and always leave you itchy and wanting more. I’ve given more out than had to take.
-STA LETHAL
And you tape the lollipop into the patient’s closed fist. The patient can suck on the lolli, but when they pass out, it falls out of their mouth. They’ll wake up when they need more painkiller….
Never had one but watched a few Paramedics in the back of my box administer them. Fun times.
6 More weeks? Apparently, according to the Toothy PA Soothsayer. Maybe for Pennsylvania…Punxsutawney has gotten real Winter ‘Global Warming’ weather in the past two weeks…in feet, and 1 degree this morning so it might stick around for a while.
Trust the hog.
An excuse for a Winter party with adult beverages (like the Radnor Hunt…just don’t wear Carhartt’s like MrsPaulM did moons ago when invited to attend during the Winter Fox Hunt).
In my Bucks County, PA, neck of the woods, groundhogs were pests that wrecked the yard, not the center of a party. Still tho…gotta watch the movie tonight, pay homage to tradition,and hadn’t heard “I’ve Got You Babe’ in a year. If it’s recurring I’ll know I’m stuck in a Bill Murray-esque time warp.
I should use I’ve got You babe on my phone is an mp3 to wake up to. It would freak my wife out. We’re halfway through the movie from last night.
The only thing the face of Lupita Nyong’o could launch is a nasty bout of explosive diarrhea.
and projectile vomiting.
Good advice for fresh-pyrsyn college students here:
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSCDsGnKQyU&list=RDVSCDsGnKQyU&start_radio=1
We were just young kids with a six pack
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That a bad fake ID bought
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Sittin’ on the living room couch
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That sounds like children of the evil patriarchy. There is no glorification of Palestinians, of transgenderism or nose rings and blue hair.
How much wood could a Woodchuck chuck if it was called a Groundhog?
I expect about as much as it could chuck if it was a woodchuck?
…and a woodchuck named ‘Chuck’.
😄
The barrel racers demonstrate point and shoot abilities that Larry Correia adamantly says no one should depend on.
I’ve always been a point and shoot guy because there’s times you just don’t have the time to line up the sights.
When I was a kid I could shoot bottle caps off the garage floor for a 22 pellet 6 gun, point and shoot. I miss those days.
Mounted Shooting is big amongst the cowgirls, especially in Arizona, exceptional skills both riding and shooting….like shooting bottle caps off the garage floor using a not very accurate pellet gun (h/t). I was not a practiced shot as a kid, dad was a good shot in the Marines despite 20/200 eyeglasses but mom did not like firearms…until BOY SCOUTS (as it once was). Summer Camp with access to the .22 range was good for a boy. Recently bought a Byrna CL, don’t want ‘that’ on my conscience at this point in my life (yeah, let the comments begin, I’m okay with it). Thinking it might also help with bears, altho likely to just tick them off no matter if a pepper ball or kinetic round.
No that face will not launch a 1000 ships.
Have a fabulous day and week. :)
I vote YES on could that buttugly face launch a thousand ships- in the direction of away from her.
Thinking outside the box there.
Helen of Troy stuff:
1. The milliHelen: amount of beauty to launch a single ship [a classic]
2. Identifying the organism causing that nasty case of infectious diarrhea: Was this the bug that launched a thousand shits, and effaced the villous crypts of Ileum? [a very specialized gasteroenterology joke]
3. Unrealistic casting happens all the time. For example, they had Ingrid Bergman play Golda Meir. No matter your opinion of the former PM, she looked more like Lyndon Johnson than Ilsa Lund. So there is lots of precedent for that sort of thing in general. But the casting of a black African woman as Athena Glaukopis (“bright eyed” or “grey eyed”) is deliberate provocation.
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College degrees
Not getting a college degree was never even a consideration; for better or worse that was assumed. The question was whether I’d get a PhD (which I singularly failed at [1]). I tend to view a doctoral degree (PhD, MD, what have you) as a variant of a union card. So yeah, same principle.
[1] I say that to get your PhD ideally you have both aptitude and interest. If you have lots of aptitude but no interest, you’ll get by. If lots of interest but poor aptitude, well, perseverance is important and will probably get you by. But if you have NO aptitude, and zero interest, you need to go find something else to do.
Dwight’s speech about the “[a college degree] shows you stuck with something for four years” is true. But at least for me personally, what the degree is in DOES matter. I would be highly suspicious of someone whose degree was in [something] Studies. While not 100% perfect, it is a good predictor of many undesirable qualities and traits.
A degree in gender studies prepares you for a life in HR.
Exactly!…to gets revenge for their oppressed childhoods by tormenting the rest of us, especially engineer-types.
Engineers don’t have a corner on being tormented by the woke and oppressed.
Little picture in a big picture – Manchuria
The Chinese may find occupying the area more difficult than defeating the Russian Army. The inhabitants don’t consider themselves “Russians”. The Japanese were able to initially occupy the area being invited by White Russians who had support from American troops. During the Japanese occupation they were under constant pressure by the locals and only controlled key areas.
It is doubtful the locals consider themselves Chinese. How many will welcome a different version of communism?
Yes, this is just a snippet of a very complicated history.
I stayed at a very nice hotel in Beijing a long time ago. I noticed that the people who were assigned to the most servile roles were tall and good looking men and women. I asked about that discretely and the Han lady who oversaw them informed that they were Manchu – sort of Untermenschen.
Let’s face it. To a “real” Chinese, everyone not-Han is untermenschen. It’s not just the Manchus. (At least they aren’t filthy Muslims like the Uyghur, gnome sayin’?) The Han are the second most ethnosupremacist people in the world. At least the Chinamen have the grace to not drag God into it. Also, less hypocrisy of pushing miscegenation and “open borders” for everyone except ourselves. Chinese are disgusted by any sort of miscegenation and don’t at all bother to conceal that. (American born Chinese don’t count.)
The words for “Overseas Chinese” can also mean “scum” depending on the context. Huáqiáo, refers to Chinese citizens living abroad, and huáyì refers to ethnic Chinese born abroad with foreign citizenship. (I think that I got the words right) At the risk of sounding like I don’t want to, the Japanese are very ethnocentric. Chinese and Korean women seem inclined to date foreign devils at times, for example, whereas the Japanese are far less inclined.
Hah! Yes of course, huaqiao are often viewed with suspicion/disdain. As you know, overseas Chinese in places such as The Philippines or Thailand sometimes marry locals. This is icky. Purebreds will pretend they don’t notice, to be polite, but we DEFINITELY notice the different physiognomy. Ick. (Like I can talk. These days Chinese from the mainland are usually surprised that I speak Mandarin. “Well yeah. I AM Chinese.” About 30% of the time I get “uh, okay, but what else?” Huh? [I used to ask.] “You’re a mix! Your eyes are too big.” [Yep, you know what else is too big, honey?]
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It’s hard to tell if this sort of thing is genuine confusion or deliberate insult. Probably a … mix. Heh.
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Oh, the Japanese are indeed very ethnocentric. But they’re more polite about it on the surface is all. But we all hate and/or despise each other. Me keeping company with the Pretty Korean Girl was analogous to an Irish lass dating an Englishman.
[Yep, you know what else is too big, honey?]
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Are big hands a handicap for a doctor?
>Are big hands a handicap for a doctor?
I don’t know. I was referring to my ego ;-)
G-550; I’d enjoy hearing about any Beechcraft fun. Any explanation for the EA-37B link plus yesterday’s description of “to tall for the desert”? If not, it’s understandable. I’m not able to raise my subscription tier level at this time.
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Can I surmise that current air movement behind the scenes could be comparable to a queen bee splitting off and swarming to make a new hive?
As I understand it, the Beechcrafts have all been relegated to the scrap heap. They went to the reserves, and I think that they’ve gone from there to whatever they call DRMO (Defense Re-Utilization Marketing Office) these days. There is a LOT of money dumped into these new programs, and I feel like I’m left in the dust at times. The unmanned systems are going INSANE these days, including some bizarrely advanced software solutions.
Ironic that you bring up trust fund snots. We’ve had two trials in the last couple of years here of trust fund snots, one for murder of a child, one for rape of a child (and a father that committed suicide because of it).
>trust fund snots, one for murder of a child
Shades of Leopold and Loeb?
I think I was in elementary school, maybe junior high, when we learned about L&L. Among those who reacted, it seemed the prevailing response was horror at the “inhuman” crime. But I remember thinking, “for two guys who wanted to commit a ‘perfect crime’ to demonstrate your superiority, you guys sure went about it stupidly”. Dumping the body in a field (I was taught, in a culvert says Wikipedia) was obviously poorly planned, and ridiculously amateurish. Idiots. Maybe this says something bad about my psyche, but I was more disgusted by how incompetent these self-proclaimed ubermenschen [oh the irony considering their ethnicity] were. There are definitely those who will tell you this is a sign that I am not a normal person. “They” may be correct.
I’ve mentioned the story on the blog before. Italian Mafia ordered hit, carried out by wanna be Mexican pistolero that started with a crossbow bolt fired at point-blank range into the suspect (inner city person) skull and penetrated through the center of the brain into the throat – judged non-lethal at the autopsy. Victim stands and walks around complaining of a headache. Pistolero opens fire with a 9mm semi auto and eventually cuts the victim’s aorta – lethal. Pre-dug grave on a railroad right-of-way. They take the body out to bury it but the gate has been closed and locked in the interim, so they dump it next to railroad tracks wrapped in a shower curtain. Labor Day.
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Two old ladies living together heard a commotion behind their house at night, investigate and find the carcass of Spencer Watts (aka Scorgiani Platerno) who was born in the inner city but always wanted to be an Italian. Murder occurred in San Bernardino County, because it was weird, homicide detectives call their intel person who recalled speaking with me about a mafia case I was working with tentacles in her jurisdiction. I worked the case up knowing the players.
There was a well known blogger from a few years back.
Trust fund kid. Went to Columbia Law but never really practiced.
Was actually in Obama’s class but says nobody ever saw Obama.
Lived with his father
A dilletante.
Always some new pursuit.
Quite talented.
I believe I had an influence on his conversion to Christianity.
He turned his life around.
He still blogs, but he’s not the same guy.
He’s better.
Meanwhile, a French resident has demonstrated a new use for old WWI arty shells.