The craziest rifle ever: XM25

Range find w/ laser.  Pull trigger.  Mini grenades explode by target (which means shrapnel goes around corners, behind walls, etc).  Grenade figures how how far it's gone by counting rotations.  You can manually adjust the range.

Being used in Afganistan


Info from  wikipedia:

The XM25 is an airburst grenade launcher derived from the XM29 OICW.

It fires 25 mm grenades that are set to explode in mid-air at or near the target. A laser rangefinder in the gun is used to determine the distance to the target. The user can manually adjust the detonating distance by up to ten feet (3 m) shorter or longer. The gun automatically transmits the detonating distance to the grenade in the firing chamber. The grenade tracks the distance it has traveled by the number of spiral rotations after it is fired.^[1] These features make the XM25 more effective than traditional grenade launchers at the task of hitting targets that are behind cover or dug into the ground.

The system has been developed by Heckler & Koch and Alliant Techsystems, while the target acquisition/fire control is developed by L-3 IOS Brashear. The most recent deployment plans call for a purchase of 12,500 XM25s at a projected cost per weapon system of $25,000.^[2]

In the summer of 2010, the U.S. Army began field testing the XM25 in Afghanistan. The initial per unit cost of the early models range from $30,000 to $35,000. The army plans to purchase 12,500 XM25s in 2011 and have them fielded by 2012, enough for one XM25 system in each infantry squad and Special Forces team. ^[3][4]

According to U.S. Army project manager for new weapons, Colonel Douglas Tamilio, the rounds for the XM25 will cost about $24 apiece. ^[5]

Debt doubling.

From USA Today (yeah, I know).

So you think you can bench?

Excellent set of videos from an ex-powerlifter.  Fairly technical, so if this isn't your thing, not worth it.  Otherwise, many interesting tips.

One of many good articles on the Elitefts website.


Then there is always Westside Barbell, led by L Simmons who squatted 1000+ lbs at 50+ years of age.  I love how their articles start:

Westside has 30 members who bench more than 700 pounds and four who bench more than 800 pounds. We also have Laura Phelps, with a 505 at 165 body weight, who has the greatest female bench coefficient ever. Five members have held all-time world records in the bench....

Let’s start with Tony Bolognone, who has a 2700-pound total at 325 bodyweight and an 860-pound bench. He explains some of his workouts:

In praise of the Chicago 16th manual of style

I think I'll have to buy a copy

Chicago's examples could be recondite or mischievously witty or of a weirdly resonant blandness. You could be boning up on the proper use of brackets (section 5.129) and be hit with quotes like this:

During a prolonged visit to Australia, Glueck and an assistant (James Green, who was later to make his own study of a flightless bird [the kiwi] in New Zealand) spent several difficult months observing the survival behavior of cassowaries and emus.

You'd feel an urge to procrastinate, to follow these intrepid antipodean emu watchers, but alas: The sadistic authors of the fourteenth knew that less is more.

Where did these fragments come from? What did they mean? Sometimes there would be a message just for me. On late nights while I waited for proofs to materialize, I would think of the poem disguised as 5.136, which asks the reader to "consider the range of expressiveness achieved by the following changes in punctuation":

Go home.

Go home!

Go home?

Go home?!

Detroit's last gunshop

Short, but interesting.

http://www2.metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=13488

Cool real life Noir.

From Vanity Fair where I've actually seen a large number of interesting stories.

After a woman living in a hotel in Florida was raped, viciously beaten, and left for dead near the Everglades in 2005, the police investigation quickly went cold. But when the victim sued the Airport Regency, the hotel’s private detective, Ken Brennan, became obsessed with the case: how had the 21-year-old blonde disappeared from her room, unseen by security cameras? The author follows Brennan’s trail as the P.I. worked a chilling hunch that would lead him to other states, other crimes, and a man nobody else suspected.

leaked diplomatic communications

I'm a bit surprised at how low key the initial coverage seems to be (perhaps b/c it's a weekend).  It seems like this has the potential to be the story of the decade.

Some initial thoughts: WSJ and Chris Good with some snippets.  Interesting: Saudi Arabia and Bahrain both urged taking out Iran.

It would be amusing if the state dept had allowed this to happen as a way to very convincingly disseminate misinformation.  But since we're not a in spy novel, the probability is epsilon, where "epsilon" is a mispelling of "zero."

If they are right that this is (again) the work for 23 y/o Pfc Manning, it's a resounding demonstration that any secure system is as weak as it's weakest link.  Why the hell were these available, unencrypted, to one guy who clearly didn't need them?    Given his openly gay persona, perhaps not the best marketing move given the current dismantling of DADT.

Business and Obama.

From Politico:

“These weren’t issues that got the president any votes or political leverage,” said one insider to the conversations. “These were issues that demonstrated that this administration doesn’t get it. It’s like talking to your dog.”

UN might be cause of cholera in Haiti

Good intentions perhaps, but not too insightful about the effects of effluent in drinking water.

Chinese thought bubble: "We are the masters now"

Interesting article by Niall Ferguson, perhaps best summed up by a simple picture:




Hat tip: The Browser.

Taliban leader involved in months of secret talks = fake

NY times:

 KABUL, Afghanistan — For months, the secret talks unfolding between Taliban and Afghan leaders to end the war appeared to be showing promise, if only because of the appearance of a certain insurgent leader at one end of the table: Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, one of the most senior commanders in the Taliban movement.

But now, it turns out, Mr. Mansour was apparently not Mr. Mansour at all. In an episode that could have been lifted from a spy novel, United States and Afghan officials now say the Afghan man was an impostor, and high-level discussions conducted with the assistance of NATO appear to have achieved little.        

 “It’s not him,” said a Western diplomat in Kabul intimately involved in the discussions. “And we gave him a lot of money.”        

Kazushi Sakuraba.

In his prime, Saku was amazing.  His movements in the seconds before a win were moments of WTF violent poetry, written on guys   almost always 20-50lbs heavier than him.

His decimation of the entire Gracie family was typical.  They beat everyone.  He beat all of them.



Often a favorite fighter of fighters: