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Your Participation Is Required

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In every single crime, the victim is a participant in the victim selection process. In Perfect World®, there'd be no behavior on the victim's part that made them more likely to be selected by the criminal. In real world, there are things you can do that increase your chances of being selected. Wishing that wasn't so doesn't change this.
If I give you my PIN number and ATM card to pull out $20 and you take $200, who is at fault? You. But how much could you have stolen if I'd not given you the card and PIN?
This is the core of the nudie pics drama. If you don't want someone to see pictures of you nekkid; never EVER take a picture of yourself nekkid. That applied before there was an internet. The reason is that there are thieves and scumbags out there who will be more than happy to share them with the world should they ever discover how you've secreted them away.
Celebrities should be aware that all of that doubly applies to them and the security measures that keep a picture of my nekkidness secure are meaningless to someone with real motivation to see them, and the mere fact of celebrity means that motivations exists. That means that celebs need to take extraordinary measures to secure their data. Why? Because we don't live in Perfect World®!
So we lecture the victim and punish the thieves! To skip the lecture assures the victim will be selected again. Becoming self-rightous and indignant when someone points out the victim's participation in the process makes you a fool.

KTKC

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We were at $75 yesterday morning.

If we keep up the $25 a day pace we should pull $750 by the time this closes!

Y'all can do it!

There are 15 followers down there, $20 each and we're at $300.

200 people hit this site on average every day; even a BUCK from each of you is $200.

You've got a dollar, don't you?

Leave a comment for ideas that will incentivize you.  As long as it's legal and I won't injure myself past embarrassment I'm likely to do it.

Risk Management

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In no way should saying, "this is why you were selected as a victim," be taken to absolve or mitigate the responsibility of the criminal for their actions.

Once the criminal has gotten to the victim selection portion of the event, they've already committed themselves to the commission of the crime.

Someone is going to be a victim and the best you can do is make yourself less enticing to them.

Sometimes there's nothing the victim can do to reduce their chances because the decision to commit the crime is tied to committing it on that person.  Stalking falls into this category.  The stalker doesn't start with "I'm going to stalk, oh... that random person there." They back into a justification of stalking a particular person based on specious at best reasoning.  It's rarely the "at best" scenario.  Most of the time the rationale is bug-nuts.

It's a fine line to tread about "blaming the victim." The blame and fault is entirely on the criminal for the crime.  It is not, however, unhealthy to ask, "what could I have done differently?"

If every girl walking home drunk from a bar through a bad neighborhood while wearing a slinky cocktail dress and heels gets raped; but not a single sober female jogger in sweats does...  There's a pattern to be aware of.

Guess Again

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Concerning the lens flares in Star Trek's reboot by JJ Abrams.

Yet, a lot of people walked out of that really fun, exciting movie unable to do anything but complain about lens flare. Ultimately, that's a good thing: Abrams made such a good movie that the biggest problem most viewers had is that the lights did a stretchy thing across the screen.
Read more: http://www.cracked.com/blog/4-public-apologies-we-shouldnt-accept/#ixzz3CLxTUnkw

Actually no.

We started noticing and focusing on the lens flares because we'd checked out from the "fun and excitement" already.  With nothing else to do, we started noticing things that should have been in the background.

People just don't notice bad camera work and poor lens choices when there's something on the screen engaging them.

A Suggestion

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Willard says that instead of ugly guys in kilts, we should have hot school-girls in leather.

Make a big enough donation and I think we can make that happen.

Y'all will have to settle for 18+ school girls because we're only so creepy here.

Gaming Stories...

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I've got a few...

For teaser purposes... Titles.

Warren and the security booth.

Warren and the UH-1H.

Warren and the windshield.

Rhonda and the tail.

Fuzzygeff, Vacuum, Hyperspace and Tie-Downs.

Anglave and the Trusting Tenderfoot.

How much are the complete stories worth?

Make a donation and mention how much in the comments and see if you've unlocked the achievement!

Defense News

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I tire of breathless reports about the failings of the F-35 program that don't mention which variant they're talking about.

It's actually three different planes.  There's so little commonality between them they should have been the F-24A, FV-25A and F/A-26A instead of F-35A, F-35B and F-35C respectively.

Never mind that it should never have kept the -35 designation from the X series anyway!  If I get on a designation system rant I'll be all day since I don't think that F/A-18E or F and the related EF-18G should be -18 but should have gotten a new designation number.  But the politics of acquisition spoke louder than using the defined system...

F-35 has a bulkhead crack!  Some F-35B have a crack, and it is likely related to stresses from the front lift fan and the ginormous barn door on top.  I've yet to read an explanation as to why they changed to that large door from the smaller ones.

F-35 tail-hook ineffective!  That's specific to the F-35C.  The emergency hook on the F-35A works just fine.

Grumble...

Off To A Great Start!

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The standings for KTKC are posted and we're doing great!

$195 for Team McThag and $1,530 total.

Huzzah!

Now I have to go back and see if I promised anything for breaking $200...

Well That Didn't Work As Hoped

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Decided to try the Europe goes hot during the Cuban Missile Crisis campaign with VMFA-314 in an F-4B.


In 1962 my air-to-air weapon selection is the AIM-9B Sidewinder and the AIM-7D Sparrow.

The AIM-9B is useless against a maneuvering target.  The AIM-7D is useless below 2,500' AGL and in nearly all look-down scenarios.

The first mission was an intercept 8v8 looking for enemy Il-28.  They attack nape of the earth so the Sparrows are out.  They are escorted by 8 MiG-17F; so now it's 8v16.  There's another four ship of MiG-17F and a two ship of MiG-21F-13 in the area as well; 8v22!  You need 50% of the guys you're supposed to be shooting to count it as a win.  I got two Il-28 with sidewinders and 3 MiG-17F (but not the escorts!) with the sparrows.  One of the wingmen managed to take out a single Il-28.  I am now done accounting our kills.  Once I was out of missiles I disengaged and one of my wingmen was shot down before I landed and three had taken some sort of damage.  Once I'd taxied back to the pad I ended the scenario (and prolly saved my wingmen since the game doesn't kill them once the player leaves the game).

The second mission was to find four MiG-15bis before they could take out friendly armor.  Low level again!  I got lucky with one sidewinder on the first Fagot but missed with the remaining three.  I fired an AIM-7D at a passing MiG-21F-13 who was perfectly lined up for the shot by pure chance; got him.  Then I got nailed by a MiG-17PF.  KIA with posthumous Purple Heart.

I think that next time I try for 1962 in a Marine jet I am going for an F-8C.  Having a gun of some sort sure would have made life a lot better.

Dear Brain

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Dear Brain,

There's the path I want this post to take.

I want you to stay on that path.

Yes, I know there's pretty butterflies and frolicking squirrels way over there off the path.

The flashing lights and bright colors are likewise enticing...

FOCUS!

Thank you.
The Muse.

More On F-35

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"Rearward visibility is poor and is going to get pilots killed." Paraphrased from a few years ago.

Today's reply:

Here, put on this helmet, hit that switch, look down and tell me what you see.

"Hey, that's the runway!"

Now look over your shoulder and down; tell me what you don't see.

"Hey, I can't see the airframe."

Welcome to the dispersed aperture global view camera system!

They've compromised the Mk 1 Mod 0 eyeball system, yes, but the camera system should make up for it.  The best part about it is the hardware is nothing special, thus displays (pun) damn near tedious reliability.  The new bit here is the software, which I will admit is chock full of bugs and teething problems; but every report about new revisions is showing positive and steady progress.

I think this little monster is going to be a winner someday.

I only wish that it wasn't so constrained by the USMC part.  Looking at what the F-35 program costs I sometimes wonder if it wouldn't have been cheaper to pull an SCB-125 on the LHDs and LHAs; tell the Marines they were getting the Navy version and said the same thing to the Air Force.

You have to admit the Phantom II was a wildly successful program and it remains the sole example that all three tactical aviation arms bought.

Sidearm Of The Steely Eyed Rocket Man

Cheap Guns

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What constitutes a "cheap gun"?

I've long held that you should own the most expensive gun you can afford.

But then I noticed something.

There's nothing whatsoever with getting a Glock 17 and never buying a "better" handgun.  The Glock is far from the most expensive thing out there and with police trade-ins, a used Glock with plenty of life left in it might be a lot cheaper than a new "cheap" gun.

There are quite a few handguns out there that cost a great deal more and don't really offer much improvement (if any) in accuracy, capacity, reliability or toughness.  Many are far worse on all four counts and cost 4 to 10 times as much!

This repeats in rifles as well.  An AR might not be the best rifle you can buy, but it's solid and its vices are well known.  This is the problem the Army is having with the carbine competition.  Costs more, doesn't improve (much) upon the gun in service is a hard sell.

Tam deftly put it, and I am quoting from memory, for most people you could sell them a gun that turned to dust after firing round 100 and they'd never know that it did that.  They have the gun, the box of ammo they bought the day they picked up the gun and one magazines amount of cartridges missing from the box when their kids start going through all of their stuff after putting their parents in the home.

Even the much maligned Hi-Point can cross that bar!

Statistic

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From: http://www.cracked.com/photoplasty_1054_20-famous-stereotypes-that-are-statistically-b.s./
In 1970 the census said there were 203,392,031 people in the US.  The 2010 numbers state 308,745,538.

If 1/2 of households had guns in 1970 and 1/3 have them in 2010 that means that the number of gun owners stayed pretty steady at about 100 million households.

I posit that the reason we're seeing this steady state isn't because the percentage is getting smaller, but that gun owners are less likely to admit they own a gun than they used to be.

I certainly would be reluctant to admit it on a survey and I post pictures of my guns to the internet!

Going For The Heart-Strings

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The bald guy here is Garry.  Garry is, at present, a two time survivor of prostate cancer!

We're working on the third time right this second, dammit.

The treatment he's getting is experimental and we're told primarily funded by generous donations like KTKC generates.

It's obviously not cheap, but we like Garry and would like to keep him around a bit longer; if only to terrorize the wait-staff at Cuban Breezes for the INC meetings.

The other person in the picture wants to keep her grandpa around too.

Donate early, donate often!  Be sure to say Team McThag!

Five Cents

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My county just voted to add five cents tax to every gallon of gasoline sold in the county.

Their cut of a gallon is now 12¢.  It used to be 7¢.  The counties to the south are still 7¢ and the county to the north is 9¢.

They claim it will just be $37.50 more a year to the average driver.  We're above average here at Casa de McThag, $73.45 is the increase from our average consumption of fuel.

They claim "But the impact, $37.50 a year - the implications of that are less than the cost of Starbucks coffee a month."

That's half a million lattes a month that aren't going to be bought folks.  Or Big Macs, or 1/4 Pounders...  Opportunity costs and the Gods of the copybook headings will not be ignored.

Pick something that you can no longer buy because you're paying 5¢ a gallon more for gas.

Interestingly the deciding vote was cast by a long hold-out on the issue mere days after he lost a primary challenge.

Also of note: the murmuring to up the gas taxes to maintain our roads coincides with the vote to allow the county employee's to unionize.

But the huge problem is really back on the County Commission's lap, they decided to no longer make developers pay for the impact new developments would have on the infrastructure.

Luckily, I live very near the souther border of the county I live in, I can take advantage of the cheaper gas

Forgot

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I'm not going to go maudlin.

I'm going for pissed off.

Why?

Because we didn't ever get payback and defeat the problem that started it lo thirteen years ago.

We got bored?  Lost focus?  Refused to look it in the face and see it for what it is?

When it happens again, it happens because we let it because we refused to accept what war is and that war can be waged against you even if you refuse to wage it back.

We don't win wars anymore as we get ever better at winning battles.  We win battles then squander the victories and waste our best on nothing.

Bleggin

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I know a couple of my readers have more read blogs than my meager abode.

Iffin y'all could pimp me a bit for Kilted To Kick Cancer, I'd really appreciate it.

JayG is a great guy and all, and he really drags in the donations, but the man isn't even partially Scottish!

Give a Scot a chance to get ahead for a change!

Mac Pro Adventure

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The little boards that hold the RAM have little LEDs on them that light up red to show you what stick of RAM is defective.

That you can only see if you open the case while the machine is running.

If one of your RAM sticks goes bad, the system profiler shows the pair with the bad stick as empty slots not as bad.

The cheap no-heat sink 240 pin 1gb PC2 6400 FB-DIMMs I bought way back in 2008 only lasted six years I'm actually impressed.  Of course the heat-sinked RAM that came with the machine (2x 1gb) is still clicking along...  Correction:  I realized that I couldn't find the soda straw from the canned air I dusted the thing out with so I opened it back up and noticed that it's the OEM heavily heat sinked RAM stick that's dead and not the Kingston RAM I'd added.  Fascinating!

So I ordered the smallest amount of RAM with heat-sinks that I could to replace the single dead 1gb stick...  2x 2gb sticks.  Since you have to do RAM in matched pairs on a Mac Pro the single good 1gb of my previous upgrade is trash.  Installing the new RAM will give me a total of 6gb of RAM instead of the previous 4gb.

I guess that's a win?

In fact I settled on 4gb way back because my Bootcamp partition was for XP-Pro and going for more than that was a waste.  I'm running Win-7 Ultimate (64) there now, so 6gb will get utilized.

The waiting for shipping is all.

Mistake

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Willard has a .22 conversion for a High Power.

After showing it off he asked if, "I wanted to hang on to it for a while to play with it."

Cold meds make me make the wrong decisions!

Now that he's taken it away, I desperately want to take pictures and play with it.

Maybe he'll bring it back over so I can now that I'm not feverish and in the grips of the Big Fucking Q.
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