There is lots of news about these revelations: NSA taps in to user data of Facebook, Google and others, secret files reveal and NSA Is Seizing Millions of Verizon Phone Records and Clapper denied NSA surveillance before Senate panel in March testimony. As I’ve mentioned before: Never consider anything you say on the phone or anything that you do on the Internet is “private.”
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Reader Joe K. suggested this new e-book: Locusts on the Horizon
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G.G. flagged this news headline: Secession Plan Floated By Some Northern Colorado Leaders. And Steve D. sent this related story with some more details: Weld County commissioners propose formation of new state, North Colorado.
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“Major Henry West” (one of my associates on The FALFiles forums) wrote me to mention a great deal on Swiss 7.5mm GP-11 Ammo at AIM Surplus. They are offering it for not much more than .50 cents a round. (In today’s market, where 7.62mm NATO ball is still nearly $1 per round, that is a relative bargain.) A Swiss K-31 Schmidt-Rubin straight pull rifle can be fired quite quickly and accurately, and now for the first time in my memory, they can be shot less expensively than a .308. That sounds like a great James Dakin-style “Plan B” rifle, to me! (James Dakin wisely recommends budget military surplus rifles for folks who are on a tight budget.)
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15 Wonderful Hilltop Towns and Villages
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After the beheading of a British soldier by a pair of Muslim fanatics–who were caught literally red handed–David Codrea reports that many Britons now want their guns back. They are a little late, since most of their handguns got turned into manhole covers. (Including some that we sent them early in WWII, when England faced invasion.) What a shame. But it isn’t too late for them to import some 21st century gun technology. For example, envision a Ruger LC 9mm or a S&W .380 Bodyguard in just 20% of English ladies’ purses and gentlemen’s jacket pockets. Those would do quite well in deterring terrorist slaughter on their streets. And they are lot easier to carry around than armed Bobbies or manhole covers.
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Reader S.F. mentioned that a pilot program of matching dogs with vets was specifically vetoed by the U.S. Veteran’s Administration (VA), which made it categorical that dogs would only be provided for a small and traditional list of needs, such a guide dogs for the blind. So of course others did it. An old story with a great new ending: Hounds and Heroes.