Target Centermass

Author: Gunner

  • Shark Risk off British Coast

    Ever since I saw the classic movie Jaws back in 1975, I have been fascinated with sharks. Although only in second grade at the time, I read Peter Benchley’s novel and was enraptured (sure, I didn’t understand the sex stuff around the affair that was left out of the movie). Although all three sequels were crap, I was so hooked that I had to see them all on the big screen. For the next seven years, I swore that I was going to grow up and become an ichthyologist, devoting my life to researching sharks.

    Well, the years go by and life takes its funny twists and turns. I never went on to the shark research gig (and have little idea how I ended up doing computer work for a living). Despite this, I never really got over my interest in sharks, as evidenced by my eagerness to post this and this.

    Now, there’s this unusual occurence out of England, which I feel absolutely obligated to post.

    The chilly waters off northeastern England are rarely that inviting for bathers, but at least those who do venture in for a dip have been able to do so in the knowledge they are safe from sharks.

    Until now, that is.

    In a virtually unprecedented warning, British maritime agencies warned surfers, divers and others thinking of braving the North Sea to be on the alert for a possible shortfin mako shark.

    The discovery of a series of dead porpoises washed up onto beaches in northeast England, some with large chunks apparently bitten out of them, has prompted the warning, the Daily Mail newspaper reported on Wednesday.

    Around 45 porpoises have been found along with the headless bodies of seals and remains of other large fish.

    Experts say this points to the presence of a large mako shark nearby. The shark, which grows up to 12 feet (3.65 metres) in length, is known to be found in the North Sea but rarely ventures near shore.

    It is thought that conservation efforts off northeast England which have greatly increased the local porpoise population might have attracted a shark, the paper said.

    “We would advise all those using the water, including surfers, fishermen and divers, to be especially careful and vigilant,” the Maritime and Coastguard agency said in a statement.

    “There have been no reported sightings of this shark yet, but we cannot rule out the possibility that one might be out there.”

    Some of the porpoise bodies have been sent to London’s Natural History Museum so the cause of death can be determined, the paper added.

    Just as a little added tidbit, the mako was the ridiculously-oversized species featured in the silly, disappointing flick Deep Blue Sea.

  • Sgrena’s Car — How Fast, How Shot?

    An Italian government official and the U.S. Army are in sharp disagreement on the speed of the car that was carrying alleged hostage and anti-American journalist Giuliana Sgrena and the late intelligence officer Nicola Calipari.

    Italian Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini told his country’s parliament today that the shooting was an accident, but he contradicted the U.S. military’s account of the incident. The U.S. Army’s 3rd Infantry Division, which controls Baghdad, said in a statement that the vehicle was “traveling at high speeds” and did not stop at the checkpoint, despite a number of warnings. The military said U.S. soldiers only opened fire after the car ignored the warnings.

    Fini, however, said the car was traveling no faster than 25 mph, and disputed the U.S. military’s assertion that several warnings were given. He said the U.S. government must conduct a thorough investigation, “that responsibilities be pinpointed, and, where found, that the culprits be punished.”

    Okay, so we’ve established with some degree of certainty the vehicle was traveling somewhere over a 75+ mph range. I’m sure that’s a clue somehow. Oh yeah, it’s a clue that Sgrena’s a liar, as she’s on record as saying the driver had almost lost control. And perhaps Fini can explain why he wants to punish the “culprits” of an admitted accident.

    Meanwhile, pictures of the car have been released that cast further doubts on Sgrena’s tale of an “avalanche of gunfire” from the American’s so-called ambush. Dr. Rusty Shackleford, on the story at the Jawa Report since the beginning, has them and links to a solid collection of other blogs’ postings on the matter.

  • Blogroll Update Time

    If you’ve got any blogs to suggest, leave them in the comments.

  • A Serious Case of Tube Envy

    I loved my 105mm on the M60-A3 and M-1. I really loved my 120mm smoothbore on the M1-A1. But, as much as it pains me to admit, the guns of the world’s navies have managed some things that are absolute masterpieces of killing art.

    So beautiful, they bring tears to my eyes.

  • Rabin’s Killer Denied Conjugal Visits

    Sometimes, being an assassin is hard.

    The Israeli Supreme Court on Monday rejected a request by Yitzhak Rabin’s assassin to have conjugal visits with the woman he says he married by proxy.

    Yigal Amir, who is serving a life term for the Nov. 4, 1995, killing of the prime minister, had sought permission to have conjugal visits with Larisa Trimbobler.

    In its ruling, which upheld a lower court decision, the Supreme Court said that Amir has not abandoned his violent aims, has shown no remorse and has become a role model for extremists. It also said it would be difficult to supervise such visits.

    Trimbobler and Amir, both Orthodox Jews, insist they were married secretly over the phone by a rabbi last year. But rabbis and the Israel Prisons Service dispute the claim, saying the wedding was not valid under Jewish law because Amir was not joined by two witnesses.

    Prison officials have barred him from consummating the marriage with Trimbobler, a divorced mother of four who fell in love with Amir while he was in prison.

    “This entire affair is an example of sadistic maltreatment of us. They can kill us but they can’t separate us,” Trimbobler told Army Radio.

    Amir, an ultranationalist Jew, said he killed Rabin to stop the handover of land in Israeli-Palestinian peace deals and has shown no regret. The assassination was a major blow to peace efforts.

    Israeli authorities have grown increasingly concerned about extremists as the government prepares to pull out of the Gaza Strip and four West Bank settlements this summer.

    Although a rare occurrence, killers who experience an erection for more than four hours should seek immediate medical attention.

  • South Africa’s Capital Renamed

    Tshwane (Not Pretoria).

    In a symbolic break with apartheid, officials in South Africa’s capital voted Monday to rename the city Tshwane, retaining the name Pretoria for the city center only.

    The decision was taken at a special meeting of the governing African National Congress-dominated metropolitan council, the South African Press Association reported.

    “By embarking on this process and project of transformation, our country is making a clear distinction between the old and the new, the past and the present,” Executive Mayor Smangaliso Mkhatshwa was quoted as saying during a four-hour debate.

    The city of 2 million, established by white settlers in 1855, was named after Andries Pretorius, a leader in the Afrikaners’ “Great Trek” into the interior of the country. Tshwane, which means “we are the same,” was the name used by some of the region’s earliest African settlers.

    The South African Geographic Names Council is expected to approve the change when it convenes in October and begin the process of changing the city’s name on maps.

    Monday’s vote is the latest in a series of geographic name changes since South Africa’s first all-race elections in 1994 ended decades of white-minority rule.

    The government says South Africans should not have to live in cities, towns and streets named after the people responsible for their racial oppression.

    Opposition councilors argued Monday that the process was a waste of money, and said the move to rename Pretoria threatens to split the capital along racial lines.

    Why did Pretoria get the works? That’s nobody’s business but the South Africans.

    (Apologies to They Might Be Giants and their incredible rendition)

  • White House Admits 1st Blogger to Briefing

    A first for the blogosphere, and a major coup for blogger Garrett M. Graff.

    With an official credential hanging from his neck, a young man stepped into the White House briefing room Monday as perhaps the first blogger to cover the daily press briefings. He found the surroundings to be dilapidated and cramped and concluded that his morning at the White House was “remarkably uneventful.”

    Graff’s site, fishbowlDC, labels itself a “gossip blog about Washington, D.C. media” and has the seemingly standard list of left-wing links, right down to the obligatory Instapundit link for an illusion of balance. Still, that said, hats off to Graff for his pioneering accomplishment.

  • Reciprocity XII

    Just a quick moment to thank others for linking to Target Centermass.

    First, thanks to the following for adding TCm to their blogroll or links page:

    Second, thanks to the following for recent links to TCm posts:

    Third, I wanted once again to pimp for two sites intended for Texas bloggers:

    TexasBlogfest 2005

    As always, if you’ve linked or blogrolled Target Centermass and I haven’t found you, please send an email or post a comment. No good deed should go unrewarded.

  • Quote of the Week, 6 MAR 05

    Cavalry will never be scrapped to make room for the tanks; in the course of time cavalry may be reduced as the supply of horses in this country diminishes. This depends greatly on the life of fox-hunting.

    —British Army officer, 1921

  • Ex-hostage Disputes U.S. Account of Shooting

    Much has been made in the media and the blogosphere of the release of Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena and her subsequent wounding at a Baghdad checkpoint by U.S. forces. Itailian security agent Nicola Calipari was killed in the incident.

    Since the day Sgrena was kidnapped, Dr. Rusty Shackleford at the Jawa Report predicted her release and said he felt something was “fishy” about the whole story. He has repeatedly written about the Sgrena affair and today blogs his mounting suspicions about the story.

    Doesn’t this whole incident seem more than a little odd?

    Sgena was kidnapped by her admitted friends in Iraq.

    She was kidnapped while on the phone with another journalist.

    A tape was released of her begging Italy to cave to the terrorists demands of pulling Italian troops out of Iraq the day before the Italian Senate was to vote on that very issue.

    On the tape Sgrena appears to tell the ‘terrorist’ holding the camera to stop. He follows her order as if she is directing.

    The tape came exactly two-weeks after she was captured.

    One month to the day after her abduction she is released.

    On the day of her release her car speeds toward a US checkpoint, fails to stop when ordered, fails to heed warning shots, and the car is ultimately fired upon.

    In the end, who looks like the bad guys? The terrorists? The jihadis? The ‘insurgents’? No, the US.

    Today, CNN carries Sgrena’s tale. Sgrena, who writes for the communist Il Manifesto, disputes the U.S. version of the story.

    […]Giuliana Sgrena wrote, “Our car was driving slowly,” and “the Americans fired without motive.”

    She described a “rain of fire and bullets” in the incident.

    The U.S. military said Sgrena’s car rapidly approached a checkpoint Friday night, and those inside ignored repeated warnings to stop.

    Troops used arm signals and flashing white lights, fired warning shots in front of the car, and shot into the engine block when the driver did not stop, the military said in a statement.

    But in an interview with Italy’s La 7 Television, the 56-year-old journalist said “there was no bright light, no signal.”

    Apparently, however, Sgrena cannot keep her story straight, as the very next paragraph shows she told an Italian government official a different tale.

    And Italian magistrate Franco Ionta said Sgrena reported the incident was not at a checkpoint, but rather that the shots came from “a patrol that shot as soon as they lit us up with a spotlight.”

    Well, Ms. Sgrena, was there a light or wasn’t there?

    In an interview with Sky TV, Sgrena said “feeling yourself covered with avalanche of gunfire from a tank that is beside you, that did not give you any warning that it was about to attack if we did not stop — this is absolutely inconceivable even in normal situations, even if they hadn’t known that we were there, that we were supposed to come through.”

    So now it was a tank away from a checkpoint that lit up the car? Folks, I’m not buying a word this woman says.