Courtesy of the Army Times:

Delta Force worked with a gun maker to come up with a better weapon. The 416 is now considered in many circles to be the best carbine in the world, but the regular Army is sticking with the M4 and M16.

After many bad experiences with the M4, and it’s predeccessor the M16, in the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, members of the Special Operations Command (SOCOM) worked with Heckler & Kock, makers of fine weapons, to come up with a better version of the venerable weapon.  The 416 reduces malfunctions, and increases parts life, while maintaining the same basic look and feel of the weapon.

The 416 is now considered in many circles to be the best carbine in the world — a weapon that combines the solid handling, accuracy and familiarity of the M4 with the famed dependability of the rugged AK47.

Sounds like an American Ideal, doesn’t it?  Improve on an existing design, making it more reliable, and, thereby, making the soldier more effetive, and saving lives.

Too bad the Army refuses to buy it, except for SOCOM.

For the foreseeable future, however, the Army is sticking with the M4 and M16 for regular forces.

The Army plans to buy about 100,000 M4s in fiscal 2008. For this large a buy, each M4 without accessories costs about $800, Colt Chief Executive Officer William Keys said. As part of the contract, though, each M4 comes with a rail system for mounting optics and flashlights, a backup iron sight, seven magazines and a sling — additions that raise the price for each M4 package to about $1,300, according to Defense Department budget documents.

So what does the 416 cost?

The price of each 416 “will range anywhere from $800 to $1,425 depending on volume and accessories,” said H&K’s CEO John Meyer Jr.

Hmmm.

To Col. Robert Radcliffe, the man responsible for overseeing the Army’s needs for small arms, the M16 family is “pretty damn good.” It’s simply too expensive, he said, to replace it with anything less than a “significant leap in technology.”

“We think that somewhere around 2010, we should have enough insight into future technologies to take us in a direction we want to go for the next generation of small arms,” said Radcliffe, director of the Infantry Center’s Directorate of Combat Developments at Fort Benning, Ga.

“We will have M4s and M16s for years and years and years and years,” he said.“We are buying a bunch of M4s this year … and we are doing it for all the right reasons, by the way. It’s doing the job we need it to do.”

And therin lies the major problem with the US Military today.  The Procurement system is driven by career bureaucrats, for the most part, not trigger pullers.  The interest is in new, spiffy, multi-million dollar, decade lead time projects, that can assure an appartchiks tenure in their position.  The combat lifespan of the individual soldier is of much less importance to the “perfumed Princes” (as COl. David Hackworth used to call them) of the Pentagon, than keeping fellow paper pushing officers emplyed.

So, the Army will NOT buy a better weapon for our troops, that requires no major change in training and orientation, or ammunition changes, because they are waiting for some new weapons system due next decade.

“We are not saying the [M4 and M16 are] bad,” said former Army vice chief of staff retired Gen. Jack Keane. “The issue for me is do our soldiers have the best rifle in their hands.”

“If we are going to build the best fighters, and put the best tanks on the ground, don’t our soldiers deserve, absolutely hands down, the best technology for a rifle?,” Keane said. “Not good enough, but the best.”

The 416 has also been torture tested buy the guys that know how to do that:

(Delta member and current H&K consultant Larry Vickers) remembered that Delta leaders were so happy with the 416 they bought the first 500 to come off the assembly line.

It was in Iraq in no time, but not before H&K and Delta put “a quarter-of-a-million rounds through it,” Vickers said. “It had the right kind of testing — endurance firing to 15,000 rounds with no lubrication. It runs like a sewing machine.”

What testing does the Army mandate for the M16 and M4?

At Colt’s plant in Connecticut, a government inspector pulls samples from each lot of M4s and performs a 108-point inspection to ensure they meet the Army’s specifications. M4s are also routinely subjected to endurance firing, but only to 6,000 rounds.

it’s the Army that sets the standard, Colt officials say.

And as to the Army’s willingness to make improvements to the current models?

“We make to their specs,” said Keys, the Colt CEO. “We are not authorized to make any kind of changes; the Army tells you what changes to make.

“If we have a change that we think would help the gun, we go to the Army … which is not an easy process, by the way. We spent 20 years trying to get [an extractor] spring changed. They just said ‘well, this works good enough.’”

And Col. Radcliffe adds:

The Army, however, isn’t interested in the 416 or any other current rifle technology.

“We will hold on trying to replace the small-arms fleet, and we will search for technologies that might give us significantly greater capabilities in … the next 10 years or something like that,” Radcliffe said.

And of course, the last refuge of the scoundrel is Cost.  “The Budget won’t allow us to field a weapon that will save the lives of soldiers in combat” is the translation of this:

“The truth is, to change out a fleet takes a tremendous amount of money,” Radcliffe said, referring to the task of outfitting a million soldiers with new weapons.

Experts say it would cost approximately $1 billion to replace the Army’s M16s and M4s with an “off-the-shelf” weapon like the 416.

Well, I ran some quick numbers, and 200,000 of the 416 rifles would cost about $300 Million. Since that is more than needed to replace the M16 and M4 units in the desert combat regions, I would think that would be sufficient to start with.

Though it probably is cheaper to pay for some funerals and survivor benefits.

You would think that the Democrat Party wouldget tired of doing things that get them labeled as Soft On Crime.  But, as Ronaldus Maximus said, “There they go again”…

Courtesy of the News Tribune:

Washington has sent 285 criminals to prison for the rest of their lives under the “Three Strikes, You’re Out” law, but about 10 percent of them would get out sooner if the Legislature changes the definition of what crimes are “strikes.”

Sen. Adam Kline, D-Seattle, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is proposing to do just that. He wants to rewrite the law that voters passed in 1993 and exclude offenders whose three crimes were second-degree assault or second-degree robbery.

He also wants to make the changes retroactive, which means 25 to 27 inmates serving life without possibility of parole would be eligible for shorter sentences.

Hmm. Now WHY would he want to do this?

“Given the high cost of incarceration, we need to ask if the ‘Three Strikes’ law is doing what we intended,” Kline said. “The goal in 1993 was to lock up the persistent offenders of the most serious crimes. I’m not convinced that we’ve succeeded.”

So what kind of offenses are we talking about, that Kline feels should NOT be part of 3 Strikes?

Sen. Mike Carrell, R-Lakewood, said he’s read the definition of second-degree assault. It’s a crime in which someone causes or intends to cause “substantial bodily harm” and inflicts pain “equivalent to torture,” he said.

“I want to know why you think someone who does this three separate times should not be put away for life?” Carrell asked witnesses who testified Friday in favor of Kline’s bill.

“Equivelent to Torture”?  Where is Code Pink and the ACLU?  They seem to be all upset about Gitmo, but they don’t care about letting animals like this back out on the street?

SB 5964 would require a review of prison inmates who have been convicted of three crimes – none more serious than the assault and robbery charges – and have judges resentence them.

“They are not going to walk away,” Kline said. “They will have long sentences.”

But sending someone to prison for life for committing three of the least violent crimes is out of proportion, especially considering that murderers and rapists eventually get out of prison, he said.

Sounds to me like we should tighten up on Murderers and Rapists, not let up on Assualters.

So what is motivating Kline?

Kline’s bill is one of several before the Legislature whose intent, in part, is to avoid building another $250 million prison.

“It’s not just one prison, it’s the parade of prisons,” Kline said.

The 2007 Legislature needs to correct some of the previous “hard on crime” legislatures that went overboard with little regard for the eventual cost, he said.

The idea that the cost of something deters a Democrat from spending is laughable on its face.  Could it be that the Left simply believes that no one really belongs in prison?  That everyone should be given another chance (well, a fourth chance, at least)?   Could it be that they would just rather spend the money on something else?  Or could they just be pandering to their base, and hoping that legislation to restore voting rights to felons passes?

Too bad for the victims, though.  I guess they didn’t suffer enough…

First, let me start by saying that I am not a great fan of Orson Scott Card.  In fact, this is the first work of his that I have read in at least 10 years, possibly more.

He is a good writer, but I just have not been interested in the premises of the books he has written in many years.

When I first saw the premise for Empire, it did catch my attention:  A new American Civil War, this time between Left and Right of the political spectrum.  But it just wasn’t enough to make me pull the trigger and buy it.

Then, I got stuck at Sea-Tac Airport the other day.  NOTE TO TRAVELLERS:  Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air should not bother publishing Schedules for their flights, as they are not actually adheared to, and seem to be more like guidelines, or suggestions, than any kind of actual commitment by those carriers to depart any given place at any specified time.  I recommend that they go to an AM/PM arrangement, to minimize the wear and tear on the nerves of their customers.

Since I found myself (again) with several hours to kill, and was not particularly interested in the novel I had brought along (review pending) I went shopping.

This book again caught my eye, but I continued shopping, until, in utter defeat, I decided to go ahead and give it a try.

As per my normal routing, I read the Afterword first.  I found it very insightful, and interesting, which raised my hopes for the book itself.

The first 1/3 or so went along great.  It felt much like a number of Techno-Thrillers I have read - not really Tom Clancy, but more of a Dale Brown feel.

But then it simply went off the rails.  The forces of the Tech Savvy Left includes Mechs (walking tanks), Hovercycles, and other unlikely hardware, that may be fine for a novel set 50 or 100 years from now, but simply destroys any attempt at a realistic time and place feel for a novel that is supposedly set in the here and now.

It even becomes more absurd when the mastermind and moneyman of the Left is an thinly veiled George Soros, but much smarter and even more deranged.

The basic premise was very interesting.  How do you fight a civil war, when it isn’t North Vs South, or any other defined Geographic boundry, but is more Left Vs Right, Red State Vs Blue State, Cities Vs Suburbs and Rural?

It’s unfortunate that the author didn’t spend more time expoloring this, in a more realistic manner, than turning what had the makings of a great political/techno thriller into a mere Science Fiction Novelization of a Video Game.

For what it’s worth, Card has some very interesting points to make throughout the book, and I actually identify with him and his perspective on politics and America, more than I do with many other authors.  I hope that he decides to dip more deeply from this well in the future.  He certainly has the writing ability, and political savvy, to make a signifigant impact on the genre.

Just leave the walking tanks out next time. 

Hat tip to OneFreeKorea, for pointing out this piece from NRO by John O’Sullivan:

The deal just keeps getting better for Kim Jong Il

Rudyard Kipling put it well a century ago:

It is always a temptation to a rich and lazy nation,
    To puff and look important and to say:—
“Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
    We will therefore pay you cash to go away.”

And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
    But we’ve proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
    You never get rid of the Dane.

The Dane in this week’s crisis is Kim Jong Il, the grand panjandrum of North Korea. Last week there was modified rapture in the chancelleries of the six great powers engaged in talking to Kim—Japan, China, Russia, India, South Korea and the United States—because they had negotiated a brand new compromise with him.

But can Kim be trusted to keep his side of the bargain this time?

Well, it’s true that this deal is so good for him and the North Korean government that he really doesn’t need to cheat. Kim gets to keep his rocket programs and his chemical and biological stockpiles; he gets normalized relations with the U.S., which means the removal of North Korea from the State Department’s list of “terrorist nations”; and he gets international respectability. What reasonable despot with a despicable human rights record could ask for more?At the same time he may not be able to stop himself cheating. He knows that the U.S. government, anxious to parade its sole diplomatic achievement, will be keen to turn a blind eye to any violations of this agreement. So he can probably cheat with impunity.

This is nothing more than the Carter/Clinton/Albright debacle being resusitated and propped up as a Diplomatic solution to the crisis with North Korea.  After all, it worked so well last time.  Rather than to continue with the very successful policy of choking off Kim’s access to congac and caviar, and banks to launder his drug money and counterfeit dollars, the Diplomats want to go back to appeasing him, in the hope that he will keep his word this time.

As Kipling pointed out, the moral is plain:
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
    You will find it better policy to say:—
“We never pay any-one Dane-geld,
    No matter how trifling the cost;
For the end of that game is oppression and shame.
And the nation that plays it is lost!”

Courtesy of the BBC:

Mexico’s parliament has condemned what it says is a border violation by US workers building a controversial barrier between the two countries.

Legislators say workers and equipment building a section of the barrier have gone 10 metres (yards) into Mexico.

Mexican legislators said they had photographs and video, taken on Monday, of the workers and heavy-duty construction equipment that showed them about 10 metres inside Mexico near the border city of Agua Prieta and the town of Douglas, Arizona.

The Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa said she had complained to the US authorities and that the men and equipment had been withdrawn.

The sheer brass cajones it takes for the Meixcan government to take this stance is breathtaking, in view of their tacit approval and support of the flow of illegals from their nation across that same border into ours, for the express purposes of providing an outlet for those discontented with the dismal economic and political situation in Mexico, and to get access to a huge influx of American Dollars (second only to Oil in its effects on propping up the Mexican economy).

So how does OUR Ambassador to Mexixo respond?  Why, like ALL American Diplomats, he APOLOGIZES:

In a statement, the US Ambassador to Mexico Tony Garza said: “The US is sensitive to Mexican concerns… [and] has the deepest respect for the integrity of the sovereignty of Mexican soil”.  

Of course, the Mexicans do not return that Respect.  In the view of many Mexicans (both in Mexico and in the US), our land IS theirs.  Like the Palestinians, they have been unjustly deprived of their property, and if we won’t give it back, they will take it back, one way or another.

I am not a huge Steve Jobs fan, but the man does have a keen insight into technology, and good business sense. 

Thanks to the Houston Chronicle, I find that I agree with Jobs on at least one subject:

Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs lambasted teacher unions today, claiming no amount of technology in the classroom would improve public schools until principals could fire bad teachers.

Jobs compared schools to businesses with principals serving as CEOs.

“What kind of person could you get to run a small business if you told them that when they came in they couldn’t get rid of people that they thought weren’t any good?” he asked to loud applause during an education reform conference.

“Not really great ones because if you’re really smart you go, ‘I can’t win.’”

I have long thought that Education should be run with a more business like model, which is why I firmly support Charter Schools and Vouchers.

“I believe that what is wrong with our schools in this nation is that they have become unionized in the worst possible way,” Jobs said.

“This unionization and lifetime employment of K-12 teachers is off-the-charts crazy.”

The inability to reward achievement, and disincentive failure, are at the core of the decline of the American educational system.  And we will not begin to recover until Tenure is eleminated, and the Unions are forced to take a step back.

Not that Unions are inherently evil.  Micheal Dell was at the same meeting as Jobs, and rebutted with this:

Dell responded that unions were created because “the employer was treating his employees unfairly and that was not good.”

“So now you have these enterprises where they take good care of their people. The employees won, they do really well and succeed.”

Unions do serve a purpose in ensuring fair treatment, and giving employees as a group a voice to management.  But when the Union becomes so powerful that it is, in effect, running Management, disaster is the only possible result.  The decline and fall of the American Automotive industry should be a cautionary tale to everyone on what can happen when the unions become so powerful, and demand so onerus, that business can no longer compete. 

But Dell did agree with Jobs on education:

Dell also blamed problems in public schools on the lack of a competitive job market for principals.

I would go further, and insist on a competetive job market for Teachers.  And choice for parents and students.

I almost NEVER post these  types of items, and even more rarely copy them verbatim, but this is so amusing, that I had to share it.  Thanks to Gar at the Lost Nomad:

 HELL EXPLAINED BY CHEMISTRY STUDENT 
The following is an actual question given on a University of Washington chemistry mid-term. The answer by one student was so “profound” that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well: 

Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?
Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle’s Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant.
One student, however, wrote the following:
First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time.  So, we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving.  I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave.  Therefore, no souls are leaving.
As for how many souls are entering Hell, let’s look at the different religions that exist in the world today.  Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell.  Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially.  Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle’s Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added. This gives two possibilities:
1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.
2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.

So which is it?
If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, “It will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you,” and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number two must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over.
The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is, therefore, extinct leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting “Oh, my God.” THIS STUDENT RECEIVED THE ONLY “A”.

US House rebukes Bush over new Iraq strategy - Yahoo! News

A total of 246 of the current 434 House members supported the motion, which says “Congress disapproves of the decision of President George W. Bush announced on January 10, 2007″ to send an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq.

It adds that “Congress and the American people will continue to support and protect the members of the United States armed forces who are serving or who have served bravely and honorably in Iraq.”

So, in real terms, the resolution means exactly NOTHING. But it is a genuflection to the Anti-War crowd, that the Democrat party feels in responsbile for putting them into power.

Friday’s vote finally gives voice to US voters who swept the Democratic Party to power in both chambers of Congress in November elections amid a wave of anger over the Iraq war.

The left wing of the Democratic Party as well as a Democratic presidential contender for the 2008 election, former senator John Edwards, have been pushing Congress to cut war funding.So far, the Democratic establishment has signaled its reluctance to cut funds for the US troops already deployed in Iraq.But Jack Murtha, chairman of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee and one of the fiercest critics of the Iraq war, has announced he would condition the release of additional funds in a way that would hamper future troop deployments.

This is almost exactly what happened in Viet Nam. The Anti-War Democrat crowd took control, and cut off all aid for South Viet Nam.

The result that time was a Domino effect of Southeast Asian nations falling to Communist aggression, and well over 2 Million dead.

What will the butchers bill be for the Middle East?

UPDATE: Dafydd at Big Lizards has the low-down on the Democrat gambit - must read!

I am sure this will shock and amaze the reader, but courtesy of Gateway Pundit and My Way/AP News:

Patrick Ishmael was browsing an AP article last week when he came upon this:

Apart from legislation, Democrats have embarked on an effort to undermine public support for the war by holding numerous hearings.

Of course, the results of this strategy will be obvious…

“If you’re not for victory in Iraq, you’re for failure,” (Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, his party’s leader) said. “The consequences of failure are immense. I think it destabilizes the entire Middle East, encourages Iran and on top of that it’s pretty clear that the terrorists will just follow us home.”

Forgot to order Roses for your Valentine?

Fear not!  Now you have a handy excuse, that also shows how “in touch” and “caring” you are!

Courtesy of the Telegraph, we now know that:

Valentine Bouquets Are Bad For The Planet

The Valentine’s Day bouquet — the gift that every woman in Britain will be waiting for next week — has become the latest bête noire among environmental campaigners.

In the past three years, the amount of flowers imported from the Netherlands has fallen by 47 per cent to 94,000 tons, while those from Africa have risen 39 per cent to 17,000 tons.

Environmentalists warned that “flower miles” could have serious implications on climate change in terms of carbon dioxide emissions from aeroplanes.

Yes, that’s right!  Now you can save $40 on Roses, and be Enironmentally Correct!