A brief review. The phone is pretty much awesome. All sorts of free apps that work well. And it comes with a lot of gizmos. The voice activated search is pretty cool, though the kids aren’t that good at it since they tend to say ‘b’ instead of ‘v’.

The AK47 app is lots of fun and the kids like the bubble game.

Bar code scanner is nifty. Scan the bar code of anything and it will look up product reviews online.

I said earlier that I thought it had some sort of proprietary cable. I was wrong. It’s apparently the new micro USB and I had the older USB cables.

GMote is cool. Use your Droid to as a remote for your PC. Handy for watching netflix on the TeeVee and for operating media player.

Turn by turn directions are free. That is slick.

A few complaints:

There is a number in contacts that I did not put there. And I cannot delete it. Odd.

Keyboard was a bit difficult to get used to. I’d constantly hit two keys at once. Getting the hang of it.

I cannot uninstall some of the preloaded apps that I’ll likely never use.

The cool feature that it runs multiple apps at once has one drawback. It doesn’t really close a lot of them when you think you’ve exited. But there’s an app to close them called TasKiller.

Quite a few of it’s features rely on having a gmail account. I already had one so not a big deal.

Since I’ve played with it a lot, battery seems to drain pretty quickly.

I never owned an iPhone but I played with them a lot at the store. Always tempted to buy one but, at the end of the day, I just couldn’t switch to the horrible AT&T service. But in a day, I’ve decided I like the Droid better. If I’d owned an iPhone, that might not be the case.

Droid is an awesome gizmo.

Update: The manual leaves a lot to be desired and I haven’t found a help file yet.

Is the default droid sound effect. I send myself email just to hear it.

Worst thing about it is that the cable is some bizarre proprietary looking thing, which means the no less than 100 cables I had that worked with my blackberry don’t work. I’ll need a car charger and all of that.

I have one. It rules.

Greatest zombie movie ever.

About to start.

Layers of editorial oversight.

Update: the press notices.

News says Fort Hood killer used a a 5.7-caliber semiautomatic pistol. I think they mean the FN FiveseveN, which is close to a .22 caliber.

Why do we disarm our military?

Hero:

Kimberly Munley, hero and civilian police officer, saved lives when she put an end to the rampage by shooting Major Hasan 4 times, even while Officer Munley herself was wounded.

Grrl power. Never thought I’d see Egalia mention that someone armed was a hero.

Another mass shooting, in Orlando.

More info here. Suspect still at large.

Or Babes with Bullets:

I shot a gun for the first time on my 45th birthday. I admit to being scared in the beginning, but I was determined to find a new adventure to share with my husband. What I didn’t realize when I started shooting was just how much more than a new adventure I would find!

The gun that beat inflation.

The start of the next project:

From Gun Porn

Started off with a 6.8SPC marked lower from Tactical Machining. And I decided I needed a bit of color in my collection so I got some flat dark earth furniture from Cavalry Arms.

BTW, CavArms customer service is great. I called them up because for some reason the pistol grip screw I had was a bit long. I asked them if their grips maybe required a shorter screw (since their stocks don’t use a spacer, I thought it was possible). They sent me a screw and washer free. That’s good service.

Roberta:

In other news, 3,699 to 13,999 Muslims serving in the U. S. military didn’t go on a shooting spree yesterday.

It’s not the religion. It’s not the guns. It’s the crazy. And no one group has a lock on crazy.

By most accounts, it’s looking like a case of Sudden Jihad Syndrome. Seems the shooter was upset about being deployed overseas, which makes you wonder about his career choice since that line of work stands a better than average shot at being deployed overseas. Witnesses report he shouted allahu akbar while shooting.

And there’s that whole matter of him being investigated for his online postings of threats and suicide. So, why wasn’t he investigated? If not that, why not at least inform his commanding officers of his tendency to talk about suicide bombing? The hints were there. Another in a line of fatal intelligence failures, I suppose.

Also, Pattycakes tells us that the narrative is shifting. I think after this incident, most folks won’t approve of that kind of PC scrubbing. The press is loathe to speculate about the shooter’s religion and that being a factor. But within minutes they were speculating about stressed out soldiers going crazy. No one should be saying that Muslims are inherently violent. That’s wrong and bigoted. But tiptoeing around the issue that violent acts that have been committed by someone whose religion influenced them is not. It’s called reporting. And the press needs to stop acting like it doesn’t exist.

Of course, the press couldn’t get the guns right. In less than 44 minutes, the guns went from sniper rifles, to uzis, to M16s, and lastly we learn it was handguns. I’m surprised the press didn’t throw in a gratuitous AK-47 reference for consistency.

Remember how those rednecks supposedly killed a census worker and wrote ‘fed’ on him? Yeah, could have been a suicide.

And the British courts agree: Global warming is religion.

A look at ‘exploding’ bullets.

Saiga 20

Williamson Derringer

NRA opposes questions about gun ownership from adoption agencies. I don’t have an issue with the questions provided they are about gun safety and making certain the parents know gun safety. If ownership of guns is dis-qualifier, then that is problematic.

Man in England to be sentenced for dealing guns to criminals.

A phone call from NRA that doesn’t go well. I’m not a big fan of unsolicited calls either.

Shooter turns out to be not dead. And he also had been posting on the internet about suicide bombings.

Shifted to a lone gunman narrative. Several folks report lots of shots and rifle fire in different areas. 2 suspects released. Supposedly a fourth person in custody. Shooter was killed by police. Keeps changing so no more posting on it until we actually, err, know stuff.

So says Fox News. Lone gunman.

Shooter was a psychiatrist

Odd. Also, seems they haven’t let out much info on the other two suspects. I’ve heard reports that they don’t know if they were involved. And reports they were part of an ambush.

Also, the guy may have shot himself. That doesn’t sound very Jihad.

Updates as I get them at bottom.

At Fort Hood:

At least seven people are dead and 12 wounded in a shooting at Fort Hood in Texas, the base’s public affairs office told NBC News on Thursday.

The official would not give his name nor additional details. It was unknown whether victims are soldiers or civilians. One gunman was reportedly in custody and another was on the loose, NBC News said. A third shooter may be involved, according to NBC News affiliate KCEN.

Update: Shooters reportedly wearing military uniforms.

Started at a Soldier’s Readiness Center.

Update: possible third shooter.

Update:Third shooter confirmed.

Press says “sniper rifles”. CNN says “uzis”

Reports there was some sort of graduation ceremony there.

Update:NBC says possible terrorist attack but not confirmed.

Update:CNN exploring the stressed out troop angle.

Update:Military officials will not say if the shooters are soldiers or not. They do not know.

Chatter about fifth of November, Obama’s one year anniversary. But the latter the was on the fourth.

Update:Reports of M-16s by CNN.

Update:One shooter wounded. Happened at a processing center where people were filling paperwork to go to Iraq.

Update:9 dead.

Update: Fox says not a terror attack. Not sure how they’d know that definitively. But that’s the word.

Update: ATF on the way. Wait. What?

Update: Reports from local affiliate that more gun shots reported near base, possibly soldiers’ residences.

Update: Man in custody is in his 30s or 40s.

Update: FBI guy on Fox says no terrorist nexus. Probably means interview with guy in custody indicates it’s a civilian, contractor, or military guy.

Update: Preliminary reports are usually wrong. So, take the above with a grain of salt.

Also, nothing new being reported.

Press is now no longer using th terms 2-3 shooters but saying multiple shooters. Don’t know if that means there’s speculation of more or if they’re just not sure if it’s 2 – 3.

Update: reports of two in custody, one being an officer.

Update: More reports of more shooting near base.

Update: CNN says 12 dead now

Update: reports one shooter dead.

Update: 12 dead 31 injured.

Reports that two soldiers in custody.

Update: 2 shooters in custody and one dead. Reports that they’re soldiers.

Primary shooter used two handguns

Billy Beck:

This is culturally important, ladies & gentlemen. In some ways, this is much worse than an attack by foreigners.

Yup.

MSNBC:

KCEN, which quoted a source as saying at least one of the shooters had a high-powered rifle, reported reported that at least four SWAT officers were among those wounded.

Reports that all weapons were handguns. I often wonder why the press even bothers trying to ID guns. Started out with sniper rifles, then uzis, then M16s, and now it’s handguns.

Update: Shooter ID’d: Major Malik Nadal Hasan

Not a gun, a flashlight. Wait. What?

True story. I realized that my non-gun nut friends really dig the flashlights I had. So, for birthdays and holidays, I’d get them Surefire G2s. They liked them. A friend I’d gotten one for is a contractor. He was up in an attic looking to do some repair work. He set his G2 down on a crossbeam to look at something. A few minutes later, he smelled something burning. Looked down to see smoke coming out from under the flashlight. The heat of the lamp caused the wood to start smoldering a bit.

I agree that as long as social issues are at the forefront of the Republican party, they will have a hard time being successful. People, generally, seem more concerned about government largess, spending, economy, taxes, and such than they do about gay cooties and abortion. And they largely like being left alone. YMMV.

People seem to like it, reasoned or not:

The newspaper was investing time and resources generating stories, but these other sites, run mostly as a hobby, were linking to those stories and moving the conversation about the articles elsewhere.

“There was a point at which KnoxViews was really taking off,” McElroy says, “and it concerned me as I thought, ‘Is the nexus of community dialogue going to be shifting away from the News Sentinel to an Internet forum, and what does that mean for our future?’”

KnoxViews had—and continues to have—an openly progressive tilt, so to forfeit the lion’s share of community dialogue to a site driven by a particular set of political and social values could have marginalized a great many other community voices; or it may have run them into their own respective realms, creating echo chambers of like-minded people rather than a Darwinian common ground where the best ideas survive.

So when the Sentinel relaunched its site in 2007, it linked comments to usernames and allowed them for every article. The effect was palpable. Randy Neal, founder of KnoxViews, says he immediately noticed an exodus from his site to the News Sentinel’s; with the help of some contentious local issues, before long knoxnews.com was hosting nearly 50,000 comments a month. The crisis of irrelevance had been averted.

Interesting. A forum was a threat to the local news rag. The local news rag opens comments and that impacts the forum’s traffic. Of course, about two years ago, was also when Knoxviews decided that dissent would not be tolerated. I find that funny.

Seems the Wisconsin AG got some grief over not filing a pro-gun Heller brief. Turns out, he needs permission from the legislature. So, he got permission for the Chicago case.

No, I’m not talking about the Obama administration. I’m talking about the TeeVee show V. I watched that show and had quite a few belly laughs over how it’s tied to some current events. Some spoilers so don’t read more if you don’t want to know.

But the leader of the aliens, Anna, is a charismatic speaker who people get really into. Some characters compared the devotion to the visitors to religion and messiah figures. Anna spoke of hope and change. The visitors offered universal health care to the people. And the press agreed to ask questions that would not portray the visitors in a negative light. I don’t know if the writers of the show did that on purpose but a lot of the things were rather similar to criticism of Obama and some things were definitely similar to Obama. I laughed.

Update and bump: Also, seriously, 29 spaceships enter the atmosphere and hover above major cities. And people don’t bug out? If giant space craft landed over Maryville, me, the wife, and the kids would be hitting the back forty with lots of guns, skinning bucks, running trot lines, and doing other things from Hank Jr. songs. I wouldn’t be hanging around to see what happened.

Update: From Bitter, similar thoughts at the Chicago Tribune.

You’d think by now people would learn not to do sex tapes.

Some news outlets are looking at the weapon’s reliability.

In elections, they get voted down 100% of the time. And:

One guy who lives outside of Phoenix, Dave Vontesmar, hated the cameras so much he put on a monkey mask to drive to work every day, to keep the front-facing cameras from identifying him. Racked up 37 tickets that could amount to $6,500 in fines. Says the state can’t prove it’s him, which it has to do in his state

Heh.

The NYT was controlled by Spitzer’s communications director.

Members of MS13 were trying to get an assault rifle to kill a federal agent. I thought they could just walk into any gun show and they were just handing them out?

A push in Wyoming to make hunters carry bear spray. Even though that 300 WinMag they’re lugging around is probably a bit more effective.

Gun fighting from vehicles.

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Ownership was for it before they were against it.