Australian F-111C in burner Once one of the most controversial aircraft to grace the sky, the last operational variant of the first variable-geometry warplane went out of business back at the start of this month, with the very last flying example being cut up to be shipped to a museum. The Royal Australian Air Force …
The title of this post was the title of this article in the December, 1940 Popular Science magazine. “He” was John C. Garand, and the “world’s deadliest rifle” was, of course, what would turn out to be the best semi-auto of the Second World War, the U.S. Rifle .30 Caliber M1. The article opens by …
Here’s another forgotten film that needs to be remembered, It Happened Here. It was made in the 1950s and 60s in England by two, essentially, kids, Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo, as a labor of love. Black and white, their eight years’ effort runs about an hour and a half. You would never know it was …
OK, it’s a grainy shot, and it’s a rare gun; but there is absolutely, positively enough here to ID it. Answer in the comments. The first correct answer gets… bragging rights. If we aren’t getting answers we’ll extend some hints, from the arcane on. We’ll ID the weapon by day’s end (if not before) and …
We discussed toggle-locking recently. This obsolescent technology was very strong in the early 20th Century; its most important deployed weapons were the German P.08 and other Luger pistols, and the Maxim machine guns. In the comments to that post, Max Popenker of the indispensable world.guns.ru noted a few examples of toggle locks we forgot. And …
This one’s been rusting in our queue since September, but the link is still good, and the poor guy is still dead. When we say “almost anything can kill a human being, and the only thing that keeps us alive is good fortune and the common decency of 99.repeating9% of humanity” we do indeed mean …
In the early days of semi- and automatic weapons, one very common locking mechanism was a toggle lock. This lock works like a human knee joint: it would bend freely once bent, but when “straight” it was over-center and pressure on the “bolt face” (or sole of the foot) just locked it more firmly. This …
…and table legs, apparently. This story from Georgia shocks the conscience. We are from a generation in which a corrective was sometimes applied to a child with a belt. Indeed, we took our licks, and usually deserved ’em. But this kid was injured by a beating delivered by an apparently unrelated adult man — but …
Heartless humorist P.J. O’Rourke reimagines Kennedy’s stirring inaugural address in a contemporary setting, as part of a cruel mockery of our rudderless but belligerent Chief Executive: Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill—and since we’re not engaged in nation-building, every nation should wish us well—that we shall pay any price if …
You think you know what “police” are? You think you have a handle on “fishing?” Welcome to Afghanistan. The incident took place last Friday in the Doshi district of the northern province of Baghlan when policemen on the bank of a river fired a rocket-propelled grenade into the water. “The rocket went astray and hit …