Ok, so now they're not only protecting us from ourselves


They're wanting to protect animals from themselves.


"Horses are particularly at high risk when there is intense action, so we're looking at adding another level of supervision and looking at stricter guidelines," Spaulding said.

Monday's accident marked the second time a horse was injured during filming on "Flicka." The AHA said a horse broke its leg in an accident two weeks ago. The break was so bad that the horse had to be euthanized.

Representatives for Fox and Animal Services said that they had no knowledge of the previous incident and could not comment.

Animal accidents, while rarer than they once were, still occur. The AHA said a horse was accidentally impaled during filming of 2001's "American Outlaws," and a bull broke its neck during a cattle drive during 2003's "The Rundown."

The AHA said that with productions going overseas, animal accidents on studio films might increase.

"There is no oversight, so the animals and the actors are at risk," Spaulding said. "We're hearing reports that that's happening."

Potatoes I have known


Some people never seem motivated to participate, but are just content to
watch while others do the work.
They are called "Spec Taters".

Some people never do anything to help, but are gifted at finding fault with
the way others do the work.
They are called "Comment Taters".

Some people are very bossy and like to tell others what to do, but don't
want to soil their own hands.
They are called "Dick Taters".

Some people are always looking to cause problems by asking others to agree
with them. It is too hot or too cold, too sour or too sweet.
They are called "Agie Taters".

There are those who say they will help, but somehow just never get around to
actually doing the promised help.
They are called "Hezzie Taters".

Some people can put up a front and pretend to be someone they are not.
They are called "Emma Taters".

Then there are those who love others and do what they say they will. They
are always prepared to stop whatever they are doing and lend a helping hand.
They bring real sunshine into the lives of others.
They are called "Sweet Po Taters".

Something that smells alot like San Antonio politics

Exept that it's Hewlett-Packard.

They gave the discraced exec "In addition to her 2004 salary of $1.4 million, the ousted chief executive reaped $1.6 million in performance bonuses. Her severance package was valued at $21.3 million. What else? Six months of administrative support, home security payments for a year, her desktop computer and three months of tech support. Oh, and $50,000 for financial counseling and legal and outplacement services."

It's like San antonio City hall on a smaller scale. They got rid of almost every head of every department there, and gave them all an extremely generous package. The S.A.W.S.( Water board) left with all his bennies and time off, and a years extra salery- his --part time--replacement is getting over $280,000 and full time bennies.
The Mayor Garza almost got the City Manager fired in the middle of the night- just a small "Open Meetings" law stopped that. She quit, and got A full years salary and all bennies, and I think "maintenance" untill she gets another job.
Her --part time-- replacement is making more than her also.

The new (almost) C.M. was going to get $50,000 in moving expenses, $1,000 in cell calls, Taxpayer payed trips back home twice a month for a year, $7,000/mo car allawance, and I'm not sure what her salery was, or her (even better) severance package was. But then again, she needed it, cause it's easy to pick on the girl.

Update on getting Dish network

Apparently, DishPronto has an affilliate down here that moved from Vermont after their sitcom was cancelled. I was scheduled to get my dish on Sat. but it was rescheduled for Sun, when Larry, Darryl and Darryl couldn't find my house. The Dish rep. I talked to Sun. nite told me they said they tried calling a phone that wasn't in use, and I was waiting - and couldn't get an answer. They were supposed to call my work cell phone today, but I didn't have any missed calls or messages.

Larrys mom answered the call at 4:35PM today and said "thaht I'd lefd ah messuge because it wouldn't ainser."
Me: OK, when's the soonest you can do it?
Lm: Ah kin skedule you as the first alternet tomarrah, if ya wanna wait all day.
Me: No I work, can't you have them come over at 4:15 or so?
Lm: Let me talk to the manerger ** holding** **holding** OK, no we kain't do thaht.
Me: Why not?
Lm: Because he said it'd take up to six hours to do 4 rooms. If we'd send one of them boys out that late, they'd git done after 10PM.
Me: ?????????
Lm: want us ta reskedule ya fer next Sat?
Me: NO, take me off your list, and refund my money, I'll go to Radio shack and do it myself, I can drill 4 holes through an outside wall.
Lm: Ok, I'll take you off the skeduale, but you'll have to talk to DishNetwork to git yer money bak, we're just an affiliate.

OK, so my crappy Charters' gone, and I don't have satellite TV. It doesn't bother me all that much, I'll miss Fox and Friends, and the Weather channel, but it'll be hard on the wife- missing her bad sci-fi, and all.


(Update 9:30PM- I couldn't get ahold of Dish Network, I was on hold for almost 20 min listening to how"important your call is to us". I wonder who won the bet on the length of hold time I'd tolerate. I guess I'll follow-up on the flaming mail that got sent.

I'm now scheduled for DIRECT TV for Weds afternoon at $19.00 instead of an upfront charge of $49.99)

It's been a long semi-productive weekend

If you count it from my overtime standpoint. Not to good if you look at it from my employers. I got called in for a water main break as the water crews' boss was 2 hours to the east of San Antonio. As I was comming back from looking at the first one, I noticed another one- pushing up the asphalt at an intersection. I called the water boss, and made a line locate for it too.

As we were waiting the alloted two hours for SBC to locate their fiber-optic lines, we got ready to dig. The only people who showed up from the water crew was the boss and the on-call guy. I can't say much beacuse my entire crew wasn't there all at one time either, but everyone I called showed up.

We started digging about 5PM at the corner of our first leak, and found- alot of buried cr*p that we had to identify before we could let the backhoe work. We finally got down to the "leak" and found out the water was comming through a PVC sleeve with most likely the fiber-optic and what looked like about 76 pair copper line.

Oh fun- now WHERE is the water comming from?

As we were digging- machine assisted hand digging, we found ANOTHER PVC pipe marking something else. By this time it was about 9:30- 10PM, and we decided to barricade it off and work on the other one about 3 blocks away. That would be easier to fix- an 8" PVC Main that had a history of problems. Everyone knew right where that line was, and it was exposed with no problems in minimal time. We threw a big pump into the hole, de-watered it and slapped a "band-aid" (pipe repair clamp) on it in no time.

By the time we had it backfilled ( the boss wants us to backfill with calichie) and semi-cleaned up it was almost 11:15PM. We decided to come back at 8Am tomorrow and see about the other one, as it was on the downhill side of the same road-in conduit- just maybe to see if we'd fixed it, too.

We came back this morning and the hole was almost dry, so we spent about 2 1/2 hours on backfilling, compacting and hauling dirt.

So 10 hours of time and a half helps, but I don't want to make a habit out of it. It's been dry here, though and the ground is shifting, so it's going to get busy on the waterline front this summer.

Happy "Earth Day"

From your earth loving
ecoterrorists at E.L.F..

We decided to ditch Charter Cable and go with Dish Network

I ordered online from DishPronto and It's scheduled for this Sat.

Just wanted to let you know that if you give them an e-mail, you'll get a boatload of spam. I don't know if it's just one of those spamwaves, but none of my other mails are getting hit but that much. I guess I should have been wary when the communications babe they have reminded me strongly of Hillary. Just wanted to say . . .

(Update Apr 24 8:32PM) It appears that my satellite installers aren't rocket scientists, or map readers. I'd bet they don't even plug an address into Yahoo! Maps.

They rescheduled to today beteween 12 and 5PM. the service phone answerer guy (not "Anne Green" with a thick Indian accent) said the'd tried to call at 1:45Pm - but I was ho,me and no-one was online.

So now I've got to wait till they call me at work- on my work cell phone- to rechedule, and give them directions.

Remember at the beginning of this last Iraqi war

When a moslem soldier attacked his company with gernades and an ASSAULT RIFLE? Probably not, because it was premeditated murder by a person of the "Religion of Peace" and MSM doen't want to go there.

Turns out that (soon to be EX) SGT Hasan Akbar has been convicted Thursday by a military jury of premeditated murder and attempted murder in a grenade and rifle attack.

The reason for this attack? "Prosecutors say Akbar told investigators he launched the attack because he was concerned U.S. troops would kill fellow Muslims in Iraq. They said he coolly carried out the attack to achieve "maximum carnage" on his comrades in the 101st Airborne Division."

And naturally his defense tried: "Defense attorney Maj. Dan Brookhart countered that Akbar was concerned the invasion of Iraq would result in the deaths of Muslims and that U.S. soldiers would rape Iraqi women. (YUK - Kurt)

He said the prosecution's depiction of Akbar as a cold-blooded killer ignored that the defendant was sufficiently mentally ill — though not insane — to be confused and fearful about the impending invasion of Iraq.

The defense lawyer scoffed at an Army psychiatrist's testimony that Akbar suffered merely from "the blues" — not any serious mental problems.

"It doesn't make any sense. This guy doesn't have the blues," he said. "He is mentally ill."


Via LGF

Welcome to all the visitors that Joe sent over

And I know this blog is full of baloney, but I didn't see any links to me. You're welcome to look around and make yourself at home as I bask in the moderate glow of getting a Moderate launch.

Have you seen the latest image of "Our Lady"?

I guess I'd be more able to see Holy images if I grew up in a third world country where superstition was as common as SUVs'. That being said, I must have walked past the same kind of "visage" uncounted times with out realizing what "miracle" I was passing (and in some cases- fixing).

I guess God doesn't believe in the assumed presumption of the "seperation of Church and State" as He put a pic of the Virgin on a U.S. Post office window in Clearwater, Fl.

As I look at my nightly blogs, it seems obligitory to mention the new Pope

Point One: I'm a consrevative, so am glad they are back on the path to the "old" way, the way things have been seen for close on 2000 years.

Point Two: In the stand against the moslem (re)invasion, I just have to say it's a good thing the sheep have a Good German Sheppherd.

When are those Republicans going to grow a pair?

I just heard about the delay on John Boltons nomination. I mean c'm on, after the Dems were falling all over themselves to defend Bill
Clinton and his White House frat brothers, those spineless Reps -even in a MAJORITY- couldn't force a vote because Bolton pounded on a womans f*ing DOOR???
If they're raising the bar that high as a requirement for higher office, I'd expect to see about 546 opening in the next election cycles.

HEY RNC they're called Cajonies, grow some!

On a more (or less) heated note

We have this question from Junk Science:
Just where IS the "Global Mean Temperature" taken? At what elevation? How many places is it taken?

And more to the point, what IS the Earths "proper temprature?

You can also see a realtime hourly "Global Mean Temp" for you that are into "Global Temprature Variations"

I was wondering why I made Yahoo search on this question

When I remembered my e-mail address, which is a nickname from my old Sea Bee Battalion

Finally, the Dems are making a move on high gas prices

(2005-04-12) -- With gasoline prices at the pump well over $2 per gallon, Democrats in Congress who have staunchly opposed oil drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), today sought to prove they have a proactive plan for America's energy independence.

At a news conference on the steps of the Capitol, Congressional Democrats unveiled a new 7-point plan for fossil fuel freedom. The $873 billion program would create a new Department of Independence from Petroleum Suppliers to implement the following proactive measures.

* Low-income families will receive a monthly allocation of refined Alaskan caribou milk -- a cheap, plentiful alternative to gasoline.
* America will harness the energy of environmental protestors by paying them to push the cars of government officials.
* American corporations will be required to hire people from neighborhoods within three miles of their facilities to enhance "employee ambulatory commuting."
* Popular vacation spots will be required to relocate to within five miles of population density centers. For example, Disney will open virtual Magic Kingdom kiosks in thousands of convenience stores nationwide.
* All of the nation's remaining undeveloped land, abandoned lots and industrial 'brown field' sites will be designated as national parks to provide local vacation spots within walking distance for most Americans.
* The IRS will offer a Family-Compound Tax Credit to extended families which establish joint residence on the same property, thereby eliminating the need to drive to visit loved ones.
* The federal tax on a gallon of gasoline will be increased to $8.59 in order to reduce consumption and thereby increase the supply which will drive down the price per gallon.


Now, where do you think this came from? Junk Science, The New Editor, or Scrappleface?

Something else I forgot about small town Texas

The mail is delivered by truck to larger processing centers, so there are alot of small towns on the carriers rout. If you want to get mail postmarked the same day, you need to get it into the P.O. building, because the mail is collected from the boxes when the mail truck is near. In Hondo it's 5:45 PM- only- daily or 3:55PM on Saturdays. If you miss that, then you need to find someone going to San Antonio the next morning.

Aelfheld has some good posts about the way those "RINOS" are acting up in DC

He's started a series of articles about "the Base" being snubbed by republicans in DC.

I agree, I'm not a real republican, I'm a Conservative. I want to be able to vote for the person that I think will help run this country the right way. No that's not a typo, Reagan was a Republican, Newt Gingrich is a Republican, there aren't many real Republicans up in DC now. most are Republicans In Name Only.

Go read him, he's got the wonderful gift of language ; I wish I could write half as well as him.

Update on our CATatonic relationship with the dogs

Ok we'd been feeding the cat thru the fence, and he'd been coming through it to get some attention. Yesterday I left the little black dog out (more medium size, really) to see if she'd be nice. She knew the cat was in the yard with us, but didn't know where. As wife was working on the garden, cat was with her and dog found him.

The black dog didn't hesitate before she went for the cat and got a mouthfull of grey fur, and a swat across the face from the cat. Meg was startled, and took a step back as the cat was swiping at air. Cat saw an opportunity, and up the tree he went. It was a tree next to the back porch, and dog didn't know WHERE cat went. She can't climb trees, so I guess it never occored to her to look up.

Anyway the cat stayed in the tree untill wife and I went out to practice with the pellet gun (about 2 hours later), guess cat is a Liberal and doesn't like guns. Down the tree he went, and though the fence.

OK, you'd think the cat would get a clue about dogs. Wrong, he was inside the fence with BOTH dogs runing free. I was spraying them as they got too close, well dogs are dogs, and nature took it's course. It was the same friendly black dog that went after the cat again. He's now hiding under the back shed.

More hints for small towns in west Texas

When doing the weekly shopping, if there is a Super-S in one town and an H.E.B. in another, don't even think about heading all the way into the southside-San Antonio to the *ONLY* H.E.B. within 5 miles. Especially if it's close to an Air Force base(and it's a small H.E.B. to boot).

It will probably be a little more expensive in the small town, but will be ALOT less crowded- and more friendly.

In case you missed all the MSM hype about the Giuliana Sgrena investigation


"The preliminary report from a joint U.S.-Italian investigation has cleared the American soldiers of any wrongdoing and provides new details into the shooting.

Intelligence agent Calipari had just negotiated Sgrena's release from Iraqi kidnappers on March 4 when the two and a driver headed for the Baghdad airport in a compact rental car.

It was dark when the Italians turned onto a ramp leading to the airport road where the U.S. military had set up a temporary checkpoint.

The investigation found the car was about 130 yards from the checkpoint when the soldiers flashed their lights as a warning to stop. But the car kept coming and, at 90 yards, warning shots were fired. At 65 yards, when the car failed to stop, the soldiers used lethal force — a machine gun burst that killed Calipari and wounded Sgrena and the driver.

The investigation failed, however, to resolve one critical dispute: The Americans claim the car was racing toward the checkpoint at about 50 miles per hour, the Italians say it was traveling at a much slower speed."

Funny how it's failed to mention the Commie Reporter even told about how they were going so fast, they almost lost control more than once.

Oh, and don't bother searching for more information today, the only ones with up-to-date mentions are Right Wing Blogs.

Update on the cell phone

If you move to a small town in the western part of Texas, be aware that there are NO local cell phone numbers. The 830 area code surrounds San Antonio (210) and the closest 830 number I was offered was New Braunfels. I guess I'll keep my 210 prefix, it doesn't really matter, since my T-Mobile cell doesn't work at the house anyway. There is no real need to get it working anyway, because most of my new neighbors don't seem to be illegal MEXICANS.

Oh, by the way, Andrea Dworkin is dead

Now it's safe to use your male marital rights to put your wife back in bed. Or back chained to the stove barefoot and pregnant.

I had forgotten just how expensive it is to move

Not the moving its self- we did that, but the initial service fees. We're paying SBC $157.06 for 3 days of service; and speaking of phones:
T-mobile:
if I wanted my service companys primary message to be MEXICAN, I wouldn't have signed up for one whose spokesbabe speaks the Kings English and Welch. Sorry but I have a gripe about an AMERICAN company giving their MEXICAN customers first billing on the hierarchy of auto answering machines.

I've been prompt on the electric, so Bluebonnet Elect. Co-op can send a credit letter to Medina Co. Elect. Co-op, and not have another $250 added to the bill.

As far as a choice between Charter cable and satellite TV, go satellite. When you cull all the Shopping channels, MEXICAN channels, Sports channels, and other assorted BS, there are about 15 choices to flip through. I'll pay the same amount for about 120 usable channels, thank you very much.

Did I mention we inherited a declawed cat? The dogs want to 'play' with it. He (his given name is/was Beudreau) they're slowly getting together. I don't think the black dog would have too much trouble, but the fat white one doesn't want to play nice. He has access to water, but we're putting his food arms reach on the other side of the fence. He had some Tx style pork ribs last night, too.

Everything is settling down, the girls are out playing in the community park, and wife is watching her bad Sci-Fi (yes we have the Sci-Fi Channel).

New words for 2005


BLAMESTORMING - Sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline
was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.


SEAGULL MANAGER - A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps
on everything, and then leaves.


ASSMOSIS - The process by which people seem to absorb success and
advancement by sucking up to the boss rather than working hard.


SALMON DAY - The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream
only to get screwed and die.


CUBE FARM - An office filled with cubicles.


PRAIRIE DOGGING - When someone yells or drops something loudly in a
cube farm, and people's heads pop up over the walls to see that's going
on. (This also applies to applause from a promotion because there may
be cake.)


MOUSE POTATO - The on-line, wired generation's answer to the couch
potato.


SITCOMs - Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage. What
yuppies turn into when they have children and one of them stops working
to stay home with the kids or start a "home business".


STRESS PUPPY - A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and
whiny.


PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE - The fine art of whacking the cr*p out of an
electronic device to get it to work again.


ADMINISPHERE - The rarefied organisational layers beginning just above
the rank and file. Decisions that fall from the "adminisphere" are
often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were
designed to solve. This is often affiliated with the dreaded
"administrivia" needless paperwork and processes.


404 - Someone who's clueless. From the World Wide Web error message
"404 Not Found," meaning that the requested document could not be
located.


OHNOSECOND - That minuscule fraction of time in which you realise that
you've just made a BIG mistake (e.g. you've hit 'reply all')


BEER COAT - The invisible but warm coat worn when walking home after a
booze cruise at 3 in the morning.


BEER COMPASS - The invisible device that ensures your safe arrival home
after booze cruise, even though you're too drunk to remember where you
live, how you got here, and where you've come from.


JOHNNY-NO-STARS - A young man of substandard intelligence, the typical
adolescent who works in a burger restaurant. The 'no-stars' comes from
the badges displaying stars that staff at fast-food restaurants often wear to show their level of training.


MILLENNIUM DOMES - The contents of a Wonderbra, i.e. extremely
impressive when viewed from the outside, but there's actually nought in
there worth seeing.


MYSTERY BUS - The bus that arrives at the pub on Friday night while
you're in the toilet after your 10th pint, and whisks away all the
unattractive people so the pub is suddenly packed with stunners when
you come back in.


MYSTERY TAXI - The taxi that arrives at your place on Saturday morning
before you wake up, whisks away the stunner you slept with, and leaves
a 10-Pinter in your bed instead.

SALAD DODGER - An excellent phrase for an overweight person.

Sorry about the lack of posts, it's been kinda hectic here

The work computer doesn't didn't have a printer hooked to the computer, so I had to do it at home. I'm redoing report sheets for the Railroad Commission, and quarterly reports, as I try to find things.

Also the unwritten "15 minutes on the phone" that I and the 14 yr-old (and mom generally) were using got thrown out the window last night when the 16 yr-old was gabbling and giggling with ther old friends in Lockhart. I said something about the time she was on the phone and - GUESS WHAT??? I was in trouble for picking on her! Yep, the two year old "15 minute rule" got *forgotten* about as soon as I mentioned it in regards to her "Precious". I can't win for loosing when it comes to her. I can't talk to her. When I open my mouth to say someting, I can hear that HUGE bankvault door slamming shut in her mind, and if I say anything I'd have better luck talking to the wall.

Oh cr*p, it just occured to me, she's a 16 yr-old sophmore, she'll be a 17 yr-old junior, and then a 18 year-old senior - - I CAN'T stop wasting money on her 18th b-day. I have to put up with her untill she's almost 19. OHHHhhhhh, the horror.

Well maybe then she might actually start acting like some kind of responsible adult - hopefuly.

No posts this morning, had work on the computer last nite- and the kids actually do homework!

Looks like another slow posting day

Didn't see much that grabbed my attention this morning, again. Wife is getting a touch of some kind of stomach virus, and we both didn't get much sleep after about 3AM. That's life, it happens.

On a different note, I'm 42 away from the magic 1,000. WOW! with my readership it'll be sometime in the near next month. Unless I want to use some cheap PORN gimmics JENNA BUSH NUDE to LESBIAN DOMS bring GAY PORN in BOOBS some ADULT CONTENT extra BRITENY SPEARS BARE BOOBS readers.

This should go under the heading of "Be careful of what you wish for"




The waiter took a Merlot to the woman and said, "This is from the gentleman seated over there," indicating the sender. She regarded the wine coolly for a second, not looking at the man, and decided to send a reply note to the man. The waiter, who was lingering for a response, took the note from her and conveyed it to the gentleman.

The note read: "For me to accept this bottle, you need to have a Mercedes in your garage, a million dollars inthe bank, and 7 inches in your pants."

After reading the note, the man sniffed and composed one of his own in return. He folded the note, handed it to the waiter and instructed him to return this to the woman.

It read: "For your information, I have a Ferrari Maranello, a BMW Z8, a Mercedes CL600 and a Porsche Turbo in my garage. There is over twenty million dollars in my bank account. But, not even for a woman as beautiful as you would I cut three inches off! Just send the bottle back!."


Ok, I didn't find anything worth commenting on today.

I'm glad to know that I'm not alone in my opinion of "wind turbines"

Across the pond, up in Scotland- they have a bit of objection to the ugly things too.

The British government wants to cover the moors with 100 meter (over 300') tall wind turbines. The Scots have a viable tourist industry going, but that'll go out the window if regular tourists have to look at the ugly things. But on the bright side:
Chris Tomlinson, the head of onshore wind for the British Wind Energy Association, the main industry group, argues that the protesters are wrong about tourism and that, if anything, the Whinash scheme will increase the number of visitors.

Visitor centres at two wind farms, at Scroby Sands near Great Yarmouth and Swaffham in Norfolk, have attracted 5,000 visitors a month.

Yep, put a visitors center at each one, and the same 5,000 people will be diluted by that much.
Wind power won't, in the near future come anywhere close to making up in power for the ugly of it's self.

I also predict thsat these same "Green Activists" will have those windmills shut down because of the bird killings that's fixing to happen.

Remember, you heard it here first.
(I almost got done without mentioning the ugly things greeting you when you drive into Cali)

There's been talk about illegals hurting our Security.

Here's some proof, via Glenn Beck.

The Marines and Army are having problems
using their live-fire ranges because of the illegals running through them.
Since July 2004, the training range has been shut down more than 500 times because of immigrants spotted on the range, causing a loss of more than 1,100 training hours, said Colonel James J. Cooney, the base's commanding officer.

''That's equivalent to almost 46 days of training. We're getting overrun here," he said in an interview. ''Any moment we take away from a Marine's experience base could cost him his life in combat."

Cooney said Marines intercepted more than 1,500 undocumented immigrants on the training range last year and, in the first three months of this year, more than 1,100. Base personnel detain the immigrants and call in Border Patrol agents to pick them up.


So far we haven't hurt or killed any of them yet (that we know) but:

Last summer a Marine pilot dropped a practice bomb on a target and seconds later, a few feet away, a small group of illegal immigrants scrambled from underneath a bush and ran down the range. The near miss was caught on a training tape that Cooney has reviewed.

So far the Marines said there have been no deaths of immigrants in the training exercises.

''My overall concern is that we'd have an unfortunate incident out there where we'd inadvertently harm an illegal entrant that we did not spot or see, and that in turn would cause a moratorium on training until we sorted out what exactly happened," said Cooney.

OK, I know that most of those third world trespassers are products of a corrupt education system (the Mexican one) and are basicly illiterate, but they should be warned using pictographs, maybe. If they still cross, well in the famous words of Daily Koz (which takes you to his main page since it appears he's deleted the article referenced here)

- "Screw them!"
They're twice where they don't belong (in the US and on a live-fire range)