Wednesday follow-ups. Red dots, destroyers, Sabotage, Mangione, Kavanaugh

Gotta love it – the Sig-Sauer Romeo, one of the most popular red-dot sights, mostly used on pistols,  is facing a mandatory recall from the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). Why?

CPSC says that because the button cell batteries can currently be easily accessed, it poses an ingestion hazard which can cause serious injuries, internal chemical burns, and death. It should be noted that to date, no injuries have been reported.  WHTM

The covers are screwed on (see photo) and almost 100% used on firearms. They’re worried that a kid could unscrew the cover and eat the battery? Seriously?

There’s good news in MIC-land. Not so much for the poor taxpayer, though.

Arleigh-Burke class destroyers are both behind schedule and over budget. Again.

The Navy currently has 74 destroyers of the Arleigh Burke class, in Flight I, Flight II, Flight IIA and Flight III variants. Two Flight IIAs and 18 Flight IIIs are already either under construction or their purchase has already been authorized by Congress. CBO’s assessment also found that, overall, the 23 Flight IIIs laid out in the 30-year shipbuilding plan will end up costing $2.7 billion on average.

This is critical – for that kind of money, you could buy a new screwdriver to work on an F-35, right?

Inside Defense reported in June that other Flight III vessels could see six-to-25-month delivery delays. The War Zone

Same article says the next generation destroyer, the DDG-X, priced at $3.3 billion a pop, will probably cost more like $4.4 billion. Are we to be comforted by the fact the current cost overrruns are not as high as that?

Seems the Finns are saying the Eagle-S, the Russian-linked oil tanker accused of dragging its anchor and cutting underseas infra-structure, was poised to cut another international power cable and gas pipeline when it was seized by authorities.

On Dec. 26, Finnish authorities seized oil tanker Eagle S carrying Russian oil. They said they suspected the vessel had damaged the Finnish-Estonian Estlink 2 power line and four telecoms cables by dragging its anchor across the seabed for more than 100 km (60 miles).

The head of the investigation, Risto Lohi of the National Bureau of Investigation, told Reuters the vessel was threatening to cut a second power cable, Estlink1, and the BalticConnector gas pipe between Finland and Estonia at the time it was seized.  Reuters

Nine of the 24 man crew are under travel bans while this is investigated. Me, I’m thinking they should go down and investigate those cut cables personally. SCUBA gear optional.

Luigi Mangione, the rich kid who assassinated United Healthcare’s CEO, may not be as rich any more.

The grandmother of Luigi Mangione, the man accused of the murder of UnitedHealthCare^® CEO Brian Thompson, reportedly left tens of millions of dollars to her children and grandchildren after she passed away on one condition: any grandchild who wanted to inherit money could not be “charged, indicted, convicted of, or plead guilty to a felony,” as reported by PEOPLE.  Truthfully

Sounds like his cash account won’t be supporting Tiny, Bubba, et al – too, sometimes folks on the inside are downright unreasonable and may not care if he gets financially gutted.  Schadenfreude is entirely appropriate right now.

And we’ll close with a rare bit of what sounds suspiciously like journalistic integrity. Mike Judge (not the “Idiocracy”/”Joe’s Apartment” guy) was accused of being Brett Kavanauh’s wingman during the Christine  Blasey-Ford accusation hearings.)

A New York Times journalist offered a mea culpa of sorts to an author whom his reporting had implicated in the sexual assault allegations against now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2018.

“I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about my role in the Kavanaugh coverage, and I would be happy to talk to you about it at some point. For now, I will just say that I have learned some lessons and would probably do certain things differently next time,” New York Times investigative reporter David Enrich wrote to author and journalist Mark Judge. Judge revealed the exchange in an article for Chronicles Magazine.

Judge contends that the New York Times was fed “totally bogus” opposition research provided by disgraced lawyer Michael Avenatti and others that he and Justice Kavanaugh, his high school friend, were involved in drugging and gangraping girls in high school that Enrich and his “partner in crime” Kate Kelly set out to corroborate by unearthing whatever embarrassing information they could dredge up about him from when he was an adolescent. Judge says that in the years since the Kavanaugh hearings, several reporters involved in the smears against him have been “agonizing” over their role in wrecking his life.

Reporters? How refreshing. Meanwhile on the corporate level, the Gray Lady, The New York Times, says:

The Times’s reporting on Justice Kavanaugh’s nomination and confirmation process was thorough, independent and fair, and we stand behind it,” a New York Times spokesperson said in a statement.  Fox News

You didn’t think the PAPER would apologize, did you?

Category: "Your Tax Dollars At Work", Crime, Russia, Supreme Court