New gun

On Mon, 23 Jan 2006 00:15:44 -0600, Big John
wrote:


Metal Storm's speed allows it to lay down a blinding wall of slugs
that can intercept and pulverize incoming enemy fire, according to
company CEO David Smith. As long as the grenade or mortar is fired
from outside a range of about 50 meters or 162.5 feet and a Doppler
radar is in use, a Metal Storm system could be an effective defense,
he told UPI.

Just to put things in perspctive, I visited a personal civil war
museum in Atlanta when I was in college. It belonged to the father of
this "blind date" I had and we were at her parents house. She asked
me if I wanted to see the civil war stuff her father had accumulated
and I said sure. This was a double date, so me and my friend with his
date and my blind date went downstairs to see the stuff. I thought to
myself how good could this be? The father just liked scouring battle
fields and picking up stuff.

Well it was actually like a real museum, with many glass cabinets and
LOTS of stuff. In one cabinet were at least three or four lead
bullets that had fused together having met head on during a battle.
The examples were almost perfectly fused, they'd met precisely head
on, and he had three or four examples. Imagine the amount of firing
that had to be going on for that to happen.

Additionally there was a ships binnacle standing in the middle of the
room. It was very large and of wood construction bound in heavy
brass. I walked up to it and it said "USS Constitution" on it.

I turned to my date and asked "where did he get this replica?"

"It isn't a replica", she answered, "it's the first binnacle from the
Constitution". I couldn't believe her, but she told me to check it
out, ask the folks who oversee the Constitution if the binnacle
currently on the ship is the original. You'll find, she said, that it
is not. Years later I did walk through Old Ironsides and asked the
guy who was leading tours if the binnacle was the original. He
replied that he wasn't sure, but he did not think so.

Sorry about the diversion.

Corky Scott