Are you more knowledgeable than the average citizen? The average score for all 2,508 Americans taking the following test was 49%; college educators scored 55%. Can you do better? Questions were drawn from past ISI surveys, as well as other nationally recognized exams.

Take the exam here.

I got a 96.97% score, which means I missed one question.

I expect my readers to do as well or better. I have my standards, you know.

Seriously, this is all stuff that I was taught in high school back when dinosaurs ruled the earth. That very little of this is taught in the public schools these days is a disgrace. They’re too busy teaching kids about racism, “social justice”, human sexuality, and other trivia.

But I’m just an old fashioned, out of touch, curmudgeon.

Google Inc. and other advertising companies have been bypassing the privacy settings of millions of people using Apple Inc.’s Web browser on their iPhones and computers—tracking the Web-browsing habits of people who intended for that kind of monitoring to be blocked.

The companies used special computer code that tricks Apple’s Safari Web-browsing software into letting them monitor many users. Safari, the most widely used browser on mobile devices, is designed to block such tracking by default.

Google disabled its code after being contacted by The Wall Street Journal.

Microsoft: Google bypassed privacy settings in IE, too

A week after Microsoft criticized Google over bypassing user privacy settings on Apple’s Safari, the Softies are admitting publicly that Google did the same with Internet Explorer (IE).

Google has responded by accusing MS of using an outdated security protocol. Which is akin to blaming the victim of the crime for the crime.

“He left the keys in is car, I just HAD to steal it. If he didn’t want his car stolen, he shouldn’t have left the keys in it.

Or maybe,

“If she didn’t want to be raped, she shouldn’t have dressed so provocatively.”

While Microsoft certainly should have been more vigilant, that doesn’t make Google any less culpable. If people don’t want their data track, Google and everyone else should respect that.

Yeah, I know. That will happen when the Flying Monkeys come out of my butt. Hell, they haven’t even started their pre flight yet.

If nothing else, I’m glad I stopped using Google.

The initial going was easy, not because the Japanese had been killed or demoralized, but because the Japanese plan called for a defense in depth with defensive points throughout the island. If the Japanese couldn’t hold the island, they planned to make taking it an expensive proposition for the United States.

When the US flag was raised atop Mt. Suribachi on 23 February, not only was the battle for the island not close to over, it had barely begun. The battle went on for thirty five days before the island was declared secure.

The Japanese fought tenaciously and only an estimated 300 of 22,000 Japanese soldiers on the island survived.

The US lost 6,800 men, mostly Marines. 27 Medals of Honor were awarded, 22 of which were awarded to Marines.

Iwo Jima served as a prelude to Okinawa, where the Japanese used similar tactics and encouraged civilians to kill themselves rather than be captured by the Americans. That’s a story for another day.

The gray mafia here have decided that in their relentless aim of blaming Ems for Amy infection in hospitals, that we should only be allowed to wear gloves that come out of packets.

They do not have to be sterile or individually wrapped, but they cannot be in a pocket or belt pouch.

While this may work in a lot of environments, I am concerned that it will encourage some staff to put gloves on when they get the call, and keep them on until they are back in the truck.

Personally I will often use several pairs of gloves on a call. I don’t like having the same pair on for any length of time.

On one of my previous trips across the pond I saw a supplier that did a small pack that was designed to hang on a belt. It had four or five pairs of gloves in.

Does anyone know who they were made by? Any good?

I couldn’t help him with the glove problem, but it certainly started me thinking. For almost as long as I’ve been in EMS, nurses have been trying to blame EMS for giving patients infections. They seem to not understand that it’s a dirty world out there. They also don’t seem to understand that the purpose of the gloves we wear is to protect US from the PATIENT, not the other way around. The patient is the one with the medical problem, not us. At least that’s a good presumption.

On my ambulance there are several boxes of gloves in various sizes. There are N95 masks, surgical masks, eye shields, some Tyvek apron things, and lot of disinfectants. All of those serve to protect me from exposure to the yucky things that patients already have.

We talk about sterility in EMS, but it’s more myth than fact. Very clean is an achievable goal, but sterility isn’t. IV insertions are about as close as we come and I’m always leery when hospital staff tells us about the rate of infection from out of hospital IV placement. They cite studies, but can never seem to come up with one when asked. Or they’ll say, “It’s an internal study and we can’t release the data.” Right.

Intubation? Not sterile.

One little fact that seems to escape a lot of in hospital people, is that trauma patients aren’t sterile either. You’d think that they would know that because one of the first things that happens to trauma patients when they come in is that they get IV antibiotics. Lot’s of IV antibiotics.

I haven’t done a peer reviewed, double blind, IRB approved study, but I’d be willing to bet that bad guys don’t sterilize their bullets or knives before they go out to shoot or stab anyone. Nor does the city sterilize the street before pedestrians get run over.

If the Gray Mafia in Great Britain are looking to find and fix the source of patient infections in hospitals, maybe they should look in the hospitals instead of coming up with dumb ideas about gloves in ambulances.

Up to 1,200 patients died unnecessarily because of appalling care

Labour’s obsession with targets and box ticking blamed for scandal

Patients were ‘routinely neglected’ at hospital

Report calls for FOURTH investigation into scandal

I think more than having EMS crews use gloves in pouches is in order here.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

The second is by Ray Charles from Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

I’ll be doing more of these as I find the tracks on You Tube. Same song, different artists.

ORANGEBURG, SC (WIS) - An animal rights group says it tried to launch a remote-controlled aircraft to take videos of a pigeon shoot in South Carolina, but the aircraft apparently was shot down.

When you fly your surveillance drone over someone’s property without permission and with the intent to harass and people on that property have shotguns, this is not entirely unpredictable.

We decided to send the copter up anyway. Seconds after it hit the air numerous shots rang out. As an act of revenge for us shutting down the pigeon slaughter, they had shot down our copter.”

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. The activity that the activists were trying to stop was legal and being done on private property. While many hunters may have an issue with this type of activity, it’s legal and some people enjoy it.

A report filed by the group with the Colleton County Sheriff’s Department says the aircraft was hovering near U.S. 601 when it was shot at and crashed near the road.

Near, as it over someone else’s property, not over the public road. Which would have been a whole different ball game.

The coffee was a mild blend and pretty tasty. I’m still sticking with my regular coffee, but I’m glad I was able to help out the cause.

1) Don’t forget to buy something nice for your sweetheart.

2) Don’t forget to buy something at Starbucks, because it’s Starbucks Appreciation Day for supporters of the Second Amendment.

I’m not a big fan of Starbucks coffee because it’s a bit to harsh for my tastes. Still, I’m going to go out of my way to buy something from them tomorrow.

Back to 1 above. If you’re sweetheart likes Starbucks, you kill two birds with one stone by getting them something from Starbucks for Valentine’s Day.

If there isn’t one near you, you can always visit their on line store and buy something on line.

If anti Second Amendment forces can boycott Starbucks, the least we can do is buycott Starbucks.

Support those who support (or at least don’t give in to the hysteria) us.

Do they even teach that sort of thing in the public schools these days? From what I hear they don’t, but mercifully my kids are 10 or so years out of high school. Plus they had the benefit of a father with a keen interest in history.

That’s a Bushmaster AR 15 bought at the height of the post Obama election gun buying bubble. In other words, I probably spent more for it than I should have and the much anticipated “Assault Rifle Ban Part II” hasn’t materialized as of yet.

In it’s original configuration, it had a 20″ bull barrel with no flash hider, muzzle brake, or compensator. It was a target rifle and my plan was to put a scope on it and target shoot. Well, that never happened and it mostly sat in my safe while I pondered what to do with the rifle. Should I sell it? Buy a new upper in carbine configuration? Nothing and see what happens?

Eventually I decided to buy a new or used upper and make it into a carbine. While I don’t fancy myself an “operator” or mall ninja, an AR pattern rifle is nice to have around the house. The problem with my original rifle was that it was just too heavy and unwieldy.

So, the search for a suitable upper at a not insane price started. And continued. Then continued some more.

A couple of months ago I saw a for sale ad on one of the local shooting forums. The owner was selling his Bushmaster carbine upper at a not unreasonable price because he wanted to build a new upper for target shooting. He wanted cash and wasn’t interested in trading for my upper since he had specific ideas about what he wanted to build with regards to barrel length, twist, and other specific components.

After a little bit of negotiating we came to a price based on a satisfactory inspection. All was well with the inspection and the deal was struck.

Once I got home I removed the old upper from my AR and installed the new upper. Cool!

Now to individualize the rifle, just like practically everyone who owns an AR feels compelled to do.

The MidwayUSA catalog is the AR owners friend. A very expensive friend. Brownells is the same thing and the only difference was that Midway had everything that I wanted while Brownells was out of stock on a few items. Prices and selection were almost identical and I’ve done business with both companies and both are good to deal with.

Here’s a helpful hint if you’re going to do business with either one. If you possess an ATF Collector of Curios and Relics license, you can get dealer pricing from both companies. And Numrichas well.

What I ended up with was sort of a clone of a rifle of Ambulance Driver’s that I’d used on the Great Texas Hog Hunt I back in 2010. The biggest difference is that I don’t have a scope on mine and don’t plan to put one on at least for now.

That’s a Magpul MOE Hand Guard, AFG2 Fore Grip, and Magpul rails. As well as a UTG Xenon flashlight courtesy of AD.

The previous owner had a gunsmith install a Yankee Hill Machine compensator. Not to be confused with a scary flash suppressor.

It still has to be test fired and sighted in, but I think it will make a nice all around AR pattern carbine for any number of purposes.

Then I can go ahead and ponder what to do with the original upper.