Thursday, February 16, 2006

CSI: Corpus Cristi

So the so-called "facts" that the 'merican people have been offered by nice lady who runs the ranch (and much, much later by the White House) where Cheney shot his buddy just don't add up. Thanks to the general silliness of the major networks, we're all essentially ballistics and crime scene experts, so with that in mind lots of folks have chimed in with their analysis of the 'fact' that Cheney shot his buddy from 30 yards away... so check out the following:

Firedoglake: Calling All Math/Hunting/Medical/Crime Scene Reconstruction Experts

TalkingPointsMemo: story #1 and story #2

Even Jesus' General gets into the act with his typical manly hardness as he sends his 'Magic BB theory' to Arlen Specter:
The police report says that Whittington was 30 yards away when Dick shot him. It also notes that the elderly gentleman was hit in the face, chest and neck. Agents of the Ministry of Truth characterize the shooting as a "peppering." Taken all together, these things would suggest that the shot was fairly well dispersed.

Unfortunately, a more detailed look at the facts reveals something else. Our Deputy Leader was using 28 gauge shotgun shells loaded with 3/4 oz of #7-1/2 shot. That particular load carries approximately 262 BBs. The doctor caring for the wounded man said that he removed about 200 BBs. That means about 4/5ths of the shot in the load struck the man in an area no larger than about 18 inches in diameter.

That seems like an awfully tight pattern at 30 yards. It can only be explained by the existence of a magic BB that would ride herd on the other BBs, keeping them as bunched up as possible.

Yesterday, we learned that one of the BBs penetrated the elderly gentleman's hunting vest, shirt, skin, muscle, rib cartilage, and possibly bone, coming to rest in his heart. I'm no physicist, but that seems like a lot of energy to expend for a .095" BB weighing 1/345th of an ounce. I suggest that a better explanation would be that once the bb hit the skin, it began burrowing into the elderly gentleman's body. Since regular shot doesn't have claws for burrowing, a magic BB is the only possible explanation.
The General: manly to the core.

There you have it: a tight pattern of BBs at 30 yards? The penetrated the man's clothing at 30 yards? Hmmm, me thinks there is something rotten in the state of Texas... oh, wait! Could it possibly involve Dick spending time with another woman? Though you have to give it to Dick, who goes hunting with another dude and 2 women? Cheney is, apparently, more progressive than we gave him credit for.