Mikhail Kalishnikov Expressed Remorse Over His Famously Lethal Creation Before His Death
Plus: Open Thread Link-o-Rama

Came across this in French, which I'll translate to keep my hand in.

DEAD: The father of the legendary Soviet assault rifle AK-47, Mikhail Kalachnikov, was asked, before his death last December, about the consequences of his invention. He opened up about it to the Orthodox church.

"My sadness is unbearable... if my rifle had ended the life of people, am I, Mikhail Kalschnikov, son of a peasant, Orthodox Christian, am responsible for the death of humans, even if they were enemies?" he asked himself in a letter dated April 7 and quoted by the daily paper Izvestia.

"Mikhail Kalachnikov had indeed written a letter to the Patriarch Kirill (head of the Russian Orthodox church) in which he expressed his preoccupation over the consequences of the use of his weapon," the spokesman for the Patriarch, Alexandre Volkov confired to AFP. "The Patriarch had responded in a private letter," he added without comment.

The AK-47, symbol of the Revolutionary army

"He invented his weapon for defending his Motherland and not for the terrorists of Saudi Arabia to use," according to Mr. Volkov, quoted by Izvestia.

The assault rifle Kalachnikov, conceived in 1947, had been produced, according to some estimates, into 100 million copies in the world. This weapon, robust and inexpensive, famously become the symbol of the guerrilla army for independence, and adorns a number of flags, including those of Mozambique and the Lebanese Shi'ite faction of Hezballah.

Born in 1919 in a village in Siberia, Mikhail Kalchnikov had been buried with the nation's highest military honors near Moscow.

...

Okay, so that was a waste of your time. That was just some easy homework for me. So here are some Open Thread links:

The Untold Legal Battle of the Defective & Dangerous Products Case of Wile E. Coyote vs. Acme Corporation;

Rumor has it that Kate Upton was photographed in zero-g for a bikini shoot, as if those zeppelins need more loft;

Chuck Todd, whose job it is to read the newspaper and then talk about it on TV, believes, strangely, that there have been no bad stories about Obamacare the past two weeks;

only 24% of those signing up for Obamacare are young, a far cry from the 39% they were hoping for to make the system solvent (and, note, that it's not just that they need young -- they need healthy, a point mentioned in my first post of the day, below);

CNN actually troubles itself to note that Obama's "four million have signed up for Medicaid under Obamacare!" claim is nonsense (though they caveat it as probably nonsense);

Iran's quasi-official news service FARS reports that Edward Snowden has blown the lid off the "alien/extraterrestrial intelligence agenda," reporting that an alien species called "Tall Whites" engineered Hitler's rise to power and currently controls the US;

and in Amsterdam, they have a novel welfare plan for unemployed alcoholics -- sweep the street, and get a government beer.

And, of course, This Guy:

posted by Ace at 06:41 PM

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