Billlls Idle Mind

Wind Power

2012-02-15T19:22:00.004-07:00

For those of you who are looking for a way to get off the grid, or at least pull over into the slow lane, Honeywell is offering a wind turbine you can mount on the roof of your house. This baby is advertised to produce 1500 KWh/year on average, compared to an average home consumption of 11,000KWh/year for about 13% of your annual consumption. At $11,000 installed, and with an estimated lifespan of 20 years, that's $.36/KWh you'd be paying.

Compare this to the current going rate of between $.083 and $.10.7/KWh depending on whom you ask.

The thing weighs as much as a big-block V8 and that's before you add in the lateral loads from the wind blowing against it. Having an engineer do a load calculation for your roof first is recommended. Check an available wind map to see if you can expect the kind of winds needed to run the thing, and then step outdoors and look around your house. If you live on a barren hill crest in southern Wyoming, the rig may well provide all the power you'll ever need but if you live in an urban neighborhood with mature trees, you might as well forget it.

It has no real problems that can't be largely fixed with a generous infusion of Federal money equal to the purchase price of the windmill and the replacement cost of your roof and as long as the Feds can print all they need, this shouldn't be a problem.

Consumer Reports reviews the device here and seems rather cool to it.

Terror Theater

2012-02-15T18:54:00.003-07:00

The DHS has announced that Denver and Boulder counties are "hotbeds of leftist terrorism".

Hotbeds of leftists I'll grant you, but I don't seem to remember much actually going on lately unless you count the pestiferous Occupiers. Perusal of the article reveals that the majority of the incidents that made the cut happened in the '70s so I imagine Big Sis and the DHS have by now identified all the guilty parties and are closely monitoring their Geritol intake.

The complete report, in pdf format is here.

Valentines Day

2012-02-14T21:30:00.003-07:00

Over the noon hour the local DJ decided to solicit listener suggestions for love themed tunes. When I tuned in, he had gone through "Love Hurts", Love Stinks", and two others of the same ilk whose titles I now forget.

He observed that his listeners seemed a bit unclear on the concept of the day being put forth.

I liked the observation that love is like a knife fight. When you get close enough together, someone gets hurt.

Then again, maybe not. YMMV. Good luck to you all.

Hail To The VEEP

2012-02-14T19:01:00.003-07:00

I Own The World is taking a look at the qualities a presidential candidate might look for in a VP pick. The traditional quality selected for is that the Veep be able to carry some voting bloc that the wannabe Prez might not carry. In 1960, the Northeastern liberal JFK for example, picked a good ol' southern boy to help carry the south.

Some years later, Walter Mondale thought he could pick up a lot of chicks at the polls with his "Ferraro". Nice try, but it didn't work.

Various qualities are put forward, and names are attached to each.

O'Bozos technique seems to have been to pick someone, who terrifies would-be assassins into inaction at the thought of his succession: Joe Biden.

On the other side,for the same reason there's Ron Paul.

Alternative Energy

2012-02-13T20:02:00.003-07:00

Any source of energy can be considered an alternative to whatever you're using now, but to be a viable alternative, it has to compete on the basis of both cost and reliability. As you are filling out your taxes this year, consider that some portion of the amount you throw down the D.C. rathole goes to XL energy, or whomever your local supplier is, to subsidize the "green" investments they are forced to make.
TANSTAAFL, baby! You're going to pay for this one way or another.

The nice graphic above was shamelessly copied from a really good article at Power Line on the topic of Crony Capitalism as practiced here in the USA. Indonesia can't teach us anything, or maybe they did.

Mad Science

2012-02-12T11:49:00.002-07:00

Since I'm a big fan of this sort of stuff, here's the link to the video. How to make a fully automatic airsoft gun out of a soda bottle and some easy-to-find bits and pieces. It's enough to make me wonder if this could be applied to paint balls without creating a bottle of paint?

The comment about it needing a longer barrel seems like a good one too.

Concealed Carry

2012-02-11T20:59:00.003-07:00

What gun to choose is an important decision. Put down your drinks and go here to be informed as to how to make this choice.

Religion

2012-02-11T18:50:00.002-07:00

Obama has given the Catholic church one year to revise their theology with regards to birth control and abortion. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has declined the invitation.

The joke will soon be on them. Obama will declare the College of Cardinals to be in recess, and appoint his own Pope who will certainly see things his way.

How's Your Weather

2012-02-10T20:48:00.002-07:00

Some years back I caught myself alternately complaining about the stifling heat of summer and the bitter cold of winter, and I said to myself:"Self, you can't have it both ways. Pick one." So I picked winter.

Can't ride the bicycle, can't ride the motorcycle, and sometimes can't go to the range. Last weekend the Steel Dog Shoot (prairie dogs) was cancelled as the life sized steel silhouettes of the rodents wouldn't have been tall enough to even see the ears sticking up out of the snow. This weekend more snow is forecast. What fun.

Two weeks ago we got about a foot of snow on a Friday. I cleared the last of it off the driveway on Saturday with the trusty blower. I'm not 100% sure, but about 90% that sometime in the process I dropped my car keys on the drive and the blower tossed them into the 2 foot drifts that now line either side of the drive. I'm driving on the spare key and at this point I despair of finding the originals any time before April.

Too bad nobody I know has a metal detector.

Privatizing The Police

2012-02-07T20:53:00.002-07:00

It's what the remaining citizens of Detroit are doing. Apropos of the line about "When seconds count, the police are only minutes away", or in some cases hours, people are finding that being armed can significantly shift the balance of power. Increasingly the courts, formerly famous for giving the resisting citizen more jail time than the perp, are siding with the citizens.

“It’s not about police response time because often the act has already taken place by the time the police are called,” said Sgt. Eren Stephens. She said citizens have a right to defend themselves.

“Anytime a life is lost, we’re concerned,” she said. “But we can‘t be on every corner in front of every home. And we know that there are citizens who will do what they have to do to protect themselves.”

Or as chief Wiggums put it" C'mon people, we can't be everywhere at once. Why don't you just take the law into your own hands?"

H/T to Uncle for this.

Colorado Caucuses

2012-02-07T19:36:00.003-07:00

So the Colorado caucuses are now winding down, and with only my precinct reporting, Rick Santorum is the big winner with 11 votes, edging out Mittens O'bamany with 9, 1 for Newt and 2 for Uncle Fester.

Later results may change this result. In the end, it doesn't matter as the Colorado primary is in June, by which time the race will be decided.

According to the rules of Republican primogeniture, Romney, having finished second to McCain in the last election, is the designated heir to the candidacy in this one. Newt, finishing second to Romney, will be the nominee in 2016 should Romney lose, and Santorum and Perry will duke it out in 2016 to see who gets the nomination in 2020.

OR: The Tea Party could emerge as a force to getting out an otherwise reluctant Republican vote which gives Romney the win in spite of himself, then either forms a real new party or preempts the existing Republicans to oust the RINOS and put foreward Mitch Daniels, Scott Walker, or Bobby Jindal as future presidential candidates.

Remember: 2012; It's not just an election, it's a restraining order.

First Amendment

2012-02-05T14:55:00.002-07:00

In the ongoing kerfuffle over the president giving the Catholic church a whole extra year to revise its theology to his taste, I wonder if anyone noticed that that would be granting a special privilege to a specific religion in violation of the first amendment? Everybody else has to conform NOW.

Endorsements

2012-02-05T09:33:00.003-07:00

Pravda-by-the-Platte has come out today to advise any republicans who actually read that paper that Mitt Romney is the One True Paladin of the Republican Party. This is entirely predictable, as Romney is the most left-leaning of all the candidates to date with the exception of Jon Huntsman, who vanished like Ambrose Bierce ages ago.

Keep in mind that this paper also endorsed Dole and McCain in the primaries in the past, and turned vehemently against them in the general election. This is now proven methodology to get what they want (Clinton, Obama) and I expect no less in the future.

The paper also has a practice of endorsing both Republicans and Democrats in local elections and calling itself bipartisan. They do this by endorsing any Republican fortunate enough to be running unopposed, and every other Dem on the ballot, regardless of anything.

Not to worry, as this is the traditional behavior of the Republicans, to nominate the fellow who finished second to the previous nominee. This should be the last big chance the Republicans get. A big win this year is looking more and more likely even in the face of their record of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
This map may be pessimistic as the Illinois vote depends on the Dem machine in Chicago finding enough lost ballots to overcome the Republican vote in the rest of the state*, and if Gov Walker can overcome the union attempt to unseat him in Wisconsin, why should the whole state not come along in the general election? Washington State is blue because the state supreme court ruled that vote fraud is O.K. as long as the ballots are secret.

Still, they don't call it the Stupid Party for nothing.

*Don't laugh. It's how John Kennedy got elected.

Statistics.

2012-02-04T07:28:00.006-07:00

Statistics means never having to say you're certain, but they can reveal stuff that some would keep hidden, and hide what might be damaging to reveal. I've been carping about the government cooking the books on unemployment for ages here, and the folks at Zero Hedge have been helping by doing all the heavy lifting. After seeing what they have produced, half the internet is reduced to saying "what they said!".

The latest exercise in wool-pulling is the triumphant crowing about 243,000 people finding jobs last month. First keep in mind that in a growing country it takes 150,000 or so new jobs a month just to break even and keep the unemployment rate static.

The second thing to remember is that when people give up on finding work, they cease to exist as far as the BLS is concerned. Do the math, which isn't that hard, and notice that when the unemployed quit looking for work, the unemployment rate falls. Find work for 243,000 and push 1.2M off the statistical cliff, and voila! unemployment drops by about half a point.

If you assume that all those people who have quit looking for work haven't won the lottery or something, and actually would like a job, the actual unemployment rate is now 11.5%.
Cooking the books.

Update: I am now hearing that those 1.2M people didn't drop out of the workforce, but were actually eliminated by the Census Bureau. Zero Hedge evidently didn't get the memo, so his numbers are off. I wondered about that myself since I know that people drop out of the workforce, which makes the unemployment numbers look better, but not usually in such large quantities. My position that the numbers are being jiggered remains unshaken. The exact amout is TBD. With labor force participation heading for the basement anyway, it's useful to understand that when it reaches about 58%, unemployment will appear to be zero.

Economics: Taxes

2012-01-30T20:30:00.002-07:00

Here's something I bet you never thought you'd see: Oklahoma, in an effort to improve its standing as a business-friendly state, is planning to phase out its income tax altogether over the next 8 years.

There's lots of years of evidence and data if anyone wants to collect it that will show that states with low or no income taxes do better economically than states with such taxes. A tax, after all is a penalty you pay for being successful. The more successful, the higher the penalty.

Gun Show Report

2012-01-30T20:21:00.002-07:00

OK not so much a report as a couple of anecdotes.

1. Someone walded by an appearantly unmanned table, and walked off with a rifle. The action was noted, and the door guard alerted. The miscreant was apprehended at the door. Sucks to be him, I'm sure.

2. Some unemployed rocket scientist took a liking to a firearm and filled out the 4473 and proceeded with the background check. Turned out that several law enforcement agencies in Colorado found him to be a Person of Very High Interest. He left the show in handcuffs.

3. By way of hearsay, Saturday was a Fire Marshall day. At some point you couldn't get in until someone else went out. Several dealers told me that business was exceptionally good too.

A Tale Of Two Train Sets

2012-01-29T16:03:00.004-07:00

A couple years ago, our president put forth the idea that the future of transportation in this country would not be the jet airplane which would be the exclusive province of the ruling class, but the high-speed train. Just imagine a rail network, paralleling the interstate highway system that would whisk the peasantry from New York to Miami with the speed of a DC-3. What could be better for creating jobs? Mirroring the construction techniques of the intercontinental railway, we could have thousands of Chinese laborers toiling with picks and shovels to get the track laid. And if that doesn’t get enough people working, we can take away their picks and shovels and give them spoons.

Several states looked at the proposal and saw a black hole for money, large portions of which would go to lawyers who would fight for environmental impact statements and new routings to keep the thing out of the better neighborhoods. They also looked at the ridership projections and noted that they would need more population in their states to be able to fill the cars. Almost everybody turned the offer of partial Federal funding down as unaffordable.

Except California. There it made perfect sense to assume that a quarter the population of the state would want to travel from near L.A. to San Francisco every Tuesday and then return on Thursday, while another quarter would be going the other way. The cost would be borne by the Federal monies the other states had given up, and the whole thing would run about $46Bn. So they approved $10Bn to establish the bureaucracy to run it and do an actual cost study. While this was being done, a preliminary route was selected, which brought out the lawyers demanding environmental impact statements and new routings to keep the thing out of the better neighborhoods.

Then the first cost studies came in, and it now looks like $46Bn will barely buy track from somewhere outside of L.A. to the ever popular hip Mecca of Bakersfield. Building the whole thing is currently estimated at $96Bn and I doubt that anyone thinks that’s accurate either. Directors are bailing out of their plum positions on the H.S. Rail board like rats from an Italian cruise ship. Speed is projected to approach that of the DC-3, and the fare would be about 50% more than the current jet airfare for the same trip. Governor Brown continues to believe, but then the 60’s were very kind to him.

Here in Colorado, we do things differently. Some time back the Mayor of Denver got the idea to resurrect a chunk of the long-defunct Denver tramway system, which had been shut down and the tracks paved over for lack of revenue. He arranged to get built a short stretch of tracks that ran from about 1-1/2 miles south of downtown, through downtown, and about 1-1/2 miles eastward toward the airport. The promise was that the line would soon be extended to the airport and thus serve some useful purpose.The reality was that it ended in rather a seedy part of town. Interestingly the merchants, seeing the “tourists” riding to the end-o-tracks, spiffed up their businesses and formed a low-key vigilance committee to discourage the less reputable denizens from hanging out within sight of the line and are now doing well for themselves. The airport it was going to serve has been closed and moved a long ways out of town.

That first short stretch was the camel’s nose pushing into the tent. The RTD (Reason To Drive) figured out that if they forced riders onto their existing line, they could justify more lines. Did I mention that fares are a lot higher on the trolley? Did I mention that the subsidies are much higher for the trolley? The current plan is to build multiple legs running out to the sort of places people move to to avoid hearing about Denver. Vince Carroll at the Denver Post has a column suggesting that the rail boondoggle now absorbs over half of the state’s transportation budget.

According to the Denver Regional Council of Governments, transit investment in this region dwarfs all state and federal spending on highways and roads. Between 2008 and 2011, those sources will channel $1.8 billion into transportation, with two-thirds of it for transit.

Cities and counties also spend a lot on roads - roughly $1.6 billion a year, according to an estimate that Steve Cook, DRCOG's transportation planning manager, was kind enough to pull together for me. But only about one-fourth of that is invested in the arterial corridors that count for this discussion.

Doing the math suggests that transport subsidies of buses and trains now absorbs about half of all the monies spent on servicing transportation in Colorado. And still we wonder why the roadways are crowded and dangerous. The price of this toy train set has been rising at a rate of about $1Bn/year and the completion date is out to 2044 by which time I don’t doubt that the last legs will be the ones connecting Ft Collins on the north and Pueblo on the south with the baseball stadium downtown.Oh yes, and the West Link, running from Greenwood Village to Aspen Ski resort.

Blogger Bash

2012-01-28T21:28:00.001-07:00

Hansen's? The 28th of Jan?

Nerdy T-shirt contest? That time of year we'll probably look like a bunch of flashers.

Anyone? Buller?

Update: Merles?

NOTES: Merles is a fine place. Good food, good beer, both large, is somewhat pricy. Swell place to visit, just not on Saturday night when it's packed to the walls.

SOPA, PIPA, It's The Thought That Counts.

2012-01-28T06:20:00.002-07:00

If you thought SOPA and PIPA were bad, you ain't seen nothing yet. And if you thought they were dead, think again. A president who finds that the congress, even the Senate where his party ostensibly holds a majority, won't pass his agenda, is increasingly taking to ruling by decree. If the Senate won't confirm his appointments, just declare them to be in recess and appoint them anyway.

If it's pretty clear that a treaty would effectively repeal large parts of the constitution, you simply declare the treaty to be an executive agreement rather than a treaty, sign it, and begin enforcing the details. ACTA, the Anti-Counterfiting Trade Agreement, would grant sweeping powers to overseas entities to shut down internet sites without any legal oversight.

Under the provisions of ACTA, copyright holders will be granted sweeping direct powers to demand ISPs remove material from the Internet on a whim. Whereas ISPs normally are only forced to remove content after a court order, all legal oversight will be abolished, a precedent that will apply globally, rendering the treaty worse in its potential scope for abuse than SOPA or PIPA.

Imagine elevating Righthaven to the status of global internet censor, with no accountability and you're getting close.

I find the potential precedent here to be rather unsettling. Imagine an "executive agreement" to forbid criticizing Islam, or limiting weapons possession. We doan' need no steenkin' Senate vote, now do we. It would probably be a good question for Eugine Volokh to ask what remedies would exist if the president declared this treaty to be an executive agreement and began enforcing it. Meantime, write your Senator and ask him or her if they plan on doing anything or if they're happy being highly paid and irrelevant.

I expect we'll be seeing a lot more of this sort of "rule by decree" effort in the last year of the Obama reign as his party increasingly sees him as a very lame duck who is likely to take people too close to him down with him.

Balancing the Budget

2012-01-27T17:54:00.002-07:00

Here's a video by Bill Whittle that explains the budgetary mess we're in more clearly than anything I remember seeing.

Having explained the problem, the eventual solution becomes blindingly clear.
Refrence here is Chilie, about which I've written before. The social security program there is privatized, mandatory, and vastly superior to what we've got. We could impliment something like this here by phasing out the current system and phasing in the new one.

That won't happen because the current system creates a population dependent on the government for its very existence, which means the population will vote for those who promise to sustain that system.

In Chile, Alberto Fujimori was able to implement his privatized variant because when he took over, the country was flat broke and couldn't pay anyone anything. Since all was already lost, there wasn't much objection to his trying something new, and it worked.

When something can't go on forever, it won't. Sooner or later, the system will crash and at that point we'll be able to make the needed repairs, but at that point, a lot of people are going to get seriously hurt.

Economic-Social Isolation

2012-01-26T19:34:00.003-07:00

Are you a member of the hereditary upper class? Did you and everybody you know grow up in one of the better neighborhoods, graduate from college and never punch a time clock in your whole entire life? Find out here. There's 20 questions, and if you score too low, you may be a member of the 1% or something.
Me?

On a scale from 0 to 20 points, where 20 signifies full engagement with mainstream American culture and 0 signifies deep cultural isolation within the new upper class bubble, you scored between 13 and 16.

In other words, you don't even have a bubble.

It's a fancy gold-stamped certificate, so I'm probably some kind of snob.

Birthdays

2012-01-24T20:17:00.002-07:00

Yes, it's mine today. I share it with Tamara and a bunch of celebrities.

I'm 39.

Again.

Energy and Environment

2012-01-23T20:31:00.002-07:00

Up in Oregon, they're proposing to develop renewable energy by pumping 24M gallons of water into a dormant volcano located along the Pacific subduction zone, not far from the San Andreas fault.

I wish them the best of luck. What could go wrong?

Gun Law, Colorado

2012-01-21T12:40:00.002-07:00

Locally the Republicans in the house are putting up a bill to expand the castle doctrine to businesses. There is also talk of letting permit holders carry on university campuses and do away with the duplicative CBI background checks required to purchase a gun.

The Dems, who control the Senate, say this distracts from job creation, which should be more important.

Given the Dems practice of making jobs harder and harder to get and near impossible to create, I would think that anything that distracts the electorate from their record would be welcomed by them.

Steampunk

2012-01-21T09:10:00.002-07:00

I rather like steampunk. One of my favorite webcomics, Girl Genius, just reeks of it. There's a certain attraction to taking mundane devices, and turning them into brass-bedecked rube goldbergs, especially if all that decoration actually does something. Here's some commentary on the topic:

H/T to Bayou Renaissance Man

I have a blunderbuss barrel. What it needs is a brass housing around the back end, enclosing a spring driven motor that comes slowly up to speed while emitting an ominously rising pitched whine, before releasing the striker onto the percussion cap. Multi-colored whirligigs and a smoke-emitting stack would be a plus.

Something to do in my spare time.

Endorsements

2012-01-20T19:07:00.003-07:00

So no we know that Newt has garnered the endorsements of Rick Perry, Sarah Palin, and now Chuck Norris. With that in his pocket, I fail to see how he could not win both the nomination and the general election in some kind of landslide.

In fact the only improvement would be to resurrect Ron Reagan as a zombie, and put him on the stage at the debates, and see him unerringly shamble toward Gingrinch mumbling "Brainnnnns".

Well it would be entertaining, no?

Beer. Is There Anything It Can't Do?

2012-01-19T19:46:00.002-07:00

Scientists (of course) noodling around with yeast and nutrients, have discovered that if you subject mono-cellular yeast to the right amount of stress, it evolves into a multi-cellular life form.

I suppose the analogy is that of stressing individualists until they form a Tea Party.

Stop SOPA, Stop PIPA

2012-01-18T19:43:00.002-07:00

It's ostensibly Hollywood looking for copyright protection, but as written, if a politician says something and is quoted in a newspaper or on TV, and a blogger takes issue with his position and mentions the quote, an anonymous 3rd party can demand the blogger be shut down for using the media quote without permission.

Go here to let your congress animals know how you feel.

H/T to Insty

NOTE: In the you can't win department. The administration has said they can't quite support either bill as written, so Big Hollywood is announcing a boycott.

Is it just me, or do both those bills sound a lot like the Righthaven scam written into federal law?

Gun Fun: Technology

2012-01-17T21:27:00.003-07:00

Here's a must have for every Sigourny Weaver fan in the world. A real digital round counter so you'll know when the ammo is getting low.
Coming soon to a gun merchant near you.

To my observation at bowling pin and IDPA matches, a more useful and less obtrusive gimmick would be a small red panel that pops up blocking your view of the front sight when your gun goes to slide lock.

I see more people staring intently down a locked slide, carefully pulling the trigger and becoming more and more surprised when the thing refuses to go bang. Maybe something as simple as a small LED that lights up when the slide comes back. In normal use the blink would be too short to notice, but with the slide locked back, it stays on.

Economic Safety

2012-01-16T19:53:00.002-07:00

In the last 12 months, your life, liberty and property have never been safer, although this might be comparable to finding yourself lying on the ground, safely removed from the dangerous roadway after being hit by a speeding truck.

Yessiree, the next best thing to having a congress full of ravening right-wingers who are repealing everything they can get their hands on all the way back to the New Deal, is gridlock of the sort that makes Nome harbor in February look like Waikiki beach in June.

Republican Politics

2012-01-15T18:04:00.002-07:00

I may have been too harsh on Mr. Romney regarding his positions on guns. Bitter attempts to set the record straight.

O.K. that moves Mr. Romney up to just ahead of the camel in my book, but only just.

Home Defense

2012-01-15T10:32:00.002-07:00

Here's a news story that may call into question some of the assumptions that pass for gospel in the area of home defense. It seems two fellows had decided to burglarize a home, and drove on over to it where one of them gained entry. No details as to how, but the homeowner, who was in the shower, was alerted to the mischief by a loud thump. Arming himself with a shotgun, he discovers a goblin in the hallway.

I'll not fault the news media for not being top-notch forensic investigators as that sort of thing requires training of the sort you don't normally get at J-school, but enough details emerge to make some intelligent guesses. The perp, at the end of the story was reportedly suffering from two shots from a 12 ga shotgun, one to the buttocks. I'm going to guess the first one was to let him know he wasn't supposed to be where he was, and the second was to let him know he wasn't leaving quickly enough.

Lesson here is that all those stories about what a man-stopper the 12 ga is probably ought to come with an asterisk and a paragraph of disclaimer stuff. Things like the value of shot placement, and the relative effectiveness of #8 birdshot vs 00 buck and 2-1/2" shells vs 3".

So much also for the "rack a round and watch them run" theory. Sometimes a loud boom is also required.

The report goes on to say that the wounded man then ran out of the house and back to the waiting getaway car, which then got away. Good advice here: Never stick around to argue with a naked man with a shotgun. He's probably not going to be amenable to reasoned discourse.

Following the escape, the wheel man must have decided that his partner was going to require more medical attention that he was likely to get back home, and transported him to the best location he could think of to get him quick professional attention; the drive through of a local McDonalds.

Happy ending; The bad guys are in custody and the homeowner isn't. Is the 12ga a brick-wall man stopper? Depends on several factors. Do you need 00 buck or slugs? Probably not, but remember if someone can run out of the house and get into the getaway car after being shot twice, he could probably run the remaining few feet toward you and stick you with a knife if he was so inclined.

The biggest factor that makes a weapon effective in a situation like this is shot placement. If you're going to keep a gun for self defense, the most important factor will be your ability to use it.

Unemployment

2012-01-14T12:36:00.002-07:00

With the government's official unemployment figure now at 8.5%, the entire population is singing "Happy Days Are Here Again" but wait. You have to know how this is done.

If the U3 is 8.5%, and the U6 is around 16%, then things are getting better, right? Those numbers used to be a couple points higher, no? It turns out that if you have 100 people in your workforce, and 20 of them have no jobs, then you have an unemployment rate of 20%. Unless 10 of those 20 unfortunates have given up on finding work, in which case they are no longer in your workforce, which reduces that number to 90, of which only 10 are officially unemployed for an unemployment rate of 11% which is much better.

Bogus? Sure. but that's how the government does things when job 1 is getting re-elected. Go here for a much more detailed description including more links.

If you want some encouragement, you can try drinking or go here to hear the MSM call this the best recovery ever.

Having people drop out of the workforce and either starve in the streets or join the gray economy makes the administration look bad. See the opening minutes of Moscow On The Hudson for examples. The stricter sorts of regimes have developed a method of dealing with unemployment that is simplicity itself: They make it illegal. The charge is "parasitism" and is punishable by a long stretch in an isolated prison camp doing worthwhile work for the government, like cutting timber or digging in a mine. The old Soviet Union was always proud to point out that its unemployment rate regularly hovered around zero.

Here, this was called the WPA.

Warning, Maybe?

2012-01-10T20:47:00.002-07:00

I have no provenience on this, but I consider the source to be reliable. It has a generous dollop of credibility, so be advised:

While I was in a Denver gun store today, my car was tagged on the wheel in the parking lot. The gangs do this on wheels or bumpers at gun stores, shooting ranges, gun shows etc. Later when you are parked at a restaurant, hotel, or other location that's less well guarded or not under video surveillance, other gang members spot the marker and break into the car for a quick gun grab. This is so RAMPANT in San Antonio where we were for a National shoot this summer, the police chief of that county came out to brief the 400 participants of our competition. Too bad three teams had already been victimized the first day. This is the first I've heard of this in Denver . Please pass this info along to your 2nd amendment list. This next comment from a Gunsite instructor: I don't know how widespread this is becoming , but the info regarding the NSCA Nationals in San Antonio is correct, as all of us who compete in sporting clays know. Competitors there were having their vehicles marked with a small adhesive dot on the rear license plate or rear bumper, then followed for miles and having their vehicles quickly and efficiently broken in to when parked for lunch etc. Some crews were working the parking lot at the Nationals itself. 27 high end shotguns were taken there recently. They know when 1400 shooters with high $$ competition guns are in town. BTW I shot with a young man who was trying out a new gun at the Nationals. He and his father lost all their guns and equipment while making a quick stop for lunch at a BBQ place in Corpus Christi the month before.
When leaving the gun store or range, give your car a quick walk-around. It can't hurt.

Gunsmithing the Revolver 3

2012-01-09T20:18:00.004-07:00

A while back I reported that the forcing cone on my revolver seemed to be a bit sub standard.

O.K. a lot sub standard. Some research suggested that this sometimes happens, even on brand name firearms, but once the problem is diagnosed, it's relatively easy to fix. The original "forcing cone" seemed to be a badly cut chamfer of 45 degrees. What should be there is a smoothly cut taper of 11 degrees although this can vary from 7 to 15 depending on who made the gun or who worked on it last. Brownells sells the reamer for this, so I invested in one and tried my hand.

The taper should be between 1/8" and 3/16" deep when finished although it's difficult to get anyone to come out and say this. I wish I had gotten some before pictures of this showing really heavy copper and lead fouling in the barrel and all over the top strap where the debris stuck. I also got a lot of testimony from the R.O. at the previous pin match that enough debris was escaping the sides of the gun to drop pins in the adjacent firing lane. I'll testify that it would occasionally spit back and hit me.

Anyway here the result after some 70-80 rounds at the last pin match.
The gun had not yet been cleaned. There's a bit of copper on the upper surface of the barrel, and essentially no deposits on the top strap, which is toward the lower right in these pictures. The residue above the barrel, between the barrel and the top strap looks like legacy residue as it is not repeated anywhere else.

I also got no complaints about side spray, so I'll call that problem fixed.

Light A Candle For Peace

2012-01-09T18:35:00.003-07:00

The Brady campaign has a new slogan going around, and a good slogan is a terrible thing to waste. Some how I and a number of other gun bloggers are having a problem imagining how lighting a candle will deter violence as much as having a gun to back up the command "stop" but several offerings in which a gun is included with the candle have been put up. Here"s mine:
Note the use of the tactical illuminated front sight in which the candle is actually contributing to the process. The drawback is that elevation is self-adjusting so as the candle burns, your shot placement will get higher.

Award Time

2012-01-08T11:02:00.002-07:00

There should be some kind of widely publicized award, something between the Ig-Nobel for dubious science, and the Darwin, for especially dubious achievement resulting in ones removal from the gene pool. This one would be for politicians, with divisions for national, state, and local levels. The criteria is for the most bone-headed, unneeded, and pointless law or regulation produced at the level at which one is competing.

Oh yes, and a division for unelected bureaucrats too.

Daniel Mitchell over at Townhall has been digging these sorts of things up and publishing them for a while now, and I just found the trail of links (crumbs) to several of them.

Most of us have heard that in Illinois, you now need to present a photo I.D. to buy drain cleaner. Did you know that the vendor is required to take additional information and keep it?
The law, which took effect Sunday, requires those who seek to buy caustic or noxious substances, except for batteries, to provide government-issued photo identification that shows their name and date of birth. The cashier then must log the name and address, the date and time of the purchase, the type of product, the brand and even the net weight
Not to be outdone, the Brits require photo ID and minimum age for the purchase of teaspoons they having been declared dangerous weapons. I seem to remember the Brits having been, at one time, much tougher than that.

Back home, the Fed Gov requiring two Naval vessels to be almost built, then towed to Texas to be scrapped is probably not eligible. After all I'm sure some Senator from Virginia at some point saw them as indispensable to the national defense, or at least his own re-election.

Back in Europe, the Germans managed to lose the entire set of architectural drawings for the new headquarters for their national intelligence agency, which isn't quite as bad as the Americans contracting out the building of a new embassy building in Russia to local contractors and then finding that the place had more bugs in it than some downscale New York hotels.

BTW: did you know there was a seven-day waiting period on the purchase of cold medicine in Chicago?

In Chicago, politicians who are dead from the neck up are elected by voters who are completely dead, so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, but about that award: I'm thinking of a bust of some pol famous for bad governance, done as a thin clear plastic mold that emphasizes the empty space between the ears. Nero perhaps. Imagine the headlines: "Senator Phoggbound Nominated For Nero Award"

I'd certainly nominate the head of the EPA for declaring carbon dioxide a dangerous pollutant.

Click the links. Mr. Mitchel has some good stuff.

Gun Sales

2012-01-07T18:01:00.003-07:00

The FBI NICS check numbers are now out for 2011 and it looks like another banner year.
Noting of course that a NICS check does not correspond to a gun sale as some people are refused, some states require a new one every year for gun owners, some states require one every year for CCW holders, and some states (my own state of Colorado, for example) don't use NICS for background checks. Still, that's 16,454,951 checks for 2011.

Ammoland is reporting that some 10,800,000 guns were sold or transferred although they admit this number may be conservative. The report link compares this to the sizes of several foreign armies complete with "Don't f*** with us" lines.

Frankly I doubt that all those guns are being purchased in anticipation of the commie hoards storming over the horizon, but rather for locally produced barbarians in light of budget cuts at police departments.

Gun Fun: Bowling Pins

2012-01-07T17:31:00.002-07:00

Went out today to hunt the wily wild bowling pin. Won 5 tables out of 9, which is better than the last time, so all that physical conditioning I'm doing must be paying off.

Also had no one complain about debris flying sideways from the cylinder gap of my revolver so the forcing cone reamer I bought paid off as well.

Started shooting at 28 degrees and partly cloudy standing on frozen ground. No wind for a change, so not too bad. As the day went on, the temps rose to about 38 deg and the sun began to come out more. Frozen ground turned into mud. Don't worry about shifting your stance, your feet aren't going anywhere.

By 1:30 the clouds had rolled back, and the temperature was rapidly dropping, so we held a shoot-off for the top 2 shooters packed it in. Congrats to Kirk, our newest pin champ.

About 1/3 of the way back home it started snowing, and by the time I got home, it was coming down in earnest. 1-3 tonight they say. Looks like we caught the weather window just about right.

Comments

2012-01-07T17:25:00.003-07:00

Blogspot has come up with some new definitions of comments and spam that I do not, at this point, pretend to understand. I need to check the spam folder more regularly since perfectly good comments are winding up there. If your comment doesn't appear right away,that's probably the reason.

Doom And Gloom

2012-01-05T21:09:00.004-07:00

Some Dems are contemplating the prospect of Obama not getting a second term. Main story at Washington Monthly, executive summary at Insty. Just look at the potential devastation:

The Washington Monthly asked a group of distinguished journalists and scholars to think through the likely ramifications of a GOP victory in November. Here’s what they conclude:

David Weigel reports that the Tea Party will control the agenda regardless of which Republican wins the nomination.

Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann predict that there’s a “better-than-even chance” that the Senate filibuster will be destroyed.

David Roberts shows that the GOP won’t eliminate the EPA, but will permanently cripple it.

Harold Pollack disabuses liberals of the hope that health care reform can survive a Republican presidency.

Dahlia Lithwick writes that one more round of judicial appointments by a Republican president will lead to a generation of anti-government rulings no future Democrat can undo.

Plus: Jonathan Bernstein on why campaign promises matter; Michael Konczal on the end of Dodd-Frank; James Traub on the GOP’s “more enemies, fewer friends” doctrine; and Paul Glastris on why, this time, conservative anti-government aspirations will be fulfilled.

Not to worry anyone overly much. Most of these changes would require a Republican sweep akin to the Dem wins of 2008, plus a solidly conservative Republican in the White House. The former is not outside the realms of possibility, but the latter? No such person is currently running.

Gun Fun

2012-01-03T20:38:00.004-07:00

I got one of these for Christmas:
I have to say that not only does the handle not get hot in the microwave, it provides a much more stable grip. I also like the ambidextrous safety. It's about as safe in one hand as in the other.

Update: High capacity too.

Get 'em here.

Contest

2012-01-02T14:29:00.001-07:00

USCitizen needs a name for an online class 3 firearms site.

Drop on over and suggest something.

Employment 2012

2012-01-02T09:08:00.003-07:00

The EEOC has announced that employers demanding a high school diploma or equivalent as a condition of employment may be violating the Americans with Disabilities Act. They feel that a candidate with a learning disability that prevented them from finishing high school should not be discriminated against when applying for a position that requires say, the ability to read, write, and do simple math.

Along with that, the minimum wage just went up, at least around here, so in addition to being required to seriously consider morons for employment, you have to pay them more as well.

If I were a businessman, I think I'd move "hiring more help" down a notch or two on my list. If I were a politician, I'd add abolishing the minimum wage to my platform.

Safe Cities

2012-01-02T08:52:00.003-07:00

A recent news article listed Aurora, CO as the 9th safest city in the U.S. Over New Years there were 3 reported shootings and a couple of riots. O.K. we'll write the riots off to enthusiasm, but with that number of shootings, I have to commend the City of Littleton on the splendid job they did cleaning the bodies off the streets last night before the press showed up.

The Kinder, Gentler Jackboot

2012-01-02T08:44:00.002-07:00

Here we have the putative Republican front-runner explaning why the individual mandata on health care is a fundamentally conservative principle:

Since buying health insurance, or anything else is an individual responsibility, it seems that opting not to play at all is somehow un-American.

Under Obama, you'll be required to buy a Chevy Volt, which may eventually come with a fire extinguisher. Under Romney, you'll have the option of buying an electric car from any manufacturer you want, but you will be required to buy one.

After this election, the Republican party needs to go the way of the Whigs.

Read All About It!

2012-01-01T10:58:00.002-07:00

Well, about it maybe, and certainly not all. Here's a summary of malfeasance on the part of the press over the last year, and yes, I remember seeing several of those stories covered in varying degrees of completeness in assorted places, just almost never in newsprint.

All too often, I mention a week-old news item to the wife and find out she's not heard a word of it as she gets her news from the TV for the most part.

In the coming year we'll probably be treated to many examples of USSR-era Russian humor as the country becomes more and more like the Socialist utopia that the cowboy Reagan pitilessly destroyed just as all was about to come to fruition. Paraphrasing the Daily Worker may well become more common as well, no?

So as you peruse the local fish wrap, remember this Soviet-era wisdom: "There is no Truth in Pravda, and there is no News in Izvestia.

Happy New Year

2011-12-31T22:28:00.003-07:00

Rolling it up with the news that GM is recalling it's entire production of the Sonic, which I had never heard of, on account of the workforce may have neglected to install all of the brakes.

Quotable quote comes from Glenn Reynolds who in turn quotes the long-suffering Russians observing the new year: How was 2011?

I’d say it was average, in the sense of the old Soviet joke: Worse than last year, better than next year, so . . . average.

He has hopes for the latter part of 2012, as do I.

Best of luck to everybody and thanks for visiting. See you next year.

Kindle

2011-12-31T14:51:00.002-07:00

The wife wanted a Kindle for Christmas, and sure enough, Santa brought her one. It's been all downhill from there.

First off, the Fire model is so totally wireless that you apparently can't even register it without a wireless internet access. And not just any wireless access, you need your own in-house wireless setup for which you and no one else know all the secret serial numbers, addresses and passwords. Several internet sites say you can do this on your regular machine, but the wife is reluctant to try it.

I was pretty sure you could register the thing with a hardwired computer by logging on to Amazon and entering the required information, but I guess not, although I suspect the wife is being overly cautious here. It seems the Kindle has its own unique e-mail address which it does not share with the owners, just with Amazon.

Well, O.K. so I got a wireless Point of Access box. This thing, I was assured, will act as a wireless hookup to our existing home network, creating a wireless point on the router. Ah but wait. Setting the thing up involves disconnecting one computer from the network while the Access Point is configured, then reconnecting everything which will then work as advertised. Except that the Access Point requires a wireless device to talk to it to do this. That would be the Kindle. Battery life on the Kindle is notably shorter than what was advertised, although this may be related to an extended period of non-use.

I will likely have to bribe a geek to come over and patiently explain to her the operation of the On and Off switches, or whatever else is required to get this rig up. Amazon has e-mailed the wife wondering why she hasn't yet registered her device.

What a drag it must be, getting old.

Vote Fraud

2011-12-31T11:08:00.003-07:00

Atty General Holder has attacked North Carolina's requirement that anyone showing up at a po9lling place wanting to vote must show a state-issued photo I.D. Reports suggest that Texas will be next on the hit list. Coming as he does from a state where the biggest voter registration results come from the coroners office, I can see his point. Anyway if this bunch
showed up at your polling place, would you refuse them ballots simply because they had no photo I.D.?

Range Report

2011-12-31T11:00:00.002-07:00

Currently 42 degrees, with winds averaging 12.5 mph from the north, and 6-12" on snow on the ground which would be slowly turning into 6-12" of mud.

Looks like the science experiments will have to wait. I blame global warming.

Energy and Environment

2011-12-29T14:24:00.003-07:00

Colorado has a requirement that a variable, but increasing percentage of energy sold in the state come from "renewable" sources. This is called a Renewable Portfolio Standard, or RPS. Currently we get about 5% of our electricity from these renewable sources, primarily wind and solar.

As of today, the Independence Institute is reporting that this 5% portion of salable energy has caused our power bills to run some 30% higher than they would if no such requirement were in place.

Just think, in a perfect world, all our energy would come from renewables, and our power bills would be six times as high as they are now. And the greenies are working on moving that date in closer.

Obama on Immigration

2011-12-29T13:40:00.003-07:00

Who says he's doing nothing. Single handed he stopped the construction of a real fence along the Mexican border, and the INS is currently paying storage charges on the materials for some 600 miles of it.

Additionally, he's established a hotline at ICE. Yes, if you're an illegal immigrant, and you need help, call the ICE help line and they'll do what they can to keep you from being deported, and even send someone right over to get you registered to vote.

O.K. I made that last item up. Sounds plausible though, doesn't it?

Modern Journalism

2011-12-29T11:43:00.002-07:00

First the New York Time prints an anti-gun piece full of errors, then the Denver Post follows suit, although in all fairness, smaller errors.

At the first link, one of the commentors asks what the result might be if one day's paper might be 100% fact checked. An interesting proposition. Doing this for the Times might be a bit of a chore, but for the Post, I'm thinking much easier, since after removing the comics and the ads, there isn't really very much left of it.

It has also been noted that currently far fewer people are getting their news from the papers or the TV any more. Wonder why that is?

Castle Doctrine

2011-12-28T20:33:00.002-07:00

In what was described as the first test of the states newly passed castle doctrine law, a Pennsylvania man with a bow and arrow shot an attacker armed with a club.

I had heard that Western civilization was in decline, but I had no idea just how far it had gone. Were both of the principals dressed in bearskins?

Executive summary: Someone else's wife and copious quantities of alcohol were involved.

How soon will it be before bodkins are banned in New Jersey?

H/T to Sebastian for this one.

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-26T08:04:00.002-07:00

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good morning. O.K. this post is a tad late, sue me.

The New Year is almost upon us, and the world is going to Hell in a handbasket at an alarming rate. When UBS bank advocated tinned food and ammo as investments, you know it's not looking good. On the other hand, the predictions of financial wonks have such a reputation that you probably don't need to stockpile all that much of either.

On another note, Scott Adams, writer of Dilbert, has announced his candidacy for the presidency. He has an interesting platform that puts him only about 1/2" to the left of center, which is not that bad. This also puts him to the right of the most conservative front-runner out there.

His proposal to force members of congress onto a Jeopardy/Survivor-style TV show has merit. I'd steal that in a minute, and let the viewers vote someone off the island after each show. To this I'd add my suggestion from the last election, to give Rush Limbaugh a part-time job as press secretary. The down side, from Limbaugh's point of view, would be having to read presidential press releases once every week or two. The up side would be permission to comment on them freely, and additional sanction to treat the members of the press in any way he sees fit, up to and including non-lethal but humiliating physical abuse, along the lines of some of those Japanese game shows.

At this point, Mitt Romney has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the public would hate Pres. Obama even if he were a squeaky clean, white Mormon.

Newt Gingrinch the alleged intelectual and all-around idea man, has had his staff come up short of the number of signatures required to get him on the ballot in his current home state of Virginia.

Ron Paul, the Republican party's Uncle Fester from up in the attic, is at this point looking good enough by comparison to be a serious front runner.

Happy new year, and don't forget to stockpile enough charcoal to get you through the next two winters.

Definitions

2011-12-25T09:55:00.003-07:00

Here's a piece offering up some words you may not have known about, or have seldom heard, put into modern context. It's always good to expand your vocabulary, so drop on over and give it a read.

One jumped out at me and although I was already familiar with it, the definition struck a chord:

sangfroid |sä ng 'frwä|

noun

composure or coolness, sometimes excessive, as shown in danger or under trying circumstances

President Obama’s sangfroid in the face of economic collapse leads one to believe that controverting American exceptionalism is his goal.

To add to the definition, sangfroid is most easily achieved by closing ones eyes and turning up the volume on the MP3 player until the annoying sounds of people screaming and yelling is drowned out. Here's a reference:

The man at the wheel was made to feel
Contempt for the wildest blow-ow-ow
Tho' it often appeared when the gale had cleared,
That he'd been in his bunk below.

Your Tax Bucks At Work

2011-12-23T20:29:00.003-07:00

Conducting scholarly studies on the taxpayers dime is a longstanding way to produce PhD's and keep graduate students from starving. Sometimes this produces results that are useful in the grand scheme of things. Sometimes it doesn't.

Take this study of gun violence which may have been a bit too honest for its own good. Executive summary:

It took $2.6 million of taxpayers’ money to find out what could have been assumed for free: that teenagers who possess illegal guns, engage in underage drinking and hang out with other ne’er-do-wells are more likely to get shot. The agency also wasted $2 million to determine if there is a causal relationship between gun violence and the presence of bars and liquor stores.

That second part was presumable to boost efforts to bring back prohibition, striking success that that was.

It's good to see the small but regular successes the Republicans are having chipping away at the anti-gun thinking that goes on among Democrats although they try very hard to keep it "under the radar".

Gun Law, Chicago

2011-12-23T20:15:00.002-07:00

I had always had a suspicion that the big reason Chicago opposed allowing the citizenry to own guns was because an armed citizenry would reduce the thug population, thus cutting in to the politicians voting base.

I was right.

Apparently without the support of the street gangs, you can't get elected.

Gun Fun?

2011-12-20T20:36:00.002-07:00

President Obama has added another notch to the well-carved stock of his M4 rifle, with the additional kill of Kim Jong-Il in North Korea. This on top of his virtually single-handed disposing of Osama Bin Ladin and Mummar Q-Daffy.

His claims to being responsible for the demise of Václav Havel and Christopher Hitchens are still being investigated.

Missing a Bet

2011-12-17T09:29:00.003-07:00

Janet Robinson, CEO of the New York Times Company has suddenly announced her retirement. During her tenure, in seven years, the company has lost about 80% of its value, and probably about the same percentage of its credibility.

Here's the opportunity: Rupert Murdoch, owner of the Times biggest competitor, News Corp, could offer to pay Mrs. Robinson's salary and benefits for another two years, at the end of which times, one would expect the Times to go out of business and completely disappear. That would be $10M well spent.

Alternatively, he could buy the paper after one year for a relative pittance, and keep the employees doing what they do best by turning it into a grocery-store tabloid. The possibilities are vast.

Balancing the Budget

2011-12-14T20:30:00.002-07:00

Here in Colorado, we used to have a TABOR amendment to the constitution that severely limited the legislature's ability to siphon money from the taxpayers and spend with no limits. The same is being proposed in Washington in the form of balanced budget amendments put forward in various forms by various people.

A few days ago I got an e-mail from one of my Senators, Mark Udall, announcing that being the budget hawk he was, he was proposing a balanced budget amendment of his own. Now I get a weekly e-mail noting the votes my congress critters make on the various stuff that comes up, and based on their voting records, Senators Udall and Bennett are possible the most loyal toadies president Obama ever had. What the One wants, these two will deliver, so when I read the announcement the B.S. alarms were going off at full volume.

By now I know better than to even consider endorsing anything these to do, no matter how they sugar coat it, so no letters to other pols urging their support. Turns out my instincts were right.

Nobody who looks at this would be fooled, but the Senate Dems are counting on nobody actually seeing it. When it goes down in flames as it should, the Dems can say they all voted for a balanced budget amendment, but the spendthrift Republicans blocked it.

If the Dems put forward a bill in support of motherhood and apple pie, you can bet that a close reading will reveal that it calls for selling your mother into slavery to make apple pies in a sweatshop, said pies earmarked to be included in a foreign aid package to North Korea.

News Of The World

2011-12-13T20:47:00.002-07:00

Drudge is reporting that the Sec of State, Thunder Thighs herself, is currently engaged in a 3-day sit-down conference with some several assorted Nobs from the middle east over what the U.S. government can do to discourage the unimpeded criticism of Islam.

Short answer: Nothing.

Part of the job description for a diplomat is the ability to tell someone to go to Hell in such a way as to make them look forward to the trip. I'm pretty sure Hillary can handle the first part, but I've got my doubts about the second.

Now visualize this: The conference ends with Hil, tired of Koranic interpretations and condescension, tells the Nobs, what else, to pound sand. The Nobs, in high dudgeon, demand that the Hil get 20 lashes for un-islamic conduct. The pres, eager to improve his standing in the Middle east, agrees, and Hill gets 20.

O.K. I'm channeling Mad Magazine, so sue me.

Hil said that while head chopping is not currently on the approved list of punishments here, we would do our best to shame those who insult Islam. When the e-mail arrives from the State department, I promise to publish it.

Career Advice

2011-12-13T20:30:00.003-07:00

This week, we consider majoring in political science. Play your cards right and there's no limit to the advancement you can achieve, weather you deserve it or not. Even if you don't play all your cards right, there's frequently little or no down side:
Things to keep in mind would be location. The above cartoon is from Scotland, but would serve one well enough in Massachusetts. Beware of Illinois. In spite of its reputation, about half the Chicago aldermen and Illinois governors get to see the Big House from the inside, and no, not the one in D.C. That's the exception.

Just found out today that Gov Blago is going to be living just up the road from me, just southeast of Kipling and Hampton. Small world, no?

Silencing the Opposition

2011-12-13T06:07:00.003-07:00

An Obama-appointed federal judge has ruled that no matter how much work you do on line, if you're not affiliated with the MSM or dead tree media, you're not a journalist, and not entitled to any of the protections that go with that.

Specifically:

He said, “Although the defendant is a self-proclaimed ‘investigative blogger’ and defines herself as ‘media,’ the record fails to show that she is affiliated with any newspaper, magazine, periodical, book, pamphlet, news service, wire service, news or feature syndicate, broadcast station or network, or cable television system. Thus, she is not entitled to the protections of the law in the first instance.”

Radly Balko, who richly deserves a Pulitzer, would not qualify.

Next blogger-fest, everybody bring a printed copy of your latest page. Pass it to the person on your right. Now pass a nickel to the person on your left. Having done this, we are all now pamphleteers, and thus journalists, entitled to all the perks of the title.

Meantime, let's hope the judge, Obama appointee Marco Hernandez, is quickly and firmly overturned.

Gun News

2011-12-09T19:39:00.002-07:00

Gallup is reporting that 47% of American households now posses a gun of one sort or another, up from 41% only a year ago. The Brady bunch attributes this to marketing, but somehow I don't remember being blasted with ads for guns on the TV and radio, even the conservative talk shows.

I attribute this to the large number of people who get their financial advice from UBS as mentioned below. I am surprised to see they have such widespread influence, who knew?

How Bad Is It?

2011-12-09T18:43:00.002-07:00

UBS is a large and reputable purveyor of economic advice. Here's some advice from one of its people on preparations for an impending collapse of the Euro:

"I suppose there might be some assets worthy of consideration—precious metals, for example. But other metals would make wise investments, too. Among them tinned goods and small calibre weapons."
Larry Hathaway, UBS Financial

I get e-mails daily warning me to prepare for one sort of zombie apocalypse or another, but not usually from such a well regarded source.

RTWT

Fast And Furious

2011-12-09T18:35:00.002-07:00

As the sordid story continues to unfold, it appears that the "iron river of guns" flowing from the U.S. to Mexico, has its headwaters in Washington D.C.

Junk Science Checklist

2011-12-07T19:05:00.002-07:00

How can you tell when "leading scientists" or "top Russian scientists" are jerking your chain? Especially when the topic is something you know nothing about.

Here's a quick and easy checklist.

The Future of Transportation, Driverless

2011-12-06T20:50:00.003-07:00

Here's an article noticing that BMW is developing a driverless car by teaching one to run laps around the Laguna Seca racetrack, east of Monterrey, CA. The results seem impressive from the description in that they're letting media types sit in the drivers seat while company wonks fill the remaining leather and are amused at the terror that ensues.

To which I say: Big deal. Every other car maker in the world is actively experimenting with this technology, and not on a closed road course either. Nosiree! Everybody else has their Beta Johnnyycab software controlling the cars of daily commuters on the streets of Denver and the surrounding suburbs.

I am here to attest that this technology is definitely in the beta stages, and will need a bit more wringing out before a more general release. I suggest adding sensors to the left and right sides of the vehicle being controlled to insure that the spot in the adjacent lane is in fact empty before moving into it.

Unemployment - How To Read the Charts

2011-12-04T07:52:00.002-07:00

By now it's pretty well understood that any information or statistics provided by the government are to be taken with a generous dollop of salt. Remember that we were told that Freddie and Fannie were rock solid, and that the banking industry had no problems in the foreseeable future. Keep in mind that at the U.S. weather service, "foreseeable" means 5 days out, and we all know how well that works.

Mike Shedlock at Townhall Finance has a nice piece up explaining where those rosy unemployment numbers come from, and hints on how to interpret any such future proclamations.

In November, those "Not in Labor Force" rose by a whopping 487,000. If you are not in the labor force, you are not counted as unemployed.

Were it not for people dropping out of the labor force, the unemployment rate would be well over 11%.

Toss in discouraged workers and that number rises to around 16%. How many of your friends do you know are currently unemployed?

The Future of Transportation, Electrics

2011-12-03T17:37:00.002-07:00

The Aptera company, which I spoke of earlier, is officially closing its doors.
Which is too bad as I thought the basic design had a lot of promise, just not as an electric. It seems that even with some prospect of $150M from the government, private investors couldn't be persuaded to pony up another $150M.

I wonder what the prototypes will bring in the bankruptcy auction.

How Things Work - Economies

2011-12-01T19:19:00.003-07:00

Found this graph and couldn't pass it up.
Let's say I'm a farmer, and I have some potatoes. I'm asking $900/truckload for my potatoes. They begin to depreciate as soon as they are dug up, and my price declines to $700. Then the government, seeing that the price of potatoes is in decline, prints a bunch of money and gives it to state and local governments.

I recognize that the value of the money is diluted, and raise the price of my potatoes to compensate to $1200/truckload. I'm selling potatoes, but not quickly enough for the government who prints another load of money and repeats the previous feat.

I raise the price of the remaining potatoes to $1350 to compensate, and continue to sell at lower prices as time goes on.

Oddly enough, the $1200 I'm currently getting has the same purchasing power as the $400 I would have been getting by now if the government had done nothing.

For all this effort, the government expects to get re-elected.

How Bad Is It?

2011-11-29T21:15:00.004-07:00

I hear a lot in the news about how Greece is effectively unable to pay its bills, and several other countries are in the same condition but the finance ministers are too polite to talk about it in polite (when the media is listening) company.

I guess I find it not too surprising that this article got pulled from the Guardian in England as being "too dangerous" but I guess I had not expected to see such a thing at all.

The author seems to feel that things are getting dicey enough that the Yanks Second Amendment is beginning to look like a really good idea, and recommends that persons with something worth defending seriously consider getting a gun to defend it with.

Free Advice: It's easier to defend a whole block by barricading the street at either end than it is to defend an individual residence or business. Get to know your neighbors. The ones who can't shoot can always spot for those who can.

First the Good News...

2011-11-28T21:19:00.002-07:00

Rep Barney Frank, top Democrat and former chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, has announced his retirement. Paired with Sen Chris Dodd, the two oversaw Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae into the current housing bubble which is still in the process of deflating.

Elected in 1980, Frank survived scandal early in his career and rose to become the nation’s most powerful openly-gay elected official.

The scandal involved a male prostitute operating out of Franks office when he wasn't servicing the Representative. I don't have a problem with our elected congress animals employing rent-boys / girls / sheep since the more time they spend distracted in this manner, the less time they spend (figuratively) doing the same to us. Still, you like to think your elected representative might be held to a marginally higher standard than the trailer trash that elected them.

Then there's the bad news. Frank's successor is Maxine Waters, who famously threatened to "socialize" the oil industry in the face of rising oil prices.

Good Government

2011-11-28T20:21:00.002-07:00

Is minimal government. Here's someone advocating for the abolition of the EPA, which is certainly a worthy cause:

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson recently told University of Wisconsin-Madison students that she is proud to work for a President who will bypass Congress and create his own rules via executive order: ‘I’m proud to be part of an EPA that has mobilized science and the law to create modern and innovative protections for the health of the American people. I’m also proud to be working for a president who has said that “we can’t wait” on these issues.’

Jackson may think our President is a king. Yet the Constitution prohibits the President from making laws or delegating lawmaking to an extra-Congressional committee. Federalist and framer Alexander Hamilton explains in “The Federalist No. 78” that Congress controls the purse strings and makes laws while the president merely enforces the laws: “The Executive ... holds the sword of the community.”

Personally I'd settle for a rewrite of the agency's charter that would require all the rules and directives it issues to be approved by both houses of congress before being inflicted on the American people.

Along the same lines someone else is proposing essentially the same thing for the department of Transportation. You know, the folks that won't let you widen your roads unless half the money they give you (back) is spent to establish a state-wide network of barge canals.

The Golden Gate Bridge is an ironic* American structure. It was finished in just four years and came in $1.3 million under budget. Earlier this month, California Senator Dianne Feinstein acknowledged that could not happen today: “…it would take a hundred years to do it with all the permits we need.”

*O.K. it's made of iron, but I suspect the word the author was looking for was "iconic". I blame spelling autocorrection. Anyway both are good articles.

Gun Fun: IDPA

2011-11-27T10:29:00.003-07:00

Never let it be said we don't know how to have fun around here. Here's a shot of stage 1 of the club IDPA shoot we held yesterday:
Note the number of tires necessary to hold the walls in place. The wind was blowing 10-20 mph and the temperature at start time was in the high 20's. It got up into the high 30's by the end of the festivities, but the wind never let up.

Note to self: Preparation before the R.O. asks "Shooter Ready" includes changing glasses so I can see both front sights and targets. This improves the accuracy no end.

Unpaid endorsement: Craftsman (R) mechanics gloves are excellent shooting gloves with leather palms and elastic backs, and are reasonably warm. They were designed for careful, accurate tool manipulation, which is pretty much what you're doing at the range.

Gun Control and National Politics

2011-11-27T10:17:00.002-07:00

Here's an article on newsmax.com that I've seen linked multiple times by multiple bloggers. Executive summary: Gun control is NOT a winning issue. The candidates varied positions, and a bit on their assorted actions is included, which is worth reading. My favorite part:

Rick Perry and Rick Santorum go pheasant hunting and give interviews before heading out. Newt Gingrich and Herman Cain speak to the National Rifle Association convention. Michele Bachmann tells People magazine she wants to teach her daughters how to shoot because women need to be able to protect themselves. Mitt Romney, after backing some gun control measures in Massachusetts*, now presents himself as a strong Second Amendment supporter.

*That bit about Romney: After backing and signing the Massachusetts AWB, he also backed and signed their state-controlled healthcare law. Romney famously holds two positions on every issue, and at this point has me convinced he's actually a Democrat who is lying about his party affiliation.

Energy and Environment

2011-11-26T20:08:00.002-07:00

When the politicians control the buying and selling, the first thing bought and sold is the politicians.

This bit of timeless knowledge explains why North Dakota has a shortage of employees, housing, and everything else required to produce oil and gas in large quantities, and New York isn't producing anything. It certainly isn't for lack of monies being paid to politicians, it just seems that the ones in New York are a premium bunch and need bigger bribes.

Economics

2011-11-23T20:20:00.003-07:00

The big news today, for you economic wonks is that the Germans attempted to sell national bonds, and no one stepped up to buy them. This is a big-time no-confidence vote in the notion that the Mediterranean countries will be allowed to run up debt and the Northerners will pay it off for them.

QOTD:

“We must re-establish the primacy of politics over the market.”
A. Merkel

FWIW, Frau Merkel, political bodies have always been able to destroy markets. Think of a political entity (country) as a body, and the market as the blood circulating within it. It's easy for the body to control the blood, simply place a tourniquet around the neck and tighten. Of course this results in a shrinking market, falling GDP, higher unemployment and a pressing need for the government to raise taxes to cover the cost of tightening the tourniquet.

Good thing we're not that dumb here, right?

November E-Postal Match

2011-11-23T18:55:00.004-07:00

So I went out to the range and standing an near absolute calm and warm temperatures, I shot a target that should have everybody who ever wanted to humiliate Billll in the current e-postal match running to the nearest range to shoot one of their own.

Or maybe not. I've noticed that when my scores are sub-my-standard, for some reason no one else does all that good either. Usually.

People around here will have a chance to shoot this this weekend. Guess which day my club is having an outdoor defensive pistol match with a side match for shotgun and another for carbines?
If you guess any day when the projected temperature is above 60 and the wind is not blowing, you lose!

QOTD - Gunwalker

2011-11-23T09:24:00.003-07:00

H/T to PJmedia for this one although I couldn't find the exact quote at the link, I'm willing to go along with ascribing this to Rep. West:

Florida Republican Allen West has said if Holder doesn’t resign and President Obama doesn’t fire him, “then perhaps the president of the United States of America is also complicit in this horrible, tragic event of Operation Fast and Furious.”

Ya think? And the crowd goes wild.

Of course Gunwalker is, strictly speaking, an act of war against Mexico and if the president was complicit, he should probably resign too.

I'm not holding my breath on that one.

Supercommittee 3

2011-11-21T09:23:00.002-07:00

Can I call these things or what? I just wish calling the stock market or football games was this easy.

When you're the junior member of a committee, you show up late, avoid yawning at all the incomprehensible mumbo-jumbo going on around you, defer your questioning time to the senior members, and vote present. Still photos make you look distinguished and you can have your people put any caption at all under them.

Being a senior member is similar, but you defer to the members who actually did their homework, and vote the way they did.

When you're president, and the peasants are becoming restless, you conspicuously appoint a study committee and go golfing. If you think you actually want something done, you appoint a committee with an odd number of members in which your side has the one vote majority. If you are afraid that any outcome at all will not look good for you, you balance the committee, and blame the resultant gridlock on the opposition.

The problem here is that the problem doesn't get solved, and the peasants can see quite clearly what's going on.

Happy Thanksgiving

2011-11-20T16:34:00.003-07:00

Over at the Whiteboard, is a suggestion for you amateur chefs as to how to "save the bacon" in case something goes wrong while you're cooking.
This is probably one of the most benign disasters to befall Docs Machine. A great application of creative thinking and foresight. Not to mention a great read.

NRA Fundraising

2011-11-20T16:13:00.003-07:00

The local Friends of the NRA had a fundraiser last night which I believe sets a new standard for that sort of thing. It comes in the form of two raffles, held simultaneously.

Raffle number one is actually a series of drawings in which tickets are sold at $20/each, and when 50 tickets have been sold, one is drawn. Over on the tables in the center of the floor are some 160 guns of various calibers, types and base prices. If you're the lucky winner of the moment, you have 3 minutes to pick one off the table and it's yours. Then they move to the next 50 tickets.
This goes on all night or until interest flags. It took a while for interest to flag.

For raffle #2, you bought a $50 ticket or tickets, and they all go into the hopper. There are 100 guns arranged in some sort of order on a list, ranging from a very well appointed AR type, to some .380 mouse guns and Taurus Judges. They start at the top of the list, and draw a winner for gun #1. Then the winning ticket is put back into the drum, shuffled up, and another ticket is drawn for gun #2. There was a limit of 5000 tickets sold, and yes, more than one person bought several, and yes you could win more than one gun. High score was 4 guns. All on different tickets, I'm pretty sure.

This raffle was seriously under subscribed, but it didn't help, I won nothing.

For the amount of money taken in, I expect the Colorado NRA to buy a voting majority in the state Senate, and a fun, if somewhat expensive time was had by all.

War

2011-11-17T20:41:00.002-07:00

Angela Merkel,P.M.of German, has raised the possibility of armed conflict in Europe over the financial debacle currently growing there like a mutant mushroom. Consider the possibilities:

1 Germany, in lieu of being expected to cover the debts of every country south of itself decides to foreclose on a couple of them using the Bundeswher as the collection agency, say in Austria and the Czech republic. If the conquerors limit themselves to jailing a few obviously corrupt politicians and actually cut your taxes, they will likely encounter little resistance.

2. Russia has never used subtlety. They cite national security and annex Georgia, Ukraine,and the Baltic republics. Sure this is an act of war against the EU and NATO,but how badly do you want to go to war with the country that supplies 25% of your natural gas?

3. China appears to be in worse shape than thought with a housing bubble and rapidly dropping exports. The obvious solution to the possibility of peasants with pitchforks and torches is to find a scapegoat. Taiwan comes to mind.

Gives you something to think about doesn't it?

The Federal Budget

2011-11-17T20:02:00.002-07:00

While the federal supercommittee dithers and solicits campaign contributions, the Tea party has put together the framework of a ten-year budget plan that looks like it will actually work.

Interestingly it includes several things I've been pushing to any pol that might listen, including phasing out Social Security, and adding a popular vote line to tax forms which would designate part of your contribution to the feds to the agency or department of your choice. They also suggest eliminating several of the same agencies that I targeted here earlier.

Release your inner policy wonk and RTWT.

Newt Gingrich

2011-11-15T19:34:00.002-07:00

Say what you like about him, he is so far the only Republican who recognizes that the sitting president is represented at the debates, standing behind the moderators podium, making the wannabes dance to the Dems jig.

War Crimes

2011-11-15T18:56:00.002-07:00

Most every one I drink with is a big fan of improvised munitions, and improvised everything else for that matter, but...

There are certain defined weapons and systems that are banned and their use is considered a war crime.

Guess what the Occupy Portland hobos got caught with?

Headline

2011-11-15T18:46:00.002-07:00

Here's the headline, and H/T to WSJ for it:

"Fertility Math? Most Women Flunk, Survey Finds"

Which suggests that there might be a survival value in women being bad at math. If they were math geniuses, we'd be extinct.

Science Marches Onward

2011-11-13T19:32:00.002-07:00

Here's a product with a good deal of appeal: a spray-on substance that renders practically anything super hydrophobic. Sounds like just what I need for when I get caught in the rain on the bike.

What they don't mention is how it reacts to some of the other kinds of contaminants, like motor oil.

Watch the video at the link. What it does for chocolate syrup is nothing short of amazing. It's supposed to hit the market next year.

Motorcycles

2011-11-13T19:26:00.002-07:00

A great day for a motorcycle ride, specifically Harrys Roamers 55th annual Turkey Run.

Held this time of year, the joke is that all too often the turkeys are out there riding bikes in temperatures ranging from the low 30's to the high 20's. Today was one of the better ones with a high in the low 60's.

It was a tossup as to which was the cuter, the sidecar specifically set up for two children, or the fellow with his pug riding with him on his lap.

Blog Con

2011-11-12T08:45:00.002-07:00

Apparently there's a bloggers convention in town. The first I heard about it was when some of the people I read announced that they were going to Denver, and posting would be scarce.

Now I hear the hippies from OWS tried to occupy the place.

Sounds like a fun time.

The Future of Transportation, Airborne

2011-11-09T20:54:00.002-07:00

Thanks to Tam for pointing this thing out. I agree with her that dangerous as it obviously is, it would be hard to resist the siren call of individual air travel.

Being a typical engineer, I have to say "That's not how I would have done it!", but so what?

This electrically driven system is quiet, clean and economically cost efficient. A one-hour flight would cost something near to 6 Euro for electricity. In addition, the device holds few parts, which could wear out, making maintenance intervals and cost low and far between.

6 euros is about $10, and if I drive my pickup for 1 hour at 60 mph at 20 mpg, the comparative cost of the fuel is currently pretty close. Keep in mind that we're comparing the cost of European electricity, which is expensive, to American gasoline, which in Republican administrations is relatively cheap.

Flight time is said to be 20-30 minutes which means I'd be falling out of the sky just as I get to work or back. Still, adding a small generator would extend this significantly.

The propeller arrangement leaves something to be desired as I'm having a hard time seeing this thing fitting in my front yard, never mind the garage. Still, I bet that an improved, i.e. more compact, arrangement wouldn't be too hard to come up with.

Oh yeah, I'm sure the motors are whisper quiet, but I guarantee the propellers will sound like a swarm of giant killer bees on crack.

Looks like fun, though.

New Game In Town

2011-11-08T21:19:00.002-07:00

First in Sacramento, now in New York City, how come they can't show up in my neighborhood?

That first link is hilarious. Pinned down in your own car by 15 lbs of turkey sandwich.

Holder Testifies

2011-11-08T18:58:00.002-07:00

It becomes clearer why this man is AG of the U.S. He gives a whole new dimension to the word "chutzpa".

First he is shocked....shocked...

"I want to be clear: Any instance of so-called 'gun walking' is unacceptable," Holder said of weapons smuggling, later adding: "This operation was flawed in its concept, and flawed in its execution."

Then we get Sgt. Schultz: I know nottink...

Last week, his assistant attorney general, Lanny Breuer, expressed "regret" for his failure to alert Holder about the operation.

Sure, your #2 kept you in the dark.
Then, of course, the obvious answer to preventing this sort of thing from happening is to give the guilty parties more money:

Holder made a plea to the committee for strengthening the authority of the ATF to detect and disrupt illegal gun trafficking, and urged full funding for the ATF to combat gun-running.

Sure we broke U.S. law, Mexican law, and international law, but that's just because we didn't have the budget.

If the ATF had had the budget, they probably would have sold nukes to Al-Quaida.

Write your congress critter and ask politely that he or she ask, politely, for Mr. Holders resignation. And while you're at it don't forget to ask that the BATFE be disbanded.

Socialist Utopia

2011-11-06T21:17:00.002-07:00

My liberal friends used to assure me that their economic model would work and endlessly cited Europe as proof of this. It was easy for me to point out that per capita GDP in Europe was about 2/3 of that in the U.S. The retort was that U.S. workers were enslaved by the blood-sucking capitalists and shouldn't have to be so productive.

Today we are less productive and per capita GDP is down. For some reason my liberal friends, those not employed by the government, seem strangely silent. Europe is on the receiving end of admonishments by the ChiComs:

“I think if you look at the troubles which happened in European countries, this is purely because of the accumulated troubles of their worn out welfare societies,” Jin Liqun said in an interview with Al Jazeera television. “I think the labour laws are outdated – the labour laws induce sloth, indolence rather than hard working. The incentive system is totally out of whack.”

Keeping in mind, of course, that sloth and indolence are civil offenses in China and draw rather severe penalties up to public execution. Still...

Diplomacy

2011-11-06T15:01:00.002-07:00

The State Department has figured out yet another way to spend the taxpayers money, this time by exporting postmodern art to foreign countries in an attempt to get them to see the U.S. in a more favorable light.

When I hear the word postmodern, the vision I get is something out of Mad Max in which modern society is definitely post. Thus while I believe that an exhibition of works like Piss Christ and the Dung Madonna would probably be well received in the middle east, I would look forward to public exhibitions of outsized vaginas or lower intestines, presided over by the actual artists, which might well result in unfortunate circumstances such as the public burning of the art followed by the public beheading of the artist.

Better yet we could cut the State Departments obviously bloated budget, fire the current secretary, and appoint someone more like Don Corleone who can wear nice suits, make polite speech and leave no doubt in anyone's mind as to what will happen if his advice is not taken very seriously.

The Army You've Got

2011-11-06T14:37:00.003-07:00

A post over at Sailor Curts despairing of the quality of the potential Republican nominees inspired this:

I know a lot of people who are pretty unimpressed with the field right now. Big deal. As someone remarked, "You don't go to war with the army you wish you had, you go to war with the army you've got."
Romney's a democrat who lies about his party affiliation. We all know that, and the GOP insiders think this is a plus. After all that approach worked well with Dole and McCain, didn't it?
Perry's a former Democrat who's a bit out of his league at the national level. Still, he has an enviable record on the economic front and hopefully would be bright enough to pick good advisers.
Cain has essentially no experience in politics at all, and it shows. The "bimbo eruption" to me has Obama's fingerprints all over it. That's the way Obie has gotten elected in the past, by finding some dirt on an otherwise strong opponent and getting him to drop out. The approach does not seem to be working as well this time. His executive experience should help him in the selection of advisers.

That said, remember we're electing a president here, not a dictator. A change in control in the House, and Obie is reduced to ruling by decree through agencies like the EPA. It's to the point now that he doesn't have enough support in the Senate to pass any legislation and while the agencies can do a lot of damage, what they do by executive fiat can be undone the same way with new agency heads or, since precedent has been established, temporary Czars who don't have to be approved by the Senate.

Was McCain the best candidate we could have come up with? Of course not. He was endorsed by the New York Times in the primaries, and was thought of by the Republican base as a Democrat in Republican clothing. Would he have made a great president? Doubtful. Would he have appointed Kagan and Sotomayer to the supreme court? No. Would he have signed Pelosi's health care bill? Probably not.

You can't judge candidates in absolute terms. Holding out for Mr Perfect will only get you a bunch of Mr. Horribles who win when you stay home. Face it: Attilla the Hun is not going to be on the ballot this election, so show up and vote for the alternative to the devil we already know too much about.

Unemployment

2011-11-06T14:19:00.002-07:00

As measured by the government, you are unemployed only if you are collecting unemployment. Noted today is that over 50% of the unemployed are no longer collecting unemployment, hence we can expect the unemployment rate to begin dropping.

Also helping the numbers is the boomers facing retirement in the near future, and finding themselves out of work with no prospects, and taking Social Security at an earlier age than they had originally planned. This also works as a cost-saving measure since a 62 year old retiree gets only about 2/3 of what a 66 year old would draw.

The disadvantage of being an older worker and actually working is that by the time I get to retirement age, all the best bridges and intersections will already be occupied by folks younger and stronger than me.