Skynet Moves One Step Closer

Found this at Uncle Jay's. You've probably seen the box that reverses the on switch for you. Well now they're running out of patience:

The next version won't let you near it. And they won't find your body either. Bwahahaha!

July E-Postal - Math

This months e-postal features a Venn diagram, famous for sorting characteristics and giving names to the combined subgroups. Here's an example:

O.K. maybe I should have found one with pistol, rifle, and shotgun shooters instead of  this one, but hey, it was there. Lucky you, it's not the target.
This is what the target looks like:

Don't use this one. Go here and print it out to get full size. NOTE: This target is displayed in landscape, NOT portrait. Be sure you tell your printer this before you hit Print.

This should be easy since the numbers serve dual purpose. The number in each zone is both the number of rounds you will shoot in that zone, and the points per hit for each round. So 3 shots in the '3' zone, 2 shots in each of the three '2' zones, and one shot in each of the three '1' zones, for a total of 12 holes in the paper.

Scoring: 3 points for each hit in the '3' zone, up to 3, 2 points for each hit in a '2' zone, limit 2 hits per zone, and 1 point for each hit in a '1' zone, limit one hit per zone. Hits on a line are counted in the shooters favor.  If, for example, you put 4 rounds into the '3' zone, only 3 of them will count for 3 points, but if one of them is touching  a line, you may count it as a '2' or even a '1' if it's on a corner.

Put your name, class, gun and caliber, score, and anything else that might be of interest in dark ink up by the label "Billlls Venn Diagram.", and e-mail your results to bllew at rmi dot net.

Max score is 24.

Shoot this standing, unsupported at 25feet/10 yards.

There are five different classes
1.  Rimfire firearms with iron sights
2.  Rimfire firearms with optics
3.  Centerfire calibers with Iron sights
4.  Centerfire calibers with optics
5.  Math Is Hard class

Class 5 is open. Airguns, blowguns, whatever. Just let me know what you used and from how far away. Optics implies magnification so red dots shoot with the irons.

Note that it is possible to get a perfect score by putting all 12 shots in the '3' zone as long as they strategically touch the boundaries in the right places. Doing this with a large caliber gun would probably make the target unscoreable but fun to look at.  Good luck.

Mags4Freedom

Magpuls last shot at making sure that no one in Colorado who wants a standard capacity mag  needs to do without. It turned out that I got there early enough to pick up a "free Colorado" edition mag for a gun I don't have. Yet. Those 80% lowers are looking better and better you know?

4-5000 attendees estimated. Seemed like everyone who wanted a mag or three got one although I heard of people buying mags for guns they didn't own. I figured the next 18 months were going to be a fight, but I don't expect a shooting war to break out.

The new laws will become a front-row issue with Republicans which if played right could get them back in power. One hopes they remember that while not everybody holds the gun issue up as a primary one, the way to sell this is to point out that it's a touchstone to how the pols think about YOU.

Sorry, no pictures. I need a new camera it seems.

Gun (Not So Much) Fun

To tell the truth I didn't expect this. The Marlin .22 plinker I bought should have been common and available, it not being an Evil Black Rifle and all. Getting the gun with only one magazine was mildly annoying.

So I go shopping for stock 10-round mags for the Marlin:
CTD                                        $12.12      Out of stock
Bass Pro                                $20.00      Out of stock
Sportsmans Warehouse      $14.99      Out of stock
Brownells                              $24.99       Out of stock
Midway                                 $16.99       Out of stock
Marlin Factory                     $21.xx        Out of stock

Even the rifle was listed as out of stock.

How about an extended mag? What I've read suggests that I'll have the best luck with the ProMag 25 round model:

Promag                                   $21.42       Not listed as out of stock, but...*
Natchez Shooters                 $16.99       Out of stock
Various other sources         $14- $18    Out of stock

*They say they can't guarantee delivery dates but at least won't bill my credit card until the order ships. Haven't seen a billing from them but the mags become illegal Monday. I'm going to have to make some friends in Cheyenne where I can pick up mail deliveries.

Checking for zombies outside in the street....

Easter Eggs

When a piece of legislation exceeds 1000 pages, perusal frequently yields easter eggs. Thanks to Mark Steyn for this one from the Senates comprehensive immigration bill:

For example, Section 5(b)(1):

    Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall establish a strategy, to be known as the ‘Southern Border Fencing Strategy’ . . .

On the other hand, Section 5(b)(5):

    Notwithstanding paragraph (1), nothing in this subsection shall require the Secretary to install fencing .

An excellent essay as usual.

Are You A Libertarian?

And not just some kind of statist liberal trying to cover his spots? Here's an old Libertarian purity test. The folks at Ace of Spades decided to try it to compare their own membership. As I write this I haven't taken it yet, but the range at AoS was from 56 to 65. I call myself a Republican with a Libertarian streak. Let's see:

The wait is over! I got 54/160 which they describe as:

51-90 points: You are a medium-core libertarian, probably self-consciously so. Your friends probably encourage you to quit talking about your views so much.

But hey, it keeps me in material for my soapbox. Besides I'm on the low end of the range, so anyone who objects to my positions is obviously a racist or something.

Pretty

I don't go for heavily engraved guns as most of them seem to be commemorative of some event of middling importance, but I like this one:

More pix at The Firearms Blog.

You're Crazy!

No really, you are. The American Psychiatric Association has released their new "bible" describing everything that could possibly be wrong with your head, on the inside at least, and has added a catch-all categore that overlaps everything else:

In previous editions, you the patient had to meet certain specified criteria in order to be diagnosed for any particular condition. For example, if I were going to diagnose you as having schizophrenia, then you had to have specific symptoms, such as delusions or hallucinations. If you didn't have those symptoms, then I couldn't make the diagnosis of schizophrenia.
Not anymore. Last month, DSM-5 introduced a new diagnosis, "Unspecified Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorder." The only required criterion is that you have some distress from unspecified symptoms, but you "do not meet the full criteria for any of the disorders in the schizophrenia spectrum and other psychotic disorders diagnostic class." You don't have to have delusions. You don't have to have hallucinations. In fact if you do have delusions and hallucinations, then you probably don't qualify for unspecified schizophrenia. (You will find the new diagnosis in one short paragraph at the bottom of page 122 of DSM-5.)
Likewise for every other diagnostic category, including, for example, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. Let's suppose that you occasionally don't pay attention to your wife. You don't meet the old-fashioned criteria for ADHD, which included impairment in multiple settings, like on the job or while driving. You are inattentive only when your wife is talking. You pay attention to everybody else. Hey, no problem. You now qualify for "Unspecified Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder."

The whole article is behind a paywall at the Wall St. Journal ('Unspecified Mental Disorder'? That's Crazy ) :-(  but you see where this is headed. Either you exhibit specific symptoms of some disorder or other, or you don't. In either case, you're suffering from a mental debilitation. So what? I hear you ask. Well if you've been diagnosed with a mental disorder, you're no longer allowed to possess firearms. Think about that.

In the past I had said that Testosterone makes you stupid, and Estrogen makes you crazy. No offense, it's how nature keeps us from becoming extinct. Now it's official: Testosterone gives you Unspecified Mental Degradation and Estrogen gives you unspecified everything else. The only recognized cure for any of this of course will be election or appointment to high political office.

Bike To Work

Back when I had work to bike to I made it a point to do so excepting only violent weather and sometimes even then. The first flyer I saw for this went on about biking to work without ever mentioning bicycles, so I fixed the graphic to make it more inclusive:

The image is from Easyriders magazine which I haven't seen in a good long while. No I don't look (very) much like that and I ride a Honda Sabre for the moment. The Sabre is motorcycle #45 for me.

Note that the fellow in the graphic is accomplishing all the stated goals of the program, with the possible exception of item 3 as that Harley flathead is probably not as clean as a modern bike. There is a drive-through emissions check on the ramp from southbound I-25 to Eastbound 6th Ave that tells me that my Sabre is clean as a hounds tooth as long as I stay off the throttle.

Search this site for the phrase "bike to work" to see how I've fared in the past.

Colorado Gun Law

Colorado Peak Politics is reporting that the recall petitions for Sen Giron have been found to be sufficient and the election may now go ahead. This is not entirely unexpected news as Sen Girons district is noticeably more rural than that of Sen Morse and less prone to some of the political hijinks found in the metropolitan areas.

That and while Sen Morse seems to have Mike Bloomberg on his speed dial, Sen Giron does not seem to be quite so closely connected. No word as to weather Sen Giron will be mass calling everyone on the petitions to see if she can stir up some signers remorse.

So it looks like the people of Colorado have gotten halfway to a victory, successfully calling for recalls on 2 of the 4 targeted politicians. Perhaps the rest will get the message. One can hope.

IRS Humor

At some point you have to wonder how the Washington press avoids simply breaking into laughter at some of the pronouncements coming from the administration. Today the new IRS chief says his agency screened all applicants for tax-exempt statue equally including those with "Progressive" and "Occupy" in their names. This notwithstanding that no such group has been found to have gotten anything but the fast track from the IRS.

At the investigatory hearings Congressman Issa said:

... the review "fails to meaningfully answer the largest outstanding questions about inappropriate inquiries and indefensible delays. As investigations by Congress and the Justice Department are still ongoing, Mr. Werfel's assertion that he has found no evidence that anyone at IRS intentionally did anything wrong can only be called premature."

 Which is a polite way of saying that Mr. Werfel's statements are non-credible.

Reasoned Discourse

At the Denver Post. We're all familiar with this sort of policy in which dissenting views are systematically deleted from commentary, but here that policy has been raised to an art form.

Want to comment? Fine, just register. O.K. so I registered and commented.

Can't see your comment? Read this:

Hello. It's not an accident. Your comment isn't showing up because we only publish certain comments on our article page (Note: All comments are published on the article's corresponding forums page).

Note: The article in question does not appear on the forums page.

We do this to make sure new members aren't spammers, or someone who we banned and came back to post more of what we banned them for on our site.
To do this, we have filters on our comments so that only commenters who meet these requirements have their comments show up on the article page:

1. Have been a member for a minimum number of days (the minimum's fewer than 30, more than 15), and,
2. Have posted more than 15 comments.

Once you meet those requirements, you'll show up (provided you have fewer than two recent warnings on your record). You'll know your comments are showing up on the article when you see the "Certified Commenter" designation appear next to your name in your comments in the forums.
Also, we only publish the seven newest qualifying comments, and the seven oldest qualifying comments.
If you have any more questions or complaints about this policy, post them in the comments below. If you have questions about a specific comment of yours, please include a link to the comment in question.

So if you post enough comments, which will never appear, you will eventually get published. Briefly. Maybe.

Better to post a link to the article on the blog and comment there.

Fraccing II

Was the EPA able to "prove" that fraccing contaminates ground water? Yes*

*By drilling their own wells down through the ground water layers and into the oil shale layers below and letting the natural gas and drilling compounds bubble up through the water.

In reality, the study conclusively proved no such thing. The research was fundamentally flawed, with the conclusion being derived less from science than from politics.

Trust the government? Not across the street with a burnt match.

Fraccing

In this post below the nature and implications of fraccing came up in the comments and there were some technical issues which I'm certainly no expert on tossed around. I contacted a friend of mine who works in the industry, a PhD lab type directly involved with the process and asked him for information. He had mentioned the topic to me before, so most of what I remembered was correct. Here it is:

Anyway:

...geologically significant amount of poison they inject...

Most of a frac fluid is water.  The second most important ingredient is guar gum or a cellulose derivative that you could eat with a spoon.  In fact, you do eat guar gum with a spoon in many kinds of ice cream.  Some of the other ingredients are pretty nasty, but "geologically significant"?  I don't know how he defines that, but we're talking pounds here, not tons, and the stuff is dissolved in hundreds or thousands of times its weight in water.  Putting Drano in your sink or bleach in your laundry probably produces a more toxic solution.

...don't actually ever recover...

The amount of frac fluid recovered varies, but a large fraction is recovered.  Keep in mind that the fluid that is not recovered is in a hydrocarbon producing formation and is probably less toxic than the crude oil it mixes with.

...fraccing is a single shot process...

Not necessarily.  In some cases, wells are worked over many times during their producing lifetime and may be fracced numerous times.

...Fraccing gets a quick spike in production, but...wears out within weeks or months...

This is where an understanding of integral calculus would be helpful.  A well has a dramatic increase in its production rate after a frac job, and will continue to produce more than an unstimulated well for a period that depends on conditions but may well be years.  The thing to look at is the area under the decline curve.  Total production from a fracced well  is many times greater than that from an unfracced well.

...a get rich quick scheme that only pays off in the short term...

Oil companies are willing to pay literally millions of dollars to frac their wells.  Obviously, they think it pays off in the long term.

...fraccing destroys their source of water...

Oil companies are required to cement steel casing in oil wells to isolate and protect ground water.  Honest, it works.  The other thing to keep in mind is that the aquifers are generally a few hundred feet down.  Oil and gas wells are thousands of feet deep.  In central Wyoming we're generally working at a depth of about two miles.  The stuff just doesn't migrate that far, especially since to have a hydrocarbon trap you need an impermeable cap rock.  It's kind of like the guy three blocks away complaining that his roses died because you sprayed your dandelions.

...rash of earthquakes that started shaking central Oklahoma...

I am not aware that earthquakes flattened any towns in central Oklahoma.  Commercial fraccing has been going on in Oklahoma since the late 1940s, so if there is a real problem it should be well documented.  I would be interested in seeing dates, places, and intensities for these supposed seismic events.  I suspect that most of them were detected by very sensitive monitoring instrumentation and were not as intense as the vibration created by a heavy truck on the freeway.  In fact, they may have been caused by heavy trucks on the freeway.  Also, we may be falling victim to the cum hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy.  Just because things are correlated doesn't mean they are cause and effect.

The facts are out there.  The American Petroleum Institute has information on their website, www.api.org.  Halliburton has information on its website, www.halliburton.com.  There are other sources.  It will, of course, be argued that these organizations are biased and aren't giving out the facts, but maybe people should at least make the effort to find out what information is out there.

I would also suggest that there is a balance that needs to be considered.  It is perhaps a bit hypocritical to insist on banning hydraulic fracturing while living in a house heated with natural gas or heating oil and lit with electricity generated in a power plant that burns natural gas, and driving a car powered by gasoline.  The risks from hydraulic fracturing are minimal, the benefits are immense.
A couple more points about the earthquakes...

On doing a little research (a process I would recommend to all), it seems that the increase in earthquakes in Oklahoma is real and is correlated with disposal wells and the injection of large amounts of water over long periods of time.  There has been some damage but it's the disposal wells, not the frac jobs that seem to be causing the increase.

Generally, areas with active faults don't make good hydrocarbon traps and would not be likely to be drilled or fracced.

The earthquake bit corresponds to the rash of small to modest quakes, magnitude 2-4, we had here in Denver in the early to mid 60's. It was discovered that a disposal well on the Rocky Mountain Arsenal was lubing a shallow fault. The quakes ended when we stopped doing it.

One more thing: Note the correct spelling of fraccing by the folks that do it for a living.

Gun Fun

A good day at the range is when you come home with more reloadable brass than you brought. At the club IDPA match, shooting buddy and I got placed with a squad of ammo trust fund folks in which only 3 of the twelve of us were reloaders. Big score.

Even better is coming home with more guns than you left with. It seemed that the rifle I had ordered had come in at Bass Pro, so we picked it up on the way back. I now have the Marlin 795, with 3-9x scope and rings. The bad news is that first, the gun comes with only one 10-round magazine. The mag capacity laws being what they are, only the tube-fed guns hold 15-17 rounds any more. An additional mag would have been helpful. Bass Pro had 3 hangers labeled for Marlin mags, all empty.

For Cat's sake people, the zombies are NOT scratching at your doors. Just let the dog in and leave a mag and a box of ammo on the shelf for the rest of us. No word on the 25-round mags I ordered from Pro-Mag. Presumably in 10 days the order will self-cancel and I'll have to get them in Cheyenne. Which brings up another thing. I'm going to need to find a shop up north or a friend up there to ship stuff like that through and pick it up there. At least until we can repeal some laws and oust some New Yorkers from the legislature.


It could always be worse. Jigsaw, in Perth, just bought a rifle through the Byzantine system that use down under that makes Australia the crime-free utopia that it is today. A 3-step process which she says worked noticeably faster than usual, putting the gun in her hands in only 3 months. FWIW, I got mine in only 2 months not counting the spare mag(s) and sling which I don't have yet.

 

 Plink, plink.

Why We Need The Sequester

When the IRS questions you for tax purposes, say in your 1040, they ask many detailed questions. When you ask for a refund, all they need is a mailing address or a bank account number. Now it wouldn't be unusual to be sending multiple checks to the same address, after all a married couple filing separately with 3 college grad kids living in the basement might create 5 separate returns.

At some point, however, you'd think the alarm bells would start going off. Like nearly 24,000 returns filed from the same address. That's a mighty big extended family. Or how about nearly 8.400 refunds going to the same bank account. That's a mighty big joint account, no?

Total amount sent to questionable recipients on both accounts = $102,810,233. Almost enough to fund a two-week vacation safari diplomatic trip to South Africa for the prez and his entourage.

And to think, these folks will soon be sharing your medical records with the Chinese and North Korean hackers.

Gateway has the story with some interesting graphics.

Common Sense Law Proposed

Yeah, I know it's almost an oxymoron, but sometimes it happens. 3 Senators have proposed to repeal the renewable fuels mandate that puts ethanol into gasoline.

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, U.S. Senators John Barrasso (R-WY), Mark Pryor (D-AR) and Pat Toomey (R-PA) introduced “The Renewable Fuel Standard Repeal Act” (S. 1195). The bill would repeal the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) in its entirety.

Think of it: Fuel costs go down, fuel economy goes up, and the air gets cleaner. Everything Al Gore promised us through the simple expedient of doing exactly the opposite of what he suggests.

Article at Hot Air.

This is actually worthy of dropping your Senators a nice note encouraging them to get on board with this.

Like we need another excuse for a drink

A man's got to believe in something. I believe I'll have another drink. W.C. Fields

So here's nearly two dozen reasons to have a drink.

That almost sounds like another call for a blogfest.

Speaking of which, I plan to attend the Gun Bloggers Rendezvous in September. Anyone else?

Colorado Gun Law

Mike Vanderboegh would like to come to Colorado to help with some of the ridiculous gun laws we've been saddled with. He's not in the best of health, and is looking for contributions so he won't have to hitchhike from Connecticut with an I.V. stand.

QOTD - Colorado Gun Law

"People who own guns are essentially a sickness on our soul."
Colorado State Senate President John Morse, D-Colorado Springs.

Sen Morse used to be a police chief before the Libertarians effectively elected him to the state Senate.

Brewery's Campaign Against Drunk Driving

So they're going at it the hard way, but Colorado Peak Politics has the inside skinney on the New Belgium Brewing company.

Here's an outfit that screens applicants for cultural fit, donates to left-wing causes, and is one of the moving forces behind the anti-fracking campaign. So how does that help drunk driving? Like this:

If fracking is banned, unemployment will go up as will energy and fuel prices. This means more people with nothing better to do than drink New Belgium beer. As a bonus, the unemployed drive less, not having jobs to commute to, hence less driving and less drunk driving.

The problem with this is that the unemployed tend to drink low-budget beer like Pabst Blue Ribbon and not craft brews like New Belgium, so the plan may backfire. Oh well.

The Future Of Transportation - Bicycles

With Bike-To-Work day coming up the old question of how you bike to work without smelling like an old gym sock or worse becoming road kill has finally been answered:

The drawback to this one is that it's electric powered. In fact it's so green it's a wonder there's no leaves growing out of it.

Still, this is easy to fix and all the required parts are out there OTC as it were.

Helpful Hints For Heavily Armed Homemakers

Got this from a friend:
---------------------
So I've been organizing my shelves in the basement, and have discovered that

Sterlite 6 qt # 1751 is perfect for storing 11 M-14 magazines, and

Sterlite 15 qt # 1753 is perfect for storing 24 AR-15 magazines.

I got mine at Target, but they're also available from Amazon

I wonder if I should submit this tip to unclutterer.com and/or Martha Stewart.
----------------------

The next question is which size fits the new 40-round P-mags from MagPul.

Filling in for Martha, this is Billll.

Fun With Statistics

Here's an article pointing up the shortcomings of a PIRG survey claiming that the 20-29 generation is showing a happy aversion to driving those evil cars and moving to suburbia. The problem with the study is that there was no correction for unemployment. An employed millennial will drive about 12,000 miles a year as opposed to one with no job who will drive only about 6,000.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc. The only conclusion they left out was the millennials obvious preference for unemployment.

Complete Colorado could also conclude that its readers exhibit a strong preference for Facebook membership since all their commenters are Facebook members. Ignoring of course that Facebook registration is required to post a comment.

The Republican Plan

I have said before, somewhere on this blog, that the Republican plan to select a candidate for the presidency is to nominate whomever finished second to the one who won the previous elections primary. This is the Republican version of primogeniture.That would suggest that Rick Santorum would be the designated hitter in 2016.

This strategy gives the Dems approach an actual chance at success. Hillary Clinton is working very hard to establish her claim to the throne on the left and with Obamas grudging concession that even with 11 million new voters and the massive metabolically challenged demographic in Illinois, a third term just isn't happening.

Mr. Santorum had a pretty good organization in Iowa last time, and is, surprise surprise, revving it up for another run.

They don't call it the Stupid Party for nothing.

Feel The Stupid

Go here and read the article first. Then if you're still able to operate your mouse, click back here.


Take your time. No rush.


Notice the absence of mention of ammunition. Perhaps Diana DeGette told her is came in the magazines so she's convinced the gun is already loaded. Her initial reaction seems to bear this out.

Glorioski! The ammo shortage works in our favor. No danger of an A.D.

The cop was right.  Still it is not to say this person can't be helped, but the first step is to admit you've got a problem. I'm not holding my breath.

New Range - Colorado Rifle Club

O.K. I'm late with this. Back on the 9th I went to my new gun club to be orientated and shown the facilities. Colorado Rifle Club has 2 square miles of prairie on which they have independent, berm-separated areas devoted to archery, shotgun, pistol, .22 rifles, Schutzen, high-power, and silhouette for rifle and pistol, center fire and rimfire. There are also 6 50 yard, one 100 yard, and soon to be 1 200 yard narrow bermed areas for everything else.

All shooting is on the south end of the south section with the north section devoted to buffer.

I already got told I wouldn't be allowed to shoot my mortar there. Bummer.  Use the search block in the upper left-hand corner. The fellow I talked to seemed to think the noise might be an issue. The projectiles certainly wouldn't leave the range.

The really bad news is that the place is about halfway to Kansas. If I meet my shooting buddy at the usual spot, the drive runs 82 miles from my place. One way. Drive time is right at 1-1/2 hours, so if I'm going, I'm planning on spending some time there.

Camping is available with power. No sanitary hookup, but plenty of rest rooms. Plus you're only 15 miles or so from the spirited nightlife of lively downtown Bennett CO (look it up on Google maps). They have a full schedule of all sorts of events except bowling pins. As the closure of the WHAC range is still being adjudicated with the zoning commission, we'll see how that works out.

Meantime, since the Governor is a big fan of boondoggle projects, now would be the time to lobby him for a rail line to run from Aurora to Watkins, and east to Lead Valley and CRC.

Congressional Approval

With congressional approval now hovering at or near 10% and a significant number of them actively contemplating jumping ship before they get sucked into the national health plan, certain unsettling possibilities unfold.

Way back when, in Italy, an unpopular and largely gridlocked parliament set the stage for a bright young fellow who promised to sidestep them, solve the nations problems on the spot, and make the trains run on time. His supporters to this day still claim he succeeded with the trains even though the historical record suggests otherwise.

With the congress struggling to displace amoebic dysentery in the public mind, a charismatic populist could ask for a snap referendum to disband congress until the next election and grant extraordinary powers to an activist president to solve the more pressing problems facing the country.

Don't worry. This sort of crackpot conspiracy requires, as I mentioned, a charismatic populist and probably not someone whose ratings are falling like Lindsy Lohan at a sobriety checkpoint.

Colorados First Gun Buyback

Better than a gun show, just offer cash up front. Of course right now you're supposed to get a BC on yourself before buying anything. Bring cash and a note from your friendly local FFL.

No details as to what the exchange rate will be.

Colorado Gun Law

Over and above all the reaction to the Bloomberg assault on Colorado in January and February including the recalls, lawsuits, and other voter initiatives, now we have a proposed constitutional amendment:

Proposed Constitutional Amendment for the State of Colorado

To Clarify, Protect, and Strengthen the Right of the People to

Keep and Bear Arms in Self Defense

Be it Enacted by the People of the State of Colorado:

In the constitution of the state of Colorado, article II, section 13, number the existing text as clause 1, and add clauses 2, 3 and 4 as follows:

(1)The right of no person to keep and bear arms in defense of his home, person and property, or in aid of the civil power when thereto legally summoned, shall be called in question; but nothing herein contained shall be construed to justify the practice of carrying concealed weapons.

(2) This right is fundamental and includes the right of individuals to buy, sell, transfer, own, loan, possess, transport, carry, and operate firearms as well as all standard, necessary, customary, or usual equipment and accessories including magazines and ammunition.

(3) Each law enacted after January 1, 2013 that restricts or limits this right to any extent is hereby repealed. The repeal of these laws shall not be construed to affirm laws enacted prior to January 1, 2013.

(4) From the date this amendment becomes effective, no law, except a law enacted by a vote of the people, shall restrict or limit this right to any extent.

Clause 1 is what's in the Colo Constitution now. Items 2 thru 4 are the proposed additions. Legislators hate this sort of thing as it calls into question their qualifications as all-knowing arbiters of What's Best For You.

As soon as the verbiage is approved, the folks at a safer Colorado have 6 months to gather 86.100 signatures plus a healthy margin to allow for bad sigs and other challenges.

Colorado Astroturf

Angela Giron seems to have hired protesters in an attempt to sabotage the recall effort against her.

Thirdpower has video of the events including footage of a heavy-set fifty-something fellow paying the protesters.

Pueblo isn't that big a town. Anybody recognize this fellow?

Does he look like this fellow?

Steve Nowracki, President of Pueblo City Council. Could be I suppose.

Update: Quite a few people have fingered Mr. Nowracki, but he denies any connection at all and those who have interviewed him seem to believe him. Must be his evil twin brother. I have one of those.

Update #2: The mystery man has been ID'd as Gerald Rosenblatt, a local Dem supporter who says he was giving out $20 bills to the Giron people in an act of spontaneous altruism not directly connected to the Giron effort to suppress dissent.

Californication Fail?

The optimistic outlook of the Dema in the first half of the year seems to be showing cracks. Quinnipiac polling suggests that some of the party agenda are failing to resonate with the peasants.  Governor Hickenlooper has signed everything that landed on his desk with no evident qualms including forcing the rural counties to fund the big city desire for windmills which are predominantly located in rural counties. Feel good, and out of sight, out of mind. Also out of someone elses' pocket.

The poll finds Hick virtually tied with both Tom Tancredo (42-41) and Scott Gessler (42-40). Senator Greg Brophy fared less well due to a very low name ID — 86% of respondents didn’t know enough about him to form an opinion.

Tancredo has been keeping a low profile for the last several years and was bashed by the local fish-wrap monopoly for supporting the idea that the U.S. should have an actual border with Mexico. Mr. Gessler has been likewise bashed for his efforts to minimize election fraud. Both positions are considered racist by the Dems.

Not only does the Quinnipiac poll spell trouble for Hickenlooper, but the “most liberal ever” legislature is widely panned by voters, with 49% disapproving to only 36% approving.

Perhaps the legislature should have listened to the constituents when they whooped through all those gun bills.

Colorado Peak Politics in on top of this.

Fuel Costs

Would you buy fuel for your car at $1.12/gallon? Sure you would. Would you buy this fuel if it were only available at special pumps that dispensed it at 1 gallon per hour? Well if you planned on parking your car frequently in front of such pumps for extended periods of time, maybe.

What if your tank only held about 5 gallons? Beginning to seem not so practical any more?

Here's an article in which the government is translating electric vehicle utility into miles per eGallon by coming up with a conversion factor to make draining batteries seem more like burning liquid fuel.

Colorado Gun Law - Snatching Victory From The Jaws Of Defeat

It now appears that there are plenty of signatures to force a recall against Sen Morse. Sen Giron is in better shape as the buffer margin is much smaller. Somehow I expect that the Colo Dems will be much more interested in the validity of a petition signer than they ever were over the bona fides of an actual voter.

Already strategies are being floated. Did constituents dislike Morse's "ignore them" attitude toward them? Sure. Solution: Have Morse resign, allowing the Colo Dems to designate his replacement, which so far looks like Mike Merrifield, Mayor Bloomberg's point man in Colorado. Interestingly Mr. Marrifield may not last beyond 2014 himself as his fundraising is not bringing in the bucks.

If the recall against Morse goes ahead, liberal gun grabbers Plan B is to appoint the Bloomberg gun group’s Colorado State Director to run for Morse’s seat, Michael Merrifield.
Merrifield was previously a State Representative known for saying supporters of charter schools “deserve a special place in hell.” That comment forced him to resign his chairmanship of the House Education Committee.
In the time since, Merrifield has unsuccessfully run for a number of political offices and held the position of state director for none other than Michael Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG).

Failing Sen Morse's withdrawal, the recall vote will likely feature Mr. Merrifield on the ballot as a possible replacement.  Given his record, I'm not seeing this as a winning strategy although the new all-mail-in voting procedures do tilt the field in his favor.

The irony of this is that the effort to remove an anti-gun useful idiot may well result in the installation of a man who is essentially on Mike Bloomberg's staff. Nothing changes except that the legislature moves slightly further to the left.

Google Bans Facial I.D.

Just when I thought getting some Google glasses might be worth the price, they go and do this. I suspect that facial recognition will be available sooner or later in any case so instead of meeting new people and hearing new jokes on a daily basis, it will be just the jokes.

Suggestion: How about a "Stop me if you've heard this" app.

Couple this with an item recognition app and hardly anything would get misplaced any more. The "Why did I come here" app might be a bit harder as you have to remember to tell the glasses why you were going to the donut shop in the first place. Having the glasses tell you "To get a haircut" might be a bit disconcerting, but would serve to get you back on course to the barber shop.

There's a great short story here. Maybe someone will write it. Title:"A Day In The Life".

A Matter Of Degree

Question #1: Do you mind the NSA snooping across all electronic communications if it might catch a single terrorist?

Question #2: What exactly is a terrorist? And who gets to decide?

SMBC sums it up nicely:

More Koch News

Another leftie newsletter I get irregularly is now whining that the Koch brothers are in control of....get this...PBS!
Here's a quote from the e-mail:

The Koch Brothers are already gunning for our newspapers: Don't let them take PBS too!

Garrison Keillor will soon be breaking rocks in the VRWC detention facility hidden under DIA in Denver I'm sure. NTTAWWT of course.

The whole thing was triggered when the Kochs suggested that a fact check in front of a judge might be in order regarding the content of a proposed smear piece:

PETITION TO PBS: We urge you to reverse your decision to keep "Citizen Koch" from America, rejecting corporate pressure and accepting the documentary back into the "Independent Lens" series.

Somehow they feel that the "Citizens United" decision went too far in allowing some of the very rich to spend their own money on the wrong side of the debate.

Gun Humor

From ColoradoRKBA newsletter:

Performing mental health examinations in the middle east is like performing sobriety tests at a frat house on Saturday night.

Trust

I get a periodic mailing from a leftie outfit called DemandProgress, a 501(c)4. The latest one is in a state of high dudgeon over the discovery that the government, previously thought to be their friend, is in fact spying on them through all the various on-line communications and social media.

They presume that being loyalists, they are exempt from surveillance. Sorry.

If the government feels it cannot trust a large segment of the population, say 1/3, there is no immediate way to reliably figure which individuals belong to the trusted 1/3, the middle 1/3, or the untrustworthy 1/3 without watching ALL of them.

So rest easy, progs. If you're not doing anything disloyal, you have nothing to fear and it's not like the government would ever get you confused with someone else. Stay loyal and don't go changing your minds.

And don't worry about people like me reading your newsletters either.

A Wink Is As Good As A Nod...

To a mugger or rapist. Or at least some academics in Arkansas think it is. The legislature gave them permission to make their campuses target rich environments and most of them did. The advice from the regents is to look a potential attacker in the eye and not to him. This is supposed to convince your attacker that you belong to the same lodge or something and dissuade him from attacking.

Right.

The Californication of Colorado

The Dems, being firmly in control here, are irrevocable committed to the concept that California leads the way and everything they do in the Land Of Fruits and Nuts is part of our future as surely as an oncoming train.

Yup, the state having reached the point that another billion will be needed to keep all the feel-good projects afloat and additional administrative people hired, it is now proposed that we need a High Speed Rail line running from Pueblo to Fort Collins.

3 stops are proposed plus the ends so Pueblo, Colo Spgs, Denver, then either Boulder or Ft Morgan, and on the Ft. Collins. The obvious route would be out east in the farm country, but that would mean having to drive way out east to get on. Running up and down I-25 would take care of most of those problems, but there's this problem of where exactly are you going to put the tracks?

Following the existing freight line would work up to a point, but when you get into town, speeds will be about 35 mph..

Maybe we can buy the studies for the L.A. to S.F line that looks to be going nowhere except broke from California.

Koch News

The internet is alive with rumors that the Koch brothers might be looking at buying some newspapers, including the L.A. Times and the Chicago Trib.  St a meeting of the staff, the participants were asked how many would up and quit if the Koch bres actually bought the paper:

Then he addressed the elephant in the room: “Raise your hand if you would quit if the paper was bought by the Koch brothers.”
About half the staff raised their hands, Ms. Miles reports.

 Yeah sure. These are the same people who idly threaten to move to Canada if a Republican gets elected to anything. 

If those people actually did quit, the value of the paper would go up and the Kochs would immediately realize a profit. They should demand that they sign an agreement to that effect.

Gun Sales and Show Report

The Tanner Gun show was lightly attended last weekend. The good news is that gun prices are coming down with Stag and Bushmaster rifles asking just under $1000 which means about 40% over normal retail. The bad news is that ammo prices are still in the nosebleed district. One fellow was asking $1/round for .357, and small pistol primers were running $45/1000. I didn't see him getting it, but if he still had that price out on Sunday, he must be getting some kind of response.

Here's a couple of graphics that might help:

Total NICS checks are on track to hit 2.4million this year. Not all checks represent a gun sale, some are for carry permits and the like, but people are arming themselves.

The lower chart compares NICS checks month-on-month. Series 3, which is almost unreadable is 2013. Note that sales fall off in the summer after the tax refunds or whatever get spent in February and March. This would explain the return to the shelves of firearms. The rapidly rising upper graph, however suggests that there are a lot of new guns out there wanting to be fed. As long as the upper graph continues its exponential rise, we can expect ammo demand to be going up with it.

If we're lucky, the summer doldrums in gun sales will mitigate the demand for ammo to the point that it will become generally available by September or possibly earlier.

If I'm lucky, the summer doldrums will allow Marlin to get caught up and I'll be able to get that 795 I decided I wanted.

QOTD

This from Senate president John Morse regarding his recall:

John Morse ‏@SenJohnMorse

I intend to fight this – we cannot allow outside interest groups to determine what is best for Colorado. #coleg #copolitics #GunSafety

This from a pol who is being recalled for carrying Mike Bloombergs water in the last legislative session and who is getting money from the same source to fight the recall.

Alinskys Rules

Mallard Fillmore today suggests:

 Actually he did.
 Saul Alinsky wrote Rules For Radicals to give direction to the left back in the 60's. The rules work both ways folks. Take rule 13:

13. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.
Rule number 13 is all about ending the "dog chasing its tail pattern"
of entities shifting blame from one to another -- it's the CEO's fault; no,
I answer to the Board of Directors, so it's their fault; no, we answer to the
shareholders, so it's their fault, etc. Blame-shifting is an effective
stalling tactic and unless it is undermined it can quickly disorient an
organizing program. Alinsky says that when you "freeze" a specific
target, you not only end the blame-shifting game, but you also smoke out the
other targets as they come forward to defend your primary target. The target
must also be personal, not an ideology or some other abstraction.

It now appears that Obama was loaning the IRS out to target home builders in favor of the unions as well. But of course it was only a "couple of rogue underlings in Cincinnati" who were behind this and who will be quickly tossed under the bus.

Passing the buck is a fine approach if you can get away with it. Machiavelli described the process, which in Italy in the middle ages involved messy public executions.
Nixon's mistake was in not immediately tossing his agents under the bus.
In the Obama administration "rogue employees" are relieved of their duties and given a raise and promotion to another area.

Range Closure

I heard a bit more about the closure of our range over the weekend that might shed some light on the issue. It seems the complaintant lives 1-1/2 miles from the range and the finding of bullets in his yard notwithstanding, they couldn't be traced back to us definitively. All the properties in that area are on 40-acre plots and positioned near the roadway which is away from the range.

The Adams county sheriff said that without better proof, nothing could go forward, however the complaintant then called in the county zoning board who declared that the range property was zoned agricultural and using it for a commercial operation was out of it's allowable usage. It seems that a private gun club is a commercial operation.

There is provision for operations that pre-date the zoning regs to continue on, and the club management is pursuing this but that requires money and lawyers which seem to be in short supply.

At this point it looks like any of us who want to continue shooting will be joining the next nearest gun club which is some 50 miles further east, or about 70 miles out from where most of us live.

Bummer.

Sen. Lautenberg Dead

In the news today at Ace of Spades is the report of the demise of Frank Lautenberg, D-NJ author of the famous Lautenberg Amendment which allows a vindictive soon-to-be-ex spouse to make her soon-to-be-ex partner into a federal felon without his knowledge at the stroke of a local judges pen.

Mr. Lautenberg won his seat after retiring when a N.J. judge illegally put him on the ballot after the deadline for establishing candidates had passed. Seems the designated replacement was losing in the polls and rather than lose the seat, the Dems pulled Frank out of the retirement home and had him added to the ballot. The law is, of course, whatever the judge you own says it is.

Gov Christie will now appoint a successor, probably using the laws of primogeniture, to fill the remaining  15 months of Lautenbergs term. Notwithstanding that the seat would have gone to a Republican, absent cheating in the last election, Christie is expected to give the seat to a Dem in order to improve N.J.'s chances of actually getting federal aid for the hurricane Sandy damage.

Most popular suggestions for the honor are currently Bruce Springsteen, and Snooki.

June E-Postal

June already?

Engineering Johnson has this months match. For all you WWII buffs this is a simulation of flying a B-17 into Germany and being met by the Luftwaffe welcoming committee.

Shot at 33 ft in 2 strings of 5 shots, standing, unsupported with pretty much whatever you want except shotguns. Click on over to his site to read the math behind all this. Ideally you shoot each string against a 3 second time limit too although I'm not sure how many of us have the timers to do this. I know I don't.

Extra points for over-thinking this and adding to the complexity:
With 5 rounds, load your bump-firing Ruger 10/22 and while standing on the rope-supported unstable platform from Top Shot, fire your string from top to bottom, then reload with another 5 rounds and try again.

And don't forget to include a link to the you-tube video.

And driving directions to your place so I can try it.