Next Year

I have at this point no idea whatsoever how long I'll be working next year so I'll play it by ear and keep coming in as long as my badge works.

I had really good luck a few years ago using Tubb lapping bullets in my Hi Point which got me another 100 fps at the muzzle and presumably somewhat better accuracy. Accuracy in the Hi Point carbine seems to be mostly a function of how tightly the assembly pins fit, but that's being addressed with some custom pins. The lapping bullets are out of stock but I found a kit at Midway which according to the reviews on it is easy to use, effective, and even with only 1 oz of each compound, has enough in it to lap about 100 guns. The tracking info says it arrived in Denver yesterday and will make it from the Denver P.O. to far-off Littleton (10 miles) in about a week. Go figure.

Some years ago a small (4-ft) alligator escaped from the Denver zoo one spring and got into the park lake where he seemed to enjoy the much larger swimming hole. The natives notices this and began panicking over the thought of "Albert" as he was named eating pets and small children. The folks at the zoo were less worried and knowing that the gator was much faster than anyone in a rowboat, left him there where he entertained all and sundry with the occasional sudden disappearance of a duck. Come fall the now rather logy Albert was easily picked up and tossed back in jail by the zoo people. It was a fairly entertaining summer. I'm currently working on the head and body, the part you would normally see, of an 8-footer complete with motors and radio control. A water-borne drone if you will. More on that when the local water returns to a liquid state.

Other projects as well, but more on them as they develop which means as the garage becomes habitable for periods exceeding 1-2 minutes.

Prediction: Next year will be average in the old Soviet sense: Worse than last year, better than next year: Average.

Global Warming

It seems to happen without any help from CO2. In fact, CO2 seems to be a lagging indicator of global temps.

Based on Earth’s recent geologic history, claiming that CO2 concentration causes warming is like arguing that geese cause temperatures to fall by flying South.

Here's the whole article. I've seen a similar graphic before but if anything this one suggests that periods of significant global warming might be triggered by the CO2 level falling to about half of what we're seeing today. When global temps fall they eventually (8000 years or so) drag the CO2 levels down with them.

First Amendment Not Applicable In D.C.

Among other things the first amendment forbids the establishment of a state religion, "state" being generally accepted as government at any level, federal to local. The D.C. city council is however demanding that the Catholic church include doctrine from the A/SH school of theology in its teachings. This elevates the D.C. city council to the status of Municipal Committee for Catholic Theology, displacing the Pope in that respect.

So what is A/SH you wonder? Easy. It's the religion of Atheism/Secular Humanism which recognizes the supremacy of the state over all matters secular or spiritual.

In an article in the WSJ (paywall) it is noted:

On Dec. 2, the Council of the District of Columbia passed an amendment to the D.C. Human Rights Act, repealing protections for religious schools and colleges to determine their own rules regarding gay and lesbian student activities. If the current or incoming mayor signs it, the amendment will become law and likely force the Catholic University of America and the Archdiocese of Washington schools to provide recognition, facilities and perhaps even funding to gay and lesbian student clubs that oppose Catholic teachings.

Now every religion in the world has a list of things it disapproves of and the usual reaction to this is that if you don't like their list, there is probably another religion with a different list for you to hang out with. The notable exception being Islam where if you don't like their list, you can simply go hang.

The solution to the D.C. Council's decision is of course to formally recognize A/SH as a religion and point out to the council the first amendments prohibition with regards to establishment. How about it? Write your congress animal and ask for a resolution recognizing A/SH as a religion. This would instantly put a stop to petty government agencies anointing themselves as Writers of Holy Writ over every real religion in the world.

"Crom's Devils! Let men worship what gods they will!" Conan, King of Aquilonia.

Sitemeter

I keep seeing complaints about Sitemeter putting up adverts on sites that use it. I haven't seen any such ads although that may be because I don't have any ads at all.

Anyone else seeing pop-ups or redirects here?

QOTD - Beauty

After considerable searching, I found this, variously attributed to Edgar Allen Poe and Francis Bacon:

There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.

Francis Bacon

The Poe version was in slightly more modern English which makes me think he was quoting Bacon. Mmmmm Bacon.

This observation has very broad application as anyone who ever owned a sports car will attest.

Brain Teaser

Found this image at Curmudgeonly and Skeptical as part of a post noting that Her Majesty's health services want doctors to turn you in if they notice you gaining weight. In North Korea this wold be done to catch people who have figured out how to get extra food rations, except the Dear Leader of course.

Now for the brain teaser: What units are the scale measuring in?

Gun Regulation

Why not regulate guns like cars, I hear the libs say. Well sure, with registration by VIN number to a specific person so that when convertibles are outlawed, the cops will know who has a convertible. But wait, there's more.

Your gun, once registered to you, would be usable in every state and territory of the US, and not just by you, but by whomever you loan it to.

It may be carried in whatever manner the carrier chooses.

Etc, etc. But don't forget the Federal input to the design process.

All guns would have a glove around the grip, pistol or otherwise, with retention straps that must be cinched up before the gun can be used. Failure to do so will result in a flashing icon and an annoying beep until you fasten your wrist strap.

The fancier sorts of semiautos will have a small camera on the top looking backwards to warn you if your thumb is about to get hit by the slide. Hyundai guns won't shoot if your thumb is in the wrong place.

Should the gun find itself in a zero-G situation, an all-enclosing air bag will deploy to prevent accidental firing. Large-caliber guns will have an additional airbag on the top of the frame which will deploy if the gun rotates more than 90 degrees after firing.

Long guns will have a pressure switch in the back of the stock that won't allow the gun to fire unless the stock is firmly against your shoulder. Or something.

Automatic Stability Control: If the shooter should pull the trigger several times in quick succession, the gun will automatically limit the rate of fire to one shot every 2 seconds.

When you empty a magazine, a panel on the back side of the gun will light up showing a "check Mag" message and icon. Every 200 rounds, the icon will read "service gun soon".

It will be illegal to remove your silencer although some people will replace the factory one with a less efficient one.

The police will be exempt from all of this.

Christmas Fun

Most of us are wage slaves and if we have a title at all it tends to be something like "Hey you!". Here's a website at which you type in your name and it produces a business card with a lengthy and pretentious title. Alas, the titles are built around the advertising and marketing biz so you won't get anything like Senior Mad Scientist or even Indispensable Minion although in that second case the name Igor is its own title.

I gave it a shot and got

                                                   Billll
Managing Consultant for Native Monetization & Interactive Product Analysis

Think about that one for a bit. Managing consultant is an outside fellow you hire to run something. A mercenary captain for example. Native Monitization means turning the Natives into money. Lots of ways to do this ranging from putting them to work in your sweatshops to renting them out by the hour or selling them outright. Interactive product analysis means either testing whatever they make or taking the potential asset for a test drive after you've picked her up at the bus station.

Worst case then the title may be interpreted as Mercenary Pimp. Oh well, at least it's a middle management position.

Merry Christmas and I hope you all get that promotion.

Liberal Bias

A Liberal academic has a short paper on why he thinks the liberal bias in academia is bad for academia.

I have had the following experience more than once: I am speaking with a professional academic who is a liberal. The subject of the underrepresentation of conservatives in academia comes up. My interlocutor admits that this is indeed a reality, but says the reason why conservatives are underrepresented in academia is because they don't want to be there, or they're just not smart enough to cut it. I say: "That's interesting. For which other underrepresented groups do you think that's true?" An uncomfortable silence follows.

He makes a good point. I was reminded of some lean times in the aerospace industry when a few of my co-workers took jobs teaching. Now in technical areas, the instructors bias has no impact at all.

or your rocket blows up.Still, the professorship was picked on with the observation that "Those who can't do, teach." Me. I appreciate the folks who pounded the basics into my head and started me off on my career.

Chatting with my fellow students who were majoring in the liberal arts however, convinced me that the study of philosophy and the social sciences required a certain willing suspension of ones connection to reality to get through. Too much like basing product design criteria on an assumption of the existence of faeries and unicorns. OTOH they wound up in high positions with the EPA and the like so I guess they didn't wind up starving no matter how much they richly deserved such a fate.

Global Warming

Here it is nearly the end of December and I haven't been able to ride the motorcycle into work in over 2 months. The Fimbulwinter is surely upon us and there's only one escape. This according to no less an authority than the President's own science adviser, John Holden who has finally read his copy of Fallen Angels.

Only AGM is standing between us and slabs of ice half a mile thick reaching down to Chicago so fill up your tanks with newly cheap gas and get out there and do 500 miles to help save the planet. We'll call this the Planetary 500 and give awards for the best time and greatest amount of gas used. Iowahawk would heartily approve as he runs an online car show for people whose transport stands out in the field of carbon emissions. He even has at least one vehicle that would be a serious contender, the Coupe of Justice.

One Death

So said papa Joe, beloved hero of the Soviet Union.

Here we do things a bit differently. One death, of a person of color, at the hands of the agents of the government is a tragedy, no matter what he was doing at the time of his expiry. Five or six hundred deaths per year of similar persons of color, at the hands of their fellow persons etc. say in Chicago, is a statistic, unworthy of mention even in the local fishwrap.

2 years ago Adam Lanza stole his mother's gun and took it to school. Today an anti-gun group is putting up a PSA advising high school age kids to steal their parents guns and take them to school. This will end well I'm sure.

A Nation Of Laws. Lots And Lots Of Laws

Here's a quote:

"There is no freestanding constitutional right to be free from malicious prosecution."
                                                   Gray H Miller, judge

So your best defense is to have doors and windows at least capable of slowing the SWAT team down long enough to allow you to get your pants on, and to advise your friends to  NEVER call the police.

Remember, YOU are the first responder. The police will get there eventually and draw chalk lines around the metabolically challenged. Try to insure that it's not you. If firearms were involved, they will all be confiscated as evidence and if one of them was yours, it will be 2-3 months before you get it back so have a spare available.

Rest of the story here.

QOTD - Sony

“We cannot have a society in which some dictator someplace can start imposing censorship here in the United States, because if somebody is able to intimidate folks out of releasing a satirical movie, imagine what they start doing when they see a documentary they don’t like, or news reports they don’t like,”
                 B.H. Obama

Of course we can't. That's HIS job.

Link may be behind paywall.

Updated to add poster. Poster by Jed. Thanks Jed.

10 Commandments, Revised

The original commandments don't have any wiggle room. They state what a person should or should not do in no uncertain terms. Things like no lying, no cheating, no stealing, and no fooling around with someone elses' spouse are pretty iron clad.

This lack of wiggle room is what makes putting up a copy in front of a government building an act of creating a hostile work environment. Now the Atheists, AKA Secular Humanists have come up with their own list of commandments which they say will offset their complete lack of moral and ethical guidance without invoking God. Or at least without invoking Him more than once.

Here they are.

Remarkably non-judgemental and free of specific compulsions to do or not do anything you like.

Someone needs to inform the Freedom From Religion bunch that their beliefs constitute a religion no different from any other, and attempting to impose it upon everyone else by statute law is just as unconstitutional as declaring anything else to be the official state religion.

DIY Splatter Targets

It turns out that black spray paint doesn't stick to white trash bags very well. Learn how to take advantage of this here.

Support For Gun Laws

Polls are problematic as they can easily be jiggered to produce any desired result. The NYT for example can produce a poll showing support for Cuban styled socialism through the simple expedient of not polling anyone outside of their own office building. A poll run by NPR likewise is immediately suspect, even when it's an on;ine poll and thus plausably open to everyone. Still when asked if participants would support stricter gun control laws:

Yes. Increased regulations on firearms are necessary to prevent another tragedy like the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary.  4.17%  (4,904 votes)  

 

No. Laws like this unnecessarily punish lawful gun owners and will do little to prevent mass shootings.  94.68%  (111,274 votes)  

 

Unsure. It's important to keep the weapons out of the wrong hands, but this may not be the solution.  1.14%  (1,344 votes)  

 

 

Total Votes: 117,522

 The old guard of the Democratic party still believes in more gun control. After all, it kept Fidel alive all these years.

Islamic Innovation

This could be the title of quite possibly the shortest book ever written. Even the use of the zero now seems to be traceable to India rather than an invention by Muslims.

Harvard U. has installed SodaStream (r) fizzwater machines to allow the students to concoct the carbonated drinks of their choice. The machines are designed and built in Israel which some of the student body find objectionable as it reminds them that their culture has produced essentially nothing in the last 1500 years. This is being called "microaggression".

To atone for the insult (micro-insult), Harvard is debating whether to either remove the machines completely, or to just remove the SodaStream labels.

Cuba

The president may have done something I approve of in announcing that normal or near-normal relations would be restored with Cuba. To my mind, the adversarial relationship with Cuba should have ended the week after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Normalization of diplomatic and economic ties would have opened Cuba to American capitalism and frankly I think Microsoft would have brought down Castro faster than a drone strike.

Socialist economies cannot exist without a nearby capitalist one to support it and if the differences in living standards are easily seen, the proponents of Socialism will be quickly ridden out of town on a rail.

Of course the way Obama is doing it, with normalized diplomatic relations comes the eligibility for foreign aid which might keep the Castro legacy going a bit longer. Anyone know who's next in line down there after Raul passes the baton? Maybe it's Obama's retirement plan to be able to run for party chairman in Cuba.

Gun Fun

Shot an IDPA match at Clear Creek Sportsmans Club yesterday with a side match featuring one's back-up gun. I had to ask, since I don't have one as such, but it seems that an auto pistol with a barrel under 3.8" or a revolver with a barrel under 3.5" qualifies.

As such, my regular CZ 82 qualifies as a BUG, but in the spirit of the event, I borrowed my shooting buddy 's S&W 340, an airweight 5-shot revolver in .357 mag.

I've shot this gun before. He handed it to  me and said "Here, try it." and even knowing better, I did. I fired one shot, and handed it back to him. If you carry one of these, there should never be any question as to whether someone you shoot with it actually needed shooting. They probably also needed skinning alive first.

So I brought some of my own .38 spl +P ammo to lessen the blow. .38 spl, +P, 158 gr bullets are not as rough as .357, 158gr loads, but not by enough in an airweight. Mike had also put a larger grip in the gun which allowed a three-fingered grip instead of the stock two-fingered one. All this helped as I was able to get off all 5 shots before holstering the gun and walking back to the start line shaking my hand to try to reduce the pain which everyone else seemed to find entertaining. You know it's going to be rough when the speed loader with 5 rounds in it weighs more than the gun you intend to shoot the bullets from.

Still I lost only one point out of 5, and that by less than 1/4" on the mid-range target shot while moving, and we won't talk about the slight nick on the no-shoot. With perfect hindsight, I also remember using a similar gun without hurting myself in a previous match although it was loaded with .38 spl with 125gr bullets.

There has to be one fun stage in there so here it is. On start, you step up onto the bouncy planks, and while moving, engage the half-covered bad guys and their dogs in 2 sets of 3. The second BG and his dogs are assumed to be non-visible until you finish the first set. The upraised finger says that the shooter should have resumed moving BEFORE firing those last 2 shots

Temps started off in the upper 30's and warmed up to the mid to upper 40's at the end. Nice day.

Torture Hearings

The Senate torture hearings accomplished pretty much everything they were intended to accomplish, namely to give the media something to write about besides the Gruber testimony on the gestation of Obamacare.

OTOH, it also appears that given the graphic videos produced by the murdering, raping, head-chopping slave traders of the Religion Of Peace, most Americans seem to be just fine with the idea of pouring some water up the noses of those captured in order to cripple the production values of the next video.

QOTD - Legal

Found at Reason, here's what a liberal federal judge thinks about privacy:

“Much of what passes for the name of privacy is really just trying to conceal the disreputable parts of your conduct,” Posner added. “Privacy is mainly about trying to improve your social and business opportunities by concealing the sorts of bad activities that would cause other people not to want to deal with you.”
          Judge Richard Posner, member of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit

All you guilty bastards out there, keep looking over your shoulders. This seems to be a bit of a departure from previous doctrine that suggested that what 2 or more consenting adults did with their livestock in the privacy of their own bedroom was no business of the state.

Suffering

It is said that suffering is good for the soul, probably by someone who wasn't suffering much at the time. If suffering brings one nearer to Nirvana, then I can feel the cold hand of Kurt Cobane on my shoulder right now.

I haven't had a cold in a good long time but this one is making up for the neglect on the virus' part.

Evil Black Rifle

So once again I now own an Evil Black Rifle:

Some assembly required.

One more benefit of attending Gun Blogger Rendezvous, courtesy of WGM Tactical of Grass Valley CA.

Just need to find a couple of parts. Timing might be good here as I'm told that EBR's are now a glut on the market. Now if only people would ease up on their purchases of .22lr.

President Black Eagle?

Some Amerinds are calling the president this, at least in public which is polite of them.

When they're not attending a big pow-wow at the white house, I've heard they call him Walking Eagle. Old Indian expression for a bird that has been feasting on buffalo to the point that he's so full of bull he's unable to fly.

Do I Have Your Attention?

The theory here is that once your attention has been grabbed, knowledge can be imparted. I don't speak Italian, but I can easily understand the sign. The sign! There's a sign in the above picture! Cover the top half of your screen with a sheet of paper and.... oh there it is.

There are several more along this line here. Including a couple for the ladies.

Evil me; I made the link a single word, knowing that you'll never hit it with your cursor. Bwahahaha!

And in case you can't puzzle out the Italian, cut the first couple of lines below the pictures and paste them here.

Warning Labels On Gas Pumps

The nannies in Cali are proposing that all gas pumps carry a label warning that the use of hydrocarbon fuel may lead to global warming. Except I bet that the actual labels say something about "climate disruption" instead in order to not seem quite so stupid.

This year after the last cold snap, if labels appeared on the pumps warning that purchase of gasoline might cause global warming I think I'd bring along my gas can and buy some extra on the off chance that it might help.

How The NICS System Works

Ever wonder why you don't see more people frog-marched out of gun shops for failing a NICS check? It's usually because a bit of further investigation is going on to insure that John Q. Public is not the same person as John Quaida Public.

The whole story here.

Also I suspect that the people I sometimes see leaving the gun show in handcuffs are shoplifters rather than felons trying to buy a gun although I have heard stories about potential buyers whose names lit up the boards at the CBI because of outstanding warrants.

"Please tell me which table you are at, and tell Mr. Jones that it will be about 15 minutes before his clearance comes through."

Right. And Mr. Jones' day is about to take a turn for the worse.

Econ 201 - The Even Years

Ever wonder why the economy seems to perk up right before an election? Ever notice that it seems to collapse in the quarter immediately following?

Wonder no more.

E-Postal - Gun Fun

What more perfect way to kill 2 or 3 birds with one stone than to 1) eat thanksgiving dinner, 2) go out shooting, and 3) work off some of that thanksgiving dinner in the process.

Here's my entry in the "other" class of this months postal match using my Pedal gun with the 12ga shell darts. This works out to an .875 dia projectile being shot thru a 1.05" barrel with no rifling. Fortunately the large projectile makes up for a lot of inaccuracy.

In case you're wondering about the Cryllic labeling, click the link and read the rules and the justification for this arrangement.

The gun was pulling a bit to the right which I didn't get corrected for until the end, hence the large number of toppings and condiments and the single meat.

Looks like a score of 18 so I matched my best score with the scoped carbine here. Again, if you can't shoot small groups, shoot big bore.

The rig is written up here
http://billllsidlemind.blogspot.com/2009/05/pedal-gun-fun.html
with all the details. The back yard looks better too.

An alternate barrel I have for the gun is 2 inches in diameter and shoots an empty caulk tube which might have been big enough to get me a 20.

Happy Turkey Day

Different parts of the country have different favorite dishes to serve up on Thanksgiving. Armadillo Chilli in Texas for example or lutefisk up in Minnesota.

Somewhere, presumably near Arkham MA, you don't eat the main dish, you are the main dish:

Image stolen from Ace of Spades.

QOTD - Humor

This time it's "Question Of The Day".

Q: What's the difference between Thanksgiving and Tax Day, April 15th?

A: On Thanksgiving, you stuff the turkey. On tax day the turkeys stuff you.

Innovation

About a hundred years ago the head of the U.S. patent office opined that just about everything that could be invented, had been invented. He was a bit premature in that assessment. From way back when, found at Theo Spark:

Pessimists like Peter here are always wrong. For example, where's the Oatmeal Bacon Stout?

Laser Weapon Watch

It even tells time.

Lerner E-Mails Found!

IRS Commissioner Koskinen it seems lied to congress about how they were lost and gone forever although he would be pleased if they wee ever found. Being pretty certain that they were safely stored with Jimmy Hoffa or something.

Koskinen may now be looking at perjury charges and Lerner may be looking at better than that unless she turns states witness.

Pass the popcorn.

Global Warming - The Science Behind It

A Rutgers researcher has advanced a theory that the current bitter cold is a result of the effects of global warming. She even has some fancy atmospheric science to back this up:

Here's the atmospheric physics behind the idea: Warm air expands, and naturally there is much more warm air at the equator than at the poles. Thus, the atmosphere is thicker at the equator, and the jet stream's motion is driven by the decline in atmospheric thickness as one moves in a poleward direction -- in effect, its atmospheric river flows "downhill," in Francis’s words. 

When I went to school, colder air was denser and warmer air was thinner. Pilots I know whose lives depend on knowing just how thick the air actually is, agree with me on this. Passing reference is made to a rather large typhoon (Nuri) that meandered all the way to the Bering Sea, up north of the jet streams usual path before dissipating. As far as I know, no one studied this very closely although it may well be that no one has published anything yet.

Keep an eye out for papers on the effect of typhoon Nuri on the jet stream.

Furgeson

Best idea yet for dealing with the expected troubles there: Make sure that everybody knows that the primary weapon will be the fire department. Think that sounds overly peaceful and non-violent?

Check the weather report there

Wednesday Hi 41, Lo 22

Thursday Hi 36, Lo 21

Friday Hi 39, Lo 39

Saturday Hi 57, lo 44 40% chance of rain

Sunday Hi 56, Lo 38, 50% chance of rain

Monday Hi 44, Lo 29, 30%

 

Tuesday Hi 37, Lo 25 22mph wind

Not a week I'd want to be out getting soaked.

Local gun stores are selling everything they've got but the next problem is that all these new gun owners haven't even fired their new toys yet. On top of that I suspect no one's got a real plan about how they could be best put to use. If you're protecting your store, being on the roof with a couple of helpers works to keep the rioters back but organizing your neighbors to be on the ground at either end of the block keeps them off your block in the first place.

Zip Guns

There are probably several reasons a person should have one or two zip guns in his collection. First off is that if your locale is of the sort that allows "gun buy-backs" one could easily turn $5 worth of plumbing supplies into $50-100 worth of groceries. A good return on your investment. Of course it won't do to lash together 5 or 10 slam-fire shotguns and ask for one coupon each. The event sponsors will figure out right away that you're gaming the system and turn you away empty-handed. Keep it to one, and put some effort into it. Make it look like someone actually meant to use it.

Second is that in the event your regular shooting irons are confiscated, you can gin one of these up and don't have to be completely defenseless.

The rare collectable classic is the WWII Liberator, a 45ACP zip gun manufactured in an actual factory and intended to be used once or twice to ease the transfer of a Mauser from a German to a Frenchman, then discarded. Today the things command premium prices.

In the '50s this

sort of thing was easily whipped up in high school shop class and used to settle some hash between Vinnie and Rocco in the alley behind the drug store in Brooklyn. Chambered in 1/4" pipe .38 spl, you got one shot, best taken up close and personal, then you tossed it in the dumpster and departed the scene. Reload time is right up there with revolutionary war muskets. Of course in the '50s, every kid past the 5th grade knew that the lower section of a car antenna would accept a .22 cartridge and .22 was vastly more economical if noticeably less lethal.

Make one of these and fire a blank or two through it and it will have that "air of authenticity" that will improve the odds of the buyback people actually giving you anything for it.

Of course the journey is as important as the destination, and if you're looking at a long, cold winter and need something to keep you from going stir-crazy, you could put a bit more effort into the job just to see how much time you can waste. Now here

is a 3-barreled version of the above. 3 hammers on a common trigger

and quick-reloading break action. I'd hold out for at least $200 for something like this. $150 if you let me shoot video from a safe distance while you fire it.

Why the Broncos Lost

I assume it was because someone warned them about the DEA sweeps of the locker rooms last weekend. Thus the Broncos, forwarned, left all their goodies at home.

The Chargers home team simply swallowed all of theirs.

Note on update: I'm not much of a sports fan.

Get Used To It

In a fully developed police state you'll see cops running about with drawn guns all the time so exposing kids to the phenomenon at an early age will help keep them calm when the cops rush into a classroom, grab a problem student/dissident, and rush out.

Learning About Guns

Now circulating around the web.

The “Ruger 10/22″ earned its name from its ability to kill twenty-two people for every ten shots fired. #gunsense pic.twitter.com/Lzs1B2xGqh
— Liberal Hippie Queen (@andreajmarkley) November 12, 2014

O.K. I'm impressed. It usually takes multiple shots to even seriously injure someone. Only Quigly was able to bag 3 in one shot. I also have the feeling that my leg is being pulled. Just a bit.

So I took a look at her Twitter feed and I believe she's genuinely anti-gun. I'm still not sure which should impress me more: Her vivid imagination or her disconnect from reality. Or am I talking about the same thing here?

Election Fun

In Michigan a man showed up at the polling place to vote and was told he couldn't because he was officially dead. He did manage to talk the election officials there into giving him a ballot and letting him vote.

Could have been worse. In Illinois, he would have been told he was dead but then been given a ballot even though he had already voted once.

Gun Sales Declining

The Wall St. Journal (paywall) is noting that the major gun companies including Colt (Sciens Capital Management), Smith & Wesson Holding Co., and Remington / Bushmaster (Cerberus Capital Management) are facing financial problems due to declining sales. Problems range from declining profits to potential default on some bonds.

It would seem that the worlds greatest gun salesman, BHO has lost his edge and even in the face of projected massive riots in St. Louis, sales this year will lag the preceeding year for the first time since
2002.

The flip side of this is that we may well see some nice Christmas discounts and even better post Christmas sales on firearms. The decreasing sales should, in theory, be accompanied by greater availability of ammo.

QOTD - Next Election

Found at The Federalist:

Does Walker sizzle? Not exactly. Is he a particularly charismatic speaker? No, he isn’t. But does he sit upon a throne made of the skulls of his enemies? Yes, yes he does. The November 4 election proved that in a definitive fashion.

 I like Scott Walker. He has executive experience and a proven record of being able to deal with progs effectively.

Bike To Work

Today's high was 4 degrees, a record. Tonight's low is to  be -9, another record. So what could be more fun and tree-huggingly green than

Riding your bike to work. Light snow? Not a problem. Slippery pavement? Hah! A friend of mine used to do this regularly and his only complaint was that on days like this the derailleur would pack up with ice and refuse to shift.

Happy Anniversary!

I am informed by LinkedIn that I am celebrating my 1-year anniversary at work.

Pretty good for a 4-month temp gig eh?

Transportation - Winter

With the Polar Vortex scheduled to hit tomorrow, prepping the car is now required. For everyone here's a tip: If your car lives outdoors like mine does, put one of those 1500W under-the-desk heaters in the passenger foot well and run an extension cord back to a lamp timer in the nearest outlet. Set the timer to start about 1/2 hour before you plan to leave, and when you do, your car will be warm and frost free. Don't forget to unplug the heater and toss the end of the extension cord out of the car before backing out of the drive.

Several newer cars have power windows that need to roll down about 1/2" before the doors can be opened. This makes for a nice snug car but if the windows are covered with frozen water, they may not retract. I now have to carry a small scraper in my lunch bag to insure being able to get in to my Pretentious British Car. The heater trick will help in the morning. Not sure about getting home.

Motorcycles

Tomorrow is the 58th annual Harry's Roamers Turkey Run. It also looks like the last decent motorcycle riding day for the foreseeable future so I expect it to be well attended.

I'll be there.

I was there along with some 200 others. Played 2 hands and couldn't make a single pair using both of them. Oh Well.
There were some nice bikes

And trikes

And this establishment for people who get offended when Native Americans are referenced

The Sit-N-Bull Bar.

Gun Fun

Had a nice day today up at the Clear Creek County Sportsmans Club playing at IDPA with a Carbine side match. The IDPA part went well enough with me shooting well, but very slow as usual. Something about the venue up there with the narrower berms with actual vegetation on them and I can't seem to find more than 50% of my brass. That my CZ throws the brass about as far as the lead doesn't help. Shooting buddy remarked that if I were to use a CZ in 10mm, the brass would likely land in the adjacent berm and I'd never recover any of it.

The carbine match was interesting in that one fellow was shooting an AR in .300BLK. That is an integrally suppressed AR in .300BLK. Sounded like someone sneezing. Others ran the gamut from AR & AK to M14. Much noisier. Shooting Buddy used his Beretta Storm 9mm which has very little muzzle noise but a distinct crack from the very supersonic round. I used the Hi-Point 4095 which sounds much the same. Nice to see all the holes appearing in small groups so I guess it's time to re-arrange the furniture one more time. No feeding problems or anything else and the extra time I spent changing 10 round mags more or less matched the time the others spent clearing jams.

Next step will be to run some Dave Tubbs bullets through it to lap the barrel.

Dem Losses Due To Global Warming

At least in part since most of the Dem candidates who ran on that issue lost. For the first time that I'm aware of, we can now point to something and say with a high degree of certainty that it was caused by global warming.

Nov 4, 2014, a day that, for Al Gore anyway, shall live in infamy.

Colorado Politics

So how'd we do? Don't know yet. Due to unforseen yet not unsurprising snafus in a couple of very populous counties, the exact makeup of the Colorado house and Senate is still up in the air. It's possible that the R's have taken both houses. Then again, maybe not.

Colorado does not (yet) have the Chicago tradition of waiting until the votes are counted to find a couple of boxes of ballots in the trunk of a '78 Eldo abandoned in a seedy district all of which miraculously support the machine candidate. Give it time. All mail voting got its first real test drive yesterday and the extra attention it drew from hi-jinks attempted during the recall elections may have resulted in less tomfoolery than would otherwise have been seen.

In any case, the houses will be more narrowly divided which means that non of the fun laws, election fraud laws, and regulations will get repealed or even modified for another 2 years.

Update: Ch 9 is now projecting that the R's control the Senate by 1 seat, and the D's control the house by 1 seat. Several of those races were decided by less than 200 votes.

Colorado Politics

Now don't get cocky, but as of COB tonight ballots turned in by party affiliation statewide are:

Statewide (TOTAL: 1,463,766):
D: 469,900 (32.1%)
R: 590,653 (40.3%)
U: 403,213 (27.6%)

Expected total turnout will be about 2.2M +/- some so the above total represents about 2/3 of the total vote. The unaffiliated bloc historically breaks similar to the R/D ratio so I'm not expecting the margin to change all that much.

It's being said that the down-ticket races are trending R as well. I would assume that ticket-splitting is in fact fairly rare.

Per the polls, the Governors race is very close, effectively even. If the D's don't show up however...

How To Write A Political Ad

Getting to the root of the problem without singling anyone in particular out, unless you want to use a specific person in the ad of course. This one is from England:

H/T to Samizdata for the find.

Attention Rince Priebus, Ryan Call, et.al:
This is the sort of thinking the Republican party has been missing since about 1900.
Here Daniel has an MBA from Harvard and has landed a minimum-wage ($1xx,xxx) job as a policy adviser for a career Democrat. Etc, etc. Give him all your money and he’ll help stop global warming, restart the economy, unionize your schools, bring green mass transit to your front door and have the entire United Nations singing Kum-by-yah in 150-part harmony.

If you have a job, remember there are many Daniels who depend on you for your generous support.

Transportation - Bugs In The System

Cruising back from the range in the pretentious not-quite-a-sports-car, I stopped for a light, and when I stepped on the gas, the dashboard lit up like a Las Vegas slot machine informing me that:
1. Stability control failure! (red light) and
2. Engine on failsafe mode! (yellow light)
3. OMG! We're all gonna die!

Well maybe not number 3 but halfway through a notoriously busy intersection is NOT where you want your get-up-and-go to suddenly disappear.

Failsafe mode is an odd one as it sets the engine to a fast idle and nothing you do will change this. It also means that if you're on level ground, the car will eventually get up to 35mph. Better than hitch hiking, but not so hot on a 55mph roadway. Stability control is the annoying (normally) yellow light that tells you that you've gotten too enthusiastic with the loud pedal on a slippery surface and turns your V-8 into a V-4 or something until all your tires are turning at the same rate.

 Got off onto a secondary road and limped 3 miles to my mechanic. Told him the story and noted the look of amazement on his face as he admitted he had never heard of such a thing happening. I have to wonder about that as with British cars, anything is possible.

He plugged in his code reader, stared at the numbers in amazement, erased the codes, and the car now runs fine. Still no clue as to the cause. From conversations on the Pretentious British Car site, an OBD reader/eraser seems like a good thing to have along with you so I bought one. That and keeping fingers crossed.

Look What The Dog Dragged In

Actually it looks like the Dawg just dragged himself in after a rather lengthy hiatus. Yep, Law Dog is back with his wit, wisdom, and observations on life, the universe and the Texas penal system.

Click the link over in the left-hand column under humor.

The .22 Shortage Abates

At least for me as the replacement shipment arrived safe and sound with D'wife signing for it this morning. I'm now covered for the foreseeable future, or at least the next 4-6 months even if I take my daughter out with me.

Again kudos to Target Sports USA for prompt handling and a reasonable price.

Science Marches Onward

Whether we want it to or not.  It now seems that smart phones will soon be able to act as personal lie detectors. Cool app, no?

"Dear, I have to work late at the office."

"Sure. When you get home, your stuff will be out on the front lawn."

Of course the possibilities go far beyond that. Texting, which contains no facial or verbal clues, will become VERY popular although this could become the communications equivalent of taking the fifth, depending on the topic.

I for one look forward to carrying my new phone in my shirt pocket with the camera peeking over the pocket top, and a Bluetooth earbud to inform me of who it is that's walking up to me with a friendly greeting. Potentially a very popular app for people in my age demographic and for pols who are expected to remember everyone they ever shook hands with over the last 20 years or so.

Elections will change somewhat as the technology spreads to your TV with no Democrat ever again appearing live on camera. Still pictures only, questions sent by text or e-mail, and will be answered the same way. Next we will see an AI, Max Headroom II acting as a spokesman for a candidate, passing on answers in a friendly, trustworthy manner. This lays the groundwork for the first AI candidate for public office. The new candidate, Max Headroom III will never have a problem with "tells" giving away the game to suspicious voters. MH3 will of course be a proxy for a real person. MH4 will be smart enough to dupe even the person he's supposed to be fronting for.

May you live in interesting times.

Colorado Politics

As of today, it looks like Sen Udall will be removed from the Senate, no representitaves will lose their jobs, and for Governor, depending on which poll you like, Bob Beauprez is up by 2-5 points. Certainly at this point Republicans have mailed in ballots faster than the Dems by a margin of about 4:3. Hickenlooper was supposed to have a comfortable shuffle to a second term, but somehow it's not working out. Here's some music to listen to on that topic:


The way it's shaping up it's going to take a major troop lift to get enough undocumented Democrats to the polls to save this one, but the Dems are nothing if not well organized.

Armageddon It

Yes, Armageddon it!

Political Illiteracy

Here's an idea that takes advantage of your constituent's ignorance. We have a candidate for state Treasurer who promised to stand up for women's reproductive rights. Not that the treasurers job has anything to do with that, but it's a powerful buzzword that resonates with low information voters.

Now we have a candidate for the State House who is running on a platform of protecting the Social Security and Medicare rights of seniors. Both of those are Federal programs and are not affected by dancing monkeys in any state legislature. Unless, of course, the state legislator is running a successful campaign for a Federal office which this one is not.

Why .22 Is So Hard To Find - Continued

When last we left our hero, his .22 had been misdelivered or something. FedEx had admitted to losing the shipment, and Target Sports is replacing it, signature required this time. Good customer service there.

For a bit, they even had the 1400 round buckets of .22 although that wasn't the best bargain on a $/rd basis. Keep checking.

Hillary Disqualifies Herself

Anyone who knows this little about basic economics is disqualified from ever holding elective office.

Election Humor

Like everyone else I get humor of various sorts on a regular basis, most of which falls under the category of "funny once". Occationally I get one that appeals to me more deeply. This is one of those:

  Fred was in the fertilized egg business. He had several hundred young ‘pullets,' and ten roosters to fertilize the eggs. He kept records, and any rooster not performing went into the soup pot and was replaced.

 

This took a lot of time, so he bought some tiny bells and attached them to his roosters.

 

Each bell had a different tone, so he could tell from a distance, which rooster was performing.

 

Now, he could sit on the porch and fill out an efficiency report by just listening to the bells.

 

Fred's favorite rooster, old Butch, was a very fine specimen, but this morning he noticed old Butch's bell hadn't rung at all!

 

When he went to investigate, he saw the other roosters were busy chasing pullets, bells-a-ringing, but the pullets, hearing the roosters coming, would run for cover.

 

To Fred's amazement, old Butch had his bell in his beak, so it couldn't ring. He'd sneak up on a pullet, do his job and walk on to the next one.

 

Fred was so proud of old Butch, he entered him in the Brisbane City Show and he became an overnight sensation among the judges. The result was the judges not only awarded old Butch the "No Bell Piece Prize," but they also awarded him the "Pulletsurprise" as well.

 

Clearly old Butch was a politician in the making. Who else but a politician could figure out how to win two of the most coveted awards on our planet by being the best at sneaking up on the unsuspecting populace and screwing them when they weren't paying attention.

 

Vote carefully in the next election, you can't always hear the bells.

Bidenizing Chicago Voting

Voting is hard. You need to know the candidates, the issues, the questions, and the unintended consequences of everything on the ballot.

1 In an effort to make it easier, in Chicago, the voting machines have been Bidenized. Thus a voter can pound away at the touch screen and when ready, hits the "cast Vote" button, and all his mistakes are automatically corrected and the straight Dem ticket is selected.

No one told the president so he's still having trouble with it.

Losing Your Religion

The city of Coeur d'Aline, Idaho has an ordinance that seems to require anyone practicing any religion to remember that the first commandment refers to the official state religion of Secular Humanism or something. The ordinance requires anyone performing a marriage, for example, to perform whatever type of marriage the customers demand. Some seem to think this is an overreach on the part of the city council, no matter how exalted they may think themselves, but I thing there's an opportunity here.

Just think, if this were a federal statute, I could go to the Grand Islamic Mufti of the United States* and demand he perform a Jewish wedding between myself and a pig. And not just any pig, but a big hairy boar. If he refuses I could then sue in Federal court, have him jailed for 10 years or so, and demand title to his Mosque and its treasury. By the time he got out, the former mosque (now al-Porquis) would be nationally famous as the home of the best pork Barbeque in the country, kicking off with my jilted fiance.

Just thinking out loud.

*The only person in the U.S. who regularly makes pronouncements as to what or whom is or is not Islamic has been the President. Someone needs to remind him that if you're going to denounce someone, ISIS say, as un-islamic, this needs to be accompanied with a fatwa calling for some appropriate punishment, say massive carpet bombing or something.

National Politics

Drudge has seen tomorrows NYT:
NYT SUNDAY: Confidential memo from Obama pollster predicts 'crushing Dem losses' if blacks not engaged in election... Developing...

I bet the story will be fascinating. Now if only someone with some stature in the black community would stand up and point out the emperors lack of clothing....

Update: Or if someone were to point out that the emperor plans to introduce a whole lot more competition for those jobs the perennially unemployed have been hoping for. 

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services plans to seek a vendor to produce as many as 34 million blank work permits and 'green cards' – the paperwork that authorizes illegal immigrants to live and work in the United States – as the White House prepares to issue an executive order after the Nov. 4 midterm elections. 

Colorado Politics

Heard from Ryan Call head of the Colorado Republican Committee this morning. He was positive sounding on Gardner and Coffman but less so on Beauprez, suggesting that unseating a sitting governor in this state would probably require an angry mob or an act of God. OTOH he expects all the races to be very close and decided by only a handful of votes so if the Republicans turn out in large numbers, it could happen. Of note was his mention of the amount of money the national Republicans had dropped and continue to drop on the Governors race. If they didn't think it would pay off they wouldn't be spending it. This in contrast to the Udall and Romanoff campaigns which have been effectively abandoned by the national Dems.

He was cautiously optimistic about the State Senate as we only need to flip one seat and not lose any of the existing ones, but somewhat less so about the House which would require flipping a lot of seats. That said then, it looks like we're stuck with all the gun laws, election fraud, and anti-business climate the Dems stuck us with last year at least for another 2 years.

In all the contested cases he expected the races to be very close.

Update: Colorado Peak Politics is reporting that Hick has suddenly remembered that he didn't like Obamacare very much. (Beauprez' odds just went up I bet.)

Econ 101

Capitalism is where free men freely exchange goods, services, or information with one another to the benefit of all.

Rent seeking is where a third party steps in and demands a percentage of the transaction in return for something that may or may not be of any benefit to the others. In a good case this may be  a mandatory quality standard that must be met. In a bad case it might just be a required insurance payment against accidental breakage of your kneecaps.

Crony capitalism is when the government mandates the bad case above. The law in question, proposed by the National Automobile Dealers Association would affect Elio as well as Tesla i Michigan. While it is acceptable for the states to act pretty much as they please unless the Fed.Gov objects and threatens to not give their tax monies back, this looks a lot like interference with interstate commerce and as such would be unconstitutional.

Gov. Snyder would do well to veto this.

Vote Fraud

By a 6-3 last-minute vote the US Supreme court has decided that the voter ID laws in Texas will be in full effect for the upcoming election. The vote was unofficial, but the 3 dissidents went so far as to release their dissents.

Justice Ruth went so far as to say:

"The greatest threat to public confidence in elections in this case is the prospect of enforcing a purposefully discriminatory law, one that likely imposes an unconstitutional poll tax and risks denying the right to vote to hundreds of thousands of eligible voters," Ginsburg wrote in dissent.

Near as anyone can actually tell, most of the disfranchised are among those with disabilities, the most common of which is a lack of metabolism. Disembodied spirits are also significantly affected.

Battleground State

Got our ballots late last evening, filled them out this morning, and had them dropped off by noon. Now, all you pols can quit calling me begging for my vote. You either got it or not.

I suppose the ones begging for money will quit eventually. Like whenever they get their campaign debts completely paid off. Of course by then it'll be time to start raising money for the next campaign.

Heinlein said once that voting is a serious responsibility if you live in a society that allows it. To be a good citizen you should research the candidates and the questions thoroughly so as to make an informed decision. Alternatively you could find a well-meaning fool, ask how he or she intends to vote, and vote the opposite.

The problem with that approach is that the definition of "well-meaning fool" all too often just means someone from the other party. My advice to the politically befuddled is to vote against all the incumbents, vote to oust all the judges, and vote no on all the questions. You may find you've cast a few votes that you regret, but frankly not very many.

What could be a QOTD was spoken on the radio one morning last week by someone I can't identify. His suggestion viz questions was that any question that starts out with "Shall taxes be raised..." automatically disqualifies itself from a yes vote. Giving guns or money to the criminally irresponsible is always a bad idea, and the government certainly qualifies on that score.

Alox

I've never used Alox before although I'm told it makes shooting hard lead bullets a lot less messy in terms of lead fouling. I decided to give it a try so I bought a small bottle of the stuff, brought it home, and read the directions. Yes, I know it takes all the fun out of a process, but I'm willing to do it once before abandoning them.

It calls for putting a "small amount" on an indeterminate number of bullets, shaking them gently in a plastic container to distribute the stuff, then letting the bullets dry overnight on wax paper. Small amount is your call and plastic container is suggested to be an ice cream box. This means I get to make things up as I go along with just nebulous guidelines to work from. Just like real life.

In my version I put some 250-350 bullets (92 gr, 9mm) in a peanut butter container (3" high, 4" dia) along with enough Alox that if it had been toothpaste, I could have brushed my teeth 2-3 times. How's that for an accurate measurement? In lieu of shaking I put the jar, which has a screw-on lid, into my tumbler along with the walnut shell media and ran it for about 5 minutes. NOTE 1: I have a rotary tumbler. This trick may not work as well in a vibratory model. Then again it might if you leave a generous load of relatively soft media in to dampen the shaking. NOTE 2: Media on the outside, bullets on the inside of the jar.

Result: A big load of sticky bullets. I'm guessing that half the amount of Alox would have sufficed. OTOH the fellow who sold me the stuff suggested that the 4 oz bottle would be good for 1000 bullets. At this rate I'm guessing it will be good for closer to 10,000. Nice even coating too.

Observation: They call this stuff "liquid". It has nearly the same consistency as light bearing grease.

Next stop is the range with the chroney.

QOTD - Academia

Of course since everyone reads the blogfather daily, everyone has already seen this and has probably stopped nodding their heads by now. Still, when the administration seems to get a good deal of inspiration from the antics of a handful of whackadoodles, it's good to keep in mind that almost nobody grows a complete brain before the age of 25 and a notable percentage of the population never do.

Tip: When students go on about social justice, the proper response is to tell them you don’t care what they think, because they don’t know enough to have an intelligent opinion yet. If universities were run on this principle, the 3% of students responsible for 98% of the idiocy would no longer have their destructive impact. Also, it’s true: They don’t know enough to have an intelligent opinion, as demonstrated by the opinions they do have.
                                                                         Glenn Reynolds

Gun Bling

Black Dog Machine has a muzzle break for .223 caliber EBR's that is sculpted like a dragons head. Looks very spiff.

Makes you think about what other gargoyles might look good/imposing on the end of your heater. Somehow that picture of Al Gore

inspires me to see his head on the end of an AR. Which might be an improvement over seeing it on the end of a pike but it's a close call.

Maybe a yellow rubber ducky head or the wild woodpecker

The possibilities are endless.

You Might Live In A Battleground State If...

Your phone rings every 15 minutes with calls from Washington, Virginia, Michigan (?), points unknown, or even Colorado with numbers like 000-000-0000 calling you.

I have a pretty good caller I.D. box, and I don't answer calls from people like that.

The story here is that the DNCC has pulled funding from both Sen Udall and wannabe Rep Romanoff. The implication is that their own internal polling suggests that the money would be better spent on a race they have a shot at winning although hope always springs eternal. We have a brand new vote fraud institutionalization law which the Dems are expected to take full advantage of next month. Read the gory details here, but at this point it's their only hope.

Vote early, vote ofter, and vote other peoples ballots if you should find them lying about, say on the "not my mail" table in a large apartment building. A word of warning on that one: This year mail-in ballots will have the signature on the outside compared to the signature on file with the SOS with the registration of the person in question. The comparison is done by computer so no one knows how good the comparison needs to be to pass. I know my signature has a fair amount of variation to it from day to day.

It is legal to drop off up to 10 ballots at one of the drop boxes the counties will be providing as you are expected to be helpful to your family and neighbors avoiding the $.65 postage otherwise required. No one checks anything, just drive by and toss the envelopes. If the signature doesn't pass muster, well, no one will know who dropped it off.

The good news is that the counties keep track of who voted so when you turn in your ballot and it gets accepted, your name gets taken off the list of registered voters and added to the list of those who have voted and you stop getting nagging phone calls.

Just remember, since voters are sorted by party, in order to make sure you are recognized with the correct party, Republicans and unaffiliated voters should sign their ballot "First, MI, Last" and Democrats should sign their ballots LAST NAME FIRST to avoid confusion.

Maker Faire, PRC Edition

Some of this stuff is more professionally done than others, but they all show a good deal on inventiveness.

The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it - Chinese Proverb

 This one is my personal favorite, closely edging out the cannons (six of them!) one fellow made to prevent the local government from visiting "urban renewal" on his house. The Chinese knockoffs of the Elio are already in pre-production

Science Marches Onward - Guns

When the thing gets too high tech, it's no longer Steampunk no matter how many gages and displays it has.

Go here to see more pics and a link to turning on the power.

Alas, so far no evidence that it actually shoots anything although it was suggested that it's set up for 7.62. There's a backpack that goes with it which looks to be the magazine.

The Next Gun Control Martyr

"Shotgun" Joe Biden says we need a new James Brady to energise the anti-gun movement. Since Gabby Giffords doesn't seem to be carrying the day, may I suggest that Mr. Biden go on a "fact-finding" walk through Furgeson, MO this Saturday night, without the Secret Service or his usual entourage.

I bet we'd have us a new poster boy by Sunday morning.

The End Of Days

Must surely be here. The local birdcage liner, Pravda On The Platte has actually endorsed a Republican in a closely contested race (Udall D-incumbent v Gardner R). This is something I've never seen the Pest do. Their usual MO is to endorse all the Dems in all races, contested or not, and endorse Republicans only if they are running unopposed. This allows them to claim to be bipartisan and not simply a tool of the DNC.

Along those lines, Udall says energy is his passion while staunchly opposing Keystone XL, and says jobs are important while endorsing another hike to the minimum wage. The Pest may have noticed that no one seems to be fooled by this and the polls are trending the wrong way for Udall whose only hope at this point is the Vote Fraud Act of 2013 and a 100+% turnout from the Denver-Boulder Axis of Evil.

Milwaukee Vote Turnout 102%

Investigation ensues. Voter I.D. law passes. SCOTUS  rejects.

The election in question was in 2004 so the process has presumably been massaged in the interim. No word on the turnout rates on subsequent election has been released however and with no changes to the local election laws, I fully expect turnout to reach 105% this year.

Here in Colorado, many of the same features that Milwaukee enjoys have been incorporated into our election law so we'll see how well the local pols can get their people trained on short notice to take advantage of this.

H/T to IOTW for the story where you'll also find links to the police report.

Why .22 Is So Hard To Find

I found some, only moderately overpriced via Firearms Blog and ordered some. O.K. So Far, so good.

Wait with baited breath as FedEx ships from NJ (of all places!) to CO, then on Friday while I'm packing the truck to head out to Maker Faire:

10/03/2014 - Friday
11:59 am	Delivered		Littleton, CO
	Left at front door. Signature Service not requested.
7:09 am	On FedEx vehicle for delivery		DENVER, CO
4:08 am	At local FedEx facility		DENVER, CO

The only problem was that it wasn't MY door the box got left at. FedEx says they're looking into this.

Dems Disappointed In Obama?

So it seems as the president is continually “surprised” at the consequences of his actions.

 It has been said of dogs that while it never ceases to amaze, the variety of tricks they can learn, one must be careful not to set the bar too high. There is a limit, after all to what one should expect from an animal who is surprised by its own farts.

Maker Faire

Back from the NoCo Maker Faire and somehow miraculously still able to walk. It was held in the now-abandoned Agilent manufacturing facility in Loveland so we had several hundred thousand square feet and we used a good deal of it.

What did people make?

There was a nicely finished kit Cobra, 375 hp in a 2200 lb chassis.

In addition, there were 2 electric motorcycles in different stages of completion.

There was a bicycle recycler who had a nice bike with a built-in bar. Should have been a tandem with the picnic food in the other end really, but I guess you work with what you’ve got.

There was a 30 foot tall “robot” with active arms and head which included a light show and fire from the head and hands.

There were 2 distilleries, one making whiskey, vodka, and gin, and one making Absinthe.

The barista mixed the Absinth with sugar and mint. I can see why some people found it addictive. I found it delicious.

There was Epilog Laser, demoing a copier-sized laser cutter.

Several schools were there from Emily Griffith to Colo State U (go Rams!)

The Boulder Kinetics was represented.

Several robot clubs and competitions were being promoted including our own Critter Crunch.

Lots of interactive stuff ranging from music to video games to the DMSC with the “Monkey Hunter” physics demo and the pedal air gun, both of which had lines of kids waiting to take a turn..

Lots of 3-D printers in action, many of them home-built.

Tons more stuff too but being tied to our table, I couldn’t get out to see all of them in detail.  The kids cardboard challenge featured a boat that looked like it would carry about 20 of them to the U.S. from Cuba and a fort big enough to park the Batmobile in.

Here's a Mad Scientist commanding his robotic minion to get out there and exterminate!

All in all, a great time.The kids had a ball and the older kids left contemplating the next project.