The Mighty .25 Auto

I'll get to that in a second. I went out and shot an IDPA qualifier today, and wishing to be 100% on the up-and-up, instead of my usual CZ-82 in 9mm Makarov, I used my brand new (to me) Glock 22 in .40 S&W.

I have arthritis in both hands, and frankly the CZ beats me up enough even with Craftsman mechanics gloves. The Glock is really rough, still you gotta make minimums. Which brings me to this story about the much-maligned .25 auto:

Florida woman stops alligator attack with a small Beretta pistol .

This is a story of self-control and marksmanship by a brave, cool-headed woman with a small pistol against a fierce predator. What is the smallest caliber that you would trust to protect yourself?

A Beretta Jetfire testimonial... Here is her story in her own words:

While out walking along the edge of a pond just outside of 'The Villages' with my soon to be ex-husband discussing property settlement and other divorce issues, we were surprised by a huge 12-ft. alligator which suddenly emerged from the murky water and began charging us with its large jaws wide open.

She must have been protecting her nest because she was extremely aggressive.

If I had not had my little Beretta Jetfire .25 caliber pistol with me, I would not be here today!

Just one shot to my estranged husband's knee cap was all it took...

The 'gator got him easily and I was able to escape by just walking away at a brisk pace.

It's one of the best pistols in my collection! Plus the amount I saved in lawyer’s fees was incredible.

Caliber helps of course, but in the end it's shot placement, shot placement, shot placement.

Next year I understand my CZ will be IDPA-legal in the BUG (back up gun) class. Always next year. Never when I need it.

Journalism

Shamelessly ripped off the Drudge page:

Hillary supporters warn reporter against using 'sexist' terms...

Polarizing, calculating, disingenuous, insincere, ambitious, inevitable, entitled, over confident...

I suppose if she were black, those would be racist.

I'm told she and the press will be having an open relationship which means they will both be screwing other people.

Newspeak

When I started out in engineering, I was privileged to work on equipment to be used by the astronauts on the then brand new space shuttle. I was told that whatever I did, it was to be idiot proofed to the best of my abilities as the crewmen were already heavily occupied and didn’t need anything else added that required much concentration. This practice paid off later when I worked on consumer and industrial products as well although I learned that “idiot proof” is a utopian concept and “idiot resistant” was probably the best one could hope for.

I have been informed that while I’m at work on my current job that the terms “idiot proof” and “idiot resistant” are NOT to be used within the hearing of the production staff as some of them might take it as an affront.We have, I'm told over 20 cultures represented.

In order to avoid having to smooth some ones ruffled feathers by fighting a ritual duel in the parking lot or having to agree to marry one of their daughters, the terms “idiot proof” and “idiot resistant” will both be replaced in all communications, written or verbal, with the expression “management friendly”.

Likewise I am thinking about offering a suggestion to the HR department that instead of punishing the native staff for being American, they make an effort to help the “differently cultured” members of the staff blend in seamlessly to their adopted nation. I’m sure they’ll be happy to get such a helpful suggestion.

The Future Of Transportation - Hacking

Ford says they will soon offer a car that can read speed limit signs and will not let you exceed the last one read, even though it's widely understood that everyone drives at 9-1/2 MPH higher. Minimum.

To avoid becoming the most unpopular person on the freeway, let me suggest you attach this decal to your windscreen in front of the camera which will probably be in the rear view mirror looking to the right:

You're welcome. Have a nice trip.

Colorado Gun Law

As I predicted, SB-175 to repeal the standard capacity magazine ban was sent immediately to the house Kill Committee.

Along those lines, the Senate is working on a bill to repeal the universal background check law. Along those lines, I expect it will wind up in the same place. Unless someone has some REALLY incriminating pictures, Mayor Bloomberg still calls the shots here.

Billll Gets His Gun

Actually Billll already has one or two, but I've decided to move forward on getting my CCW. I arranged a basic CCW class last weekend which covered the basics, Colorado law, and gun mechanics. No shooting. That will be done separately.

The law part was interesting. First off Colorado's Make My Day law has been significantly walked back to the point that you now need a more compelling reason to shoot someone in your house beyond that you don't want them there. They have to be actively threatening you, not just leaving with your TV. Now define "actively threatening". Make it clear enough that an ambitious DA won't decide that this is his ticket to higher political office.

There was also an extensive discussion of "menacing". This is when someone makes you as carrying and calls the cops to complain that they feel threatened weather you were even aware of them or not. Easily avoided. Just stay out of Denver and Boulder.

Proof of skill with your firearm can come from a variety of sources including regular participation in competitions. I've been shooting IDPA for some time now but to make that claim stick I'll have to join the IDPA. I've also been shooting those matches with a CZ-82 which the IDPA thinks is woefully undersized and Target Sports just got in some G3 Glock 22's from a police trade-in at what I'm told is a reasonable price. So now I'm a Glock boy.

The gun comes with only one mag, so I need 2 more. Picking them up tomorrow, only moderately over priced, and on the other side of town.

Also need a holster as none of mine fit the new gun, so I'm picking that up tomorrow on my way to pick up the mags. Picking up the gun tomorrow on the way home if I can get there before they close.

Friday I'll probably get to run 10-20 rounds through the new gun, then Saturday I shoot an IDPA qualifier. Should be interesting. I think I'll bring the CZ just in case.

As to the CCW, I was told that the counties near Denver are not as friendly as one could hope. You must appear, in person, between 9AM and 3PM, Tue thru Thu only at the county sheriffs office and fill out the forms in person using the right colored ink and at least one of them will deliberately give you some run-around and make you come back another day for some reason and if you complain, you will be escorted out of the building and told not to come back, so there's a zen test in there as well. The fee is $152.50 which covers the $10 background check, part payment for the county sheriffs new leather chair, and a supply of pine tree air fresheners for the deputy's vehicles.

The shooting part is covered by participating in competitions among other things, hence the IDPA card.

Turning money into smoke and noise. It's what I do.

Good News!

Last night my daughter got engaged.

Yay us!

 Morgans comment.

Hillary Ineligible To Be President

Seems like an open and shut case to me:

Of course if you own the cops you won't get arrested, and if you own the judge, you won't get convicted.

Old Growth Sagebrush

Here's a bit from those paisley-masked riders of the purple sage who know more about the West then the actual residents do in spite of never actually having spent any time here except maybe to go skiing.

“We think about redwood forests in California as old growth forests, we think about my home State of Washington, the Olympic peninsula, and the old growth trees there as really incredible habitat worthy of protection. We have old growth sagebrush ecosystems throughout the great basin that are equally important to 350 species, Greater Sage Grouse is one of them but mule deer, pronghorn antelope, hundreds of other species call these places home.”

Boldening is mine. What they want is a moratorium on development of any sort whatsoever. They have friends to look after and if Colorado produces a lot of oil, this depresses Al-Quaida's bomb budget. Can't have that.

Election Tampering

The 2016 election is 20 months out and already the IRS is getting ready to do that old black magic they do so well.

Paul Gigot: Well, just in time for 2016, the Justice Department has announced that it is gearing up to prosecute coordination between candidates and outside groups, a move that senior editorial page writer Collin Levy says should worry Republicans in particular and the super PACs that support them.

Coordination is difficult to prove but starting an investigation is easy. When you're the IRS you notify anyone who seems to be doing an effective job of selling your opponent or bashing your candidate and demand everything they've got including donor names for audit and other forms of harassment.

This makes donating to a political party an iffy proposition right up there with opposing Vlad Putin in Russia although to be fair the IRS hasn't resorted to gunning people down in the streets. Yet.

Of course now that they're the enforcers for Obamacare, there could be a health link to making the wrong donations. You just never know.

Protesting Robots

Some people are protesting robots. For some this may not be a bad idea. If you're making $8.xx/hr, remember that at $15.00/hr a robot is more cost-effective than you are. This may not be the only reason to be nervous as no less a lumiary than Stephen Hawking is warning that they may get to be too smart for our own good.

A friend of mine is making robotic security guards. I hear they're popular.

Drinking

What else to write about this close to St. Paddy's Day. Here's an article that suggests that Wal-Mart is looking into launching their own house-brand collection of wines. Suggested names include

10. Chateau Trailer Parc
9. White Trashfindel
8. Big Red Gulp
7. World Championship Riesling
6. NASCARbernet
5. Chef Boyardeaux
4. Peanut Noir
3. I Can't Believe It's Not Vinegar
2. Grape Expectations
1. Nasti Spumante

In order of popularity it says.

Never being one to let bad enough alone, let me suggest that the key to successful sales is good marketing.  They shouldn't put it in bottles, that is too upscale. I propose boxes, sized appropriately:
The 3-liter econobox featuring say a 71 Honda Civic on one side and a Pinto on the other, the 5-liter Ponycar box with a Mustang on one side and a Camaro on the other, and the 7-liter Grand National maybe featuring Richard Petty's Dodge. The Kenworthy Cross-country box is simply 2 Grand Nationals in the cardboard shipping box featuring a bulldog lifting its leg on a Volvo.

Salud!

Gun Law - Colorado

Just in case you didn't know, Michael Bloomberg holds the office of Mayor of Colorado. The governor answers to him along with the Dems in the legislature.

Here comes a canny political move which I've seen all too often. SB175 to repeal the ban on standard capacity magazines passed the Senate with 4 Dem votes which qualifies it as bipartisan. As the Republicans hold a 1 seat majority, it was going to pass anyway but it also improves the position of those 4 dems with their constituents by allowing them to claim support for a pro-gun bill. Of course knowing that the bill is likely DOA in the house, no one on the Dem side will hold the pro-gun vote against them.

Just yesterday, the Governor all but said he would veto any magazine limit repeal legislation if it were to make it to his desk.  Regardless of continued support for its repeal by both law enforcement and citizens from across the state, your Governor continues to take his marching orders from former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other anti-gun activists when it comes to your gun rights and inherent right to self-defense.

Take it to the next level: The house which has a 3-seat Dem advantage allows several of their members to vote for the bill again improving their chances in tight races, knowing that the governor will veto the bill thus preserving their status with Bloomberg.

Thus does Lucy pull the football on Charlie Brown one more time.

Fun With Science

Here's a collection of stupid science questions. The author says he may come up with more and I can see the SAT (Stupid Aptitude Test) coming down the pike to see who gets into the AP classes. Most of the questions have simple obvious answers. The best set of simple answers gets to go to AP science class where you get to gratuitously blow things up.

Here's one I liked:

I was told to set my clock back an hour when it showed 2AM on November 1st. I've done this 8 times now. When can I stop setting the clock back?

November 2nd of course. You'd think those directions were complicated or something. Let's try basic physics:

Q: A frictionless elephant with a mean diameter of 10 ft jumps off the top of a 600 ft tall building. His time to first contact with the ground is left to the student since it always is. For extra credit, what do we call the brief moment between the elephants first contact with the sidewalk and the final flattening of his top surface?

A; The Moment of Inertia of course.

So I didn't make it as a professional comedian. Let's see you do better.

Gun Law - National

I've seen it suggested, and I've thought myself that while completely abolishing the ATF would be a fine idea, the various functions of the ATF would simply end up being moved to other cubbyholes where they would draw less attention. At least until the new regulations were announced as now being in effect.

Destroying the weed that the agency has become might be better done by looking at the abuses they promulgate and specifically removing the ability to commit that abuse. To that end:

However, one Congressman is taking it a step further. Rep. Tom Rooney (R-Fla.) has introduced the Protecting Second Amendment Rights Act. The act goes a step further than just opposing the ATF’s current plan. The bill would completely strip the ATF of their authority to regulate ammunition.

More here. Need an excuse to write your congressanimal?

Needing Directions

The Comrads seem to have lost some of the enthusiasm one would expect for someone of similar political persuasions:

Let me help you tovarishi, the delivery address is 38.8977332,-77.0365305 Tuesday through Thursday. Other times you will need to check with area golf courses.

Environmental Law

Sometimes the Congress does something useful and inexpensive. Theo Spark is reporting this:

H. Sterling Burnett, the managing editor of the Heartland Institute’s Environment & Climate News, reported on The Secret Science Reform Act (HR 4012) introduced by the House Science Committee late last year. The bill would “prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency from proposing, finalizing, or disseminating regulations or assessments based on science that is not transparent or reproducible.”

Imagine the EPA being forbidden to make law without the nuisance of having to go to the Congress unless they can show that the proposed law is based on "transparent and reproducible" science.

The problem here is that the EPA can be quite transparent about cooking the books and the results will be reproducible by anyone using the same recipe.

The Dem Primaries

Someone on MSNBC  has proposed apparently offhandedly that our own governor, John Hickenlooper, the ambivalent, might be a viable candidate for president on the Dem side of the ticket.

In parallel with that, it has also been noted that our senior Senator, Wm Bennett is both 1. very vulnerable and 2. potentially a running mate for Hillary.

With Hill's baggage piling up like a latter-day Imelda Marcos, the Dems could do worse than to take both options and run Hick and Bill as a pair, possibly relieving us of both of them. O.K. this is wishful thinking. Maybe O'Mally and Bennett?

Medicine Going To The Dogs

Now here's a story with some real possibilities. It seems a German Shepard has been trained to sniff your urine and alert on the scent of thyroid cancer. Damn fine trick that and it turns out, about as accurate as the needle-and-biopsy method currently in vogue.

I mentioned this to D'wife who misheard me as saying "rear" instead of "urine" which caused the 2 watt light bulb over my head to flicker to life. If the dog can be trained to detect thyroid cancer without the painful and slow procedure, why can't the same dog be trained to sniff a persons backside and bypass the really big nuisance of a colonoscopy? After all, this is something dogs do naturally, so why not get some use out of it?

Having just endured a colonoscopy, I find the prospect intriguing.  I can't quite see anyone getting filthy rich off this but I can see the owners of good scent hounds standing to cover the costs of gourmet dog food as long as the pooch delivers reliably. That and your titled purebred could add an MD to the end of its name as well.

Cooking With Dr. Science

Joe over at North Central Idaho published something he noticed while preparing stuffing in his oven, namely that the aluminum foil he covered the stainless steel dish with had developed "burn through" holes in it. Not wanting to include aluminum in his stuffing, he gave up the practice.

For myself, the term "galvanic corrosion" rings a familiar bell as in when you place 2 metals with different galvanic ratings into a conductive liquid the anode tries to dissolve and transfer itself to the cathode. In this case the aluminum dissolves first which protects the steel from corrosion in salt water. Ask the Navy, they're familiar with this.

The stuffing pan, being a big battery, had a steel cathode, an Aluminum anode, and a lot of steam. Pure water is a poor conductor so the electrolytes, salt for example would migrate from the stuffing to the aluminum wherever the two came in contact and reduced the foil to aluminum oxide. A friend of mine set up an experiment:

I put the salt water in a stainless steel dish and put aluminum foil over the top, then pushed down the foil in the middle so that it contacted the water.  I checked it in about two hours and there were lots of little holes in the foil where it was in contact with the water.  I put another piece of foil over the dish and made sure it did not contact the water and left it while I went to work.  When I got home, about five and a half hours later, there was no corrosion of the foil.  Not surprising, that, but it was an easy check.

I didn't think to set up the cell to measure the voltage and it wouldn't have mattered if I had because I don't have a voltmeter capable of measuring that level with any accuracy.  A Wheatstone bridge would be the best way.

I didn't get any of the dark tarnish that the photo with the blog shows.  I suspect the onions, and maybe the next time I'm cooking with onion I'll see if I can turn some foil black.

Looks to me like using aluminum foil and stainless steel dishes might work okay if the foil doesn't touch the food, which might explain the observation that the effect isn't seen with foods other than stuffing.

It would also probably work if you used a glass container.

Fun With Statistics

And fun with science while we're at it. It seems that some 2% of the total U.S. population (6.5 million) is over 112 years old and collecting SS benefits. At the same time, Bill Maris of Google Ventures is looking to spend some serious money in an effort to help people live to be 500.

I will leave it to someone better versed in statistics than I am to compare the SS numbers to the actual age distribution in this country from the Census Bureau and then back calculate the number of dead people collecting SS benefits out there. Somehow I suspect that the actual number of 110+ year olds is small enough to count without going into more than 4 figures.

I am told that your best shot at immortality is to live in Cook County Illinois where you will live to vote Democrat forever.

Institutionalizing Corruption

Colorado is considering requiring HOA managers to be licensed in the future. Licenses will be granted upon passing a 2-part test and paying some baksheesh to the licensing board which will doubtless be made up of HOA managers.

Licensing is the most common way to eliminate competition in most lines of work and this promises to make running against a dictatorial HOA officer effectively impossible. If you are an HOA member looking to make money by foreclosing on homeowners who are unable to comply with your demands, this should secure your position.

The presence of an HOA is an immediate deal-killer among my friends who are house-hunting regardless of price.  I know that when I bought my place I had only 2 iron clad, non-negotiable demands of the realtor: 1. NO HOA and 2. NO covenants.

For those of you saddled with one, you have my sympathy when you get the threatening letter demanding immediate compliance or forfeiture of your home if you do not correct the shade of green of your grass within the 3-day time limit established in the HOA rules.

A Nation Of Laws

Lots of laws, to the point that respect for the law is at an all time low. The advantage of this from the perspective of the top of the food chain is that 1. Most of them don't actually apply to you and 2. They can be applied full force to any one seen to be insufficiently loyal, as Bob Menendez is currently finding out.

Mr. Menendez is of course in no position to complain as corruption is part of the package in his party and he has been a beneficiary of it in the past.

Auto Repairs

I was changing the oil in my dome light today* taking advantage of the 50 deg weather, and when I had finished ad tried to replace the dome light module** I found that the cheap and cheesy plastic bracket that holds the whole thing in place had cracked and would no longer hold the part.

Anyone car to guess what a cheesy plastic bracket for a Jaguar is going to cost***?

*They do things differently at Jaguar. Actually all you have to do is remove the old stuff. It self-refills.

**Yeah module. It includes dimmers and the garage door openers. Yeah, openers.

***I once saw an article on what your car says about you that mentioned the Jaguar as"I can afford a car that spends one week a month in the shop." This was back in the 80's so I hoped the quality had improved since then.  It has. Not enough to my mind, but quite a bit.

Unemployment

The good news just keeps on coming. New unemployment rate now 5.5%.

Depending on how you figure it:

If you have a part-time job, you're employed. If you gave up looking, you don't exist.

Background Checks

I'm sure they're wonderful as they give burglars a reason to target gun owners, and yes, you can't buy a gun at a gun show, even in the parking lot without a background check although I've never seen anyone with a computer connected to the CBI in the parking lot at the gun show, and now you can't sell a gun to anyone anywhere for any reason in Colorado without visiting an FFL and getting a BC on the buyer.

Word is that compliance with that last one is well under 10% so either those who comply are very lucky in finding criminals or the crime rate keeps going down for other reasons.

Notwithstanding a complete lack of hard evidence that the checks actually work, the nannies just won't give up. Former congresswoman Gabby Giffords is the current poster girl for Michael Bloomberg in D.C. where:

Yes, Loughner (who shot Giffords and several others) acquired his firearm via a background check, as did Jerad and Amanda Miller (Las Vegas), Elliot Rodger (Santa Barbara), Ivan Lopez (Fort Hood 2014), Darion Marcus Aguilar (Maryland mall), Karl Halverson Pierson (Arapahoe High School), Paul Ciancia (LAX), Aaron Alexis (DC Navy Yard), James Holmes (Aurora theater), Nidal Hasan (Fort Hood 2009), among others.
But Giffords and her husband, Mark Kelly, stood with Democrat lawmakers to argue that expanding background checks to include gun show sales is a way of “stopping violence.”

If you think about it the effort serves to "stop the violence" being done to our civil rights as most gun controllers running for office are defeated when the election is honest. The universal background checks serve primarily to generate a database of gun owners. The thugs get to keep theirs.

NOTE: With the proposed ban on M855 ammo, new NRA membership sales at our table at last weeks gun show were somewhere between 3-5 times normal. You have to admit, Ol' Barry really knows how to inspire people to action. Now if the Republicans only knew how to take advantage of this.

H/T to No Lawyers, Only Guns and Money for the lead.

How Not To Handle A Defensive Shooting

The top story here sounds like the now-defendant was in the right in shooting his attacker.

The correct next steps are

1. Call your lawyer, who will talk to the police and,
2. Call the police who will arrange for the cleanup.

Dead bodies are considered evidence. Very important evidence. Relocating them is greatly frowned upon. Leave that to the pros.

We Win!

No, the government isn't providing everyone with a machine gun and a can full of ammo, but you gotta take your victories where you can. My little town, Littleton, pop abt 40,000 just held a mail in referendum which established that if the city wants to condemn something and sell it to a developer, they have to 1. get the property owners permission and 2. ask the taxpayers permission before giving tax exemptions to developers.

Having felt the heat I suppose, the city council also voted to abolish the municipal traffic cameras effective mid-July when the contract runs out. The council cites fuzzy results as to accident prevention and lack of the anticipated bags of cash as in a small town it doesn't take very long for everyone to figure out where the cameras are and assume that getting hit from the rear when you stop for them is less expensive than getting a ticket for getting across the intersection late.

Besides, adding a second to the yellow light accomplishes the same thing and doesn't result in angry phone calls and e-mails.

Reducing Crime

Lots of methods for reducing crime have been suggested and even tried in the past, but here's an wasy one that seems to be working. Norway, one of the lefts Socialist poster children has just deported 824 especially troublesome Muslims over the wails of anguish from the multi-cultis.

The MC's are now virtually silent as Norway's violent crime rate is down 30% in one year.

Here in the U.S. violent Muslims are not yet the problem they are in Europe as it's a much longer swim from Africa to the U.S. east coast but still the technique has merit. It would be the equivalent of deporting some 51,283 illegals in one year. With a minimum of 11 million to choose from, this should be easy. Just send home the ones who can't produce a valid voter registration card or who have 3 or more felonies on their records.

Product Design

It's what I do for a living some times, so this struck a chord:

At one time or another, I've owned several products that must have been designed by Dogbert. My current clock-radio for example sets the time automatically by eavesdropping on the US bureau of standards and adding 13 minutes to the received number. I have no idea how to fix this. All efforts have been futile. Fortunately it doesn't matter as I seldom look at it for the time, and it gets me up on time.

Turning the radio off in the morning is another problem. Imagine waking up, and reaching for the shutoff button in the dark. All the buttons are black on a black background, smaller than a finger tip and the shutoff button is differentiated only by being ever so slightly concave. Here's where being a shooter comes in handy. No I did not use my CZ on the clock.

I had picked up some Airsoft pellets at the range and super-glued one to the shutoff button. Take that doggie! Foiled you again!

Striking A Blow Against The Cameras

State Representative Steve Humphrey’s bill to REPEAL and REMOVE every one of Colorado’s Red Light Cameras (HB 1098) passed out of one committee by an 8-5 vote and now moves on to the next one. This is encouraging as the usual suspects did show up and whine most piteously about the carnage and loss of precious ducats that would accompany a ban on Red Light and Speed cameras.

My position is that if I'm going to be robbed, I would prefer that the robber have the decency to do it in person.

Anyway, if you happen to live in Colorado,

• Call your State Representative at 303-866-2904 and urge them to support HB 1098.
• Find your State Representative’s email address here and send them a note with the same message.
• Call the House Appropriations Committee Members. This is the committee that killed this same bill last session. They’ll need extra encouragement. You can reach their staff at 303-866-2061 or alfredo.kemm@state.co.us.

Extra encouragement. Sounds nice. We had everything but a public hanging a couple years ago to no avail whatsoever, but feel free to send politely worded e-mails and phone calls to the appropriate people. 3 recalls and the loss of the Senate may have struck a chord. The House is Dem-controlled so if this gets out alive, it should have no trouble in the Senate.

More Gun Fun

Here's a belt buckle:

Think I'll put it on my gun belt.

March E-Postal

Spring is here, in some places I guess, so it's back to the E-postal grind. Go to Mr. Completely's site and read the rules and download the target.

This one has a 20-shot basis, and anything but a clean inside-the-beltway hit will make the score irrevocably negative so possible scores cover the range from -140 to +140. Knowing this, if your target adds up to zero, send it in. You may already be a winner.

If it makes you feel any better, a clean miss, while it won't help, will at least not hurt. This one favors the smaller calibers so I won't be using the pedal gun. Or maybe there's a way to get 20 finish nails to fly point forward. .09 cal. Hmmmm