Kims Rocket Launches - What's Missing

Launch after launch with all Kims rockets landing solidly in the water and the latest doing so after managing to miss Japan, a large target and not far away.

What I'm noticing is that there never seems to be a target, even a derelict ship or a wayward barge to act as a bulls eye for all these rocket launches. Of course it might be caution on the part of Kims rocket scientists. Bad enough when the rocket explodes prematurely without the additional embarrassment of the inert warhead landing a couple hundred miles off target. Best to tell the boss that the impact was perfect. We were aiming for the exact spot in the middle of the ocean that it came down on.

Kim has more launches scheduled, with the Pacific Ocean the designated target. Watch the news to see if there is so much as a rowboat within 200 miles of the impact points.

Transportation Bargains

In addition to flood damaged cars soon to hit the market from Houston, you might also be able to score a deal on a slightly used airplane:

Low mileage, well maintained, always hangered...

Aluminum Cased Ammo

I have nothing in particular against the stuff, indeed my carbine shoots its smallest groups using Blazer aluminum cased 180 grain ammo. The issue here is that when using this stuff in a carbine, the pressures are higher. As an example I recorded 1400 fps from the above mentioned Blazer, a boost of 250-300 fps over what I'd see from my pistol.

The extra  velocity means extra strain on the cases and for 2 of the 15 I shot last weekend, it was a bit too much.

When this happened I noticed a bright flash from the ejector port and picked up a black powder stain on my index finger. I was pulling the trigger with my middle finger as I'm missing a bit of my trigger finger. Interesting pattern, no?

I was recording all my muzzle velocities but didn't think to note which shots were the ones on the blown out cases. Checking the numbers however I see that all the velocities were very consistent around 1403 fps except for two at 1382 and 1375. So not much loss but noticeable if you're looking.

Tomatillos

"Little tomatoes" as they are called go well in salsa and the like. While walking the dog I happened on a small patch of them next to the park lake.

Click to enlarge and note the seed pods, about an inch in diameter
Inside is a single pea-sized fruit.

Sorry for the fuzzy pic. Should have used a tripod. Diced up, these things are an essential ingredient in salsas. In a sloppily assembled burrito out on a fishing trip, dribble the filling out onto the ground and they sprout enthusiastically and seem to require little more than sunlight to thrive.

Privatizing Tyranny

I was reading a QOTD on Samizdata when I was struck by the realization that the much feared tyanny of Big Brother is happening, not so much from our elected officials, but through acquiescence on the part of the public to allowing private enterprise to do the dirty work for them.

You can't attack the LGBTEIEIO community yourself, but there's a large death cult which is actively being supported by the community that actively supports putting them to death in very photogenic manners.

It would be a violation of the first amendment to silence the speech of anyone simply because you disagree with them, and congress is forbidden from making laws to that effect, but if a private company, say Times Corp or Google decides that some ideas do not rate coverage, than it will be as if they never existed.

If you think that some groups either need support or just bear watching and you want to donate money to them you can of course, just not through Pay Pal which has a position opposing the second amendment and supporting violent jihad.
UPDATE: This move attracted so much bad publicity that Pay Pal has lifted their ban. For now anyway.

I guess the new MO is not to pass laws but to allow private industry to effectively ban or promote certain favored behaviors.

Entrepreneurialism - How It's Done

Here's a clip from Jay Leno's Garage on the Vanderhall Venice vehicle which is being produced in a small factory in Provo Utah by some 32 people at a rate of 500/year.

Compare and contrast this to the Elio, which while not as fast or sporty, seems a lot more practical. Sorry, I can't find any of their videos. Total production for Elio in the last 5 years has been limited to 5 or 6 prototypes and a bunch of press releases. They have a stake in a factory building in Louisiana big enough to support a space program in which nothing is being produced.
Vanderhall says they plan to expand next year to produce 1000 vehicles/year.

If you're going to be an entrepreneur, item 1 on your list is to get your product out in front of the public, even in small quantities.

Gun Fun - Hi Point 4095

The latest iteration of my ongoing quest to tighten up the manufacturing slop in an otherwise nice gun.

I take full credit for that flyer at 6 O'clock. The other 3 shots were done without any funky outside help and according to my scoring overlay represent a group of just barely over 1 MOA. I had known the gun to be capable of less than 2 MOA as I shot several groups with it by mounting a pistol scope to the barrel alone. The issue has always been the attachment of the bolt shroud to the action via 2 floating pins.
I removed the pins and pressed 2 threaded inserts into the action, removed the swinging pin catches and pressed steel inserts into the plastic stock. The screws over the brass washers hold the bolt shroud solidly against the action with no clearance or funky floating doohickeys to introduce error.

Shot at 25 yd as that was all I had available on short notice. I'll get out to the longer ranges pretty soon. Also I find the gun isn't impressed with my low recoil 165 gr handloads and definately likes the much hotter Blazer 180 gr stuff.

The Lefts Battle Plan?

Peter at Bijou Renaissance Man has a good post up analyzing the tactics the left is using in Charlottesville and other places.

Paul (in comments) is taking it to the next level which is a government sponsored conspiracy. Unfortunately this is a very short step. The left is probably ecstatic over finally finding an issue that will bring the right out onto the streets where they can be goaded into violence in their own defense. Similar to the Muslims, they carefully escalate the violence against the citizenry until someone hits back, then the wailing about oppression begins and the press repeat it unquestioningly. This technique is serving the Arabs in Israel well to the point that their productions are commonly referred to as Paliwood Studios starring such regulars as Flat Fatima and the perpetually dead child.

Best approach by the right would probably be to follow Gandhi's nonviolent approach and let the brownshirts severely injure or even kill a few of them, and wait for the next election. The police do what the chief tells them to do and the chief does what the Mayor tells him to do. Everyone knows this.

Japanese Beetles - 2

Took the buoy mentioned below out to the local pond and tossed it in. The anchor line is about 6 feet and to judge by the movement of the buoy the lake is only 3-4 feet deep 20 feet out.

The wind was pretty strong, about 7-10 mph blowing straight in at me so the trap was immediately surrounded by a cloud of bugs. Unfortunately all the usual wildlife was hanging out of the far shore so the beetles slowly blew to the near shore. After an hour or so a lone duck came by to see if I'd feed it. I tossed it a couple of beetles and it quickly found the washed up ones. An hour later the duck and all the bugs were gone. Looks promising so far.

Revising History

There's a joke that describes a Russian citizen being asked by a reporter if he was worried or confused by the future. He answers "No, the future is fixed and secure. It's the past that keeps changing." Here's the definitive example

Today we do this sort of thing in the U.S. by removing any mention of things the left wants forgotten. These links from Drudge today:

Kentucky Mayor: Confederate Monuments Will Be Moved...
Protesters Aim at Tennessee Capitol Bust...
Gainesville takes down...
Vandalized in Atlanta...
Baltimore statues to be destroyed...
Monument toppled at old NC courthouse...
WIRE: Charlottesville Just The Beginning...

The new improved history will show that the Republicans supported slavery and the Democrats abolished it in 1964 when LBJ signed the emancipation Proclamation and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. 

Those who do not study history will be doomed to repeat it. Those who do will be sent to the camps.

QOTD - NYT

In a motion to dismiss Sara Palin's suit for libel, the New York Times argues:

For example, the Complaint alleges that the allegedly false statement of fact that are the subject of the Complaint were contradicted by information already set forth in prior news stories published by the Times. However, these prior stories arguably would only evidence actual malice if the person(s) who wrote the editorial were aware of them.

Which claims that it's unreasonable to expect that the editors at the Times actually read their own paper. Not entirely implausible as the first rule in propaganda is to never begin believing your own propaganda.

This might fly a bit higher if the claim were worded differently. For example: We claim that since everyone knows that the Times is a premier source of fake news, the Complainant should have recognized that the statements concerning her were deliberately false and thus were not to be taken seriously.

See? Now that I could almost believe. It would also help if the paper being sued was the Onion instead of the New York Times.

A Well Laid Ambush At Google?

There is more background on the Damore kerfuffle at Google. Seems he may have already filed a complaint with the NLRB over the toxic situation there.

By firing James Damore, who apparently had filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, Google may have created significant legal jeopardy for itself.

If he had already filed the complaint when he posted his missive, then it sounds like he's a very canny fellow who set up an ambush, then baited the company into charging in to it. It sounds like he had a pretty good case to start with but now it's just a matter of the size of the settlement, the trial being simply a formality.


There should be some kind of award, say the Mastodon, for getting your adversary to voluntarily jump into a deep pit filled with sharp sticks.

Law Prof Demands Role Play Regulation

A busybody law prof at George Washington U is demanding that the Federal government step in and begin regulating the use of silicone sex dolls.

Saying there’s evidence rape sexbots may significantly increase the chance of rape to real women, the law should “no longer stand by and blindly ignore a major potential problem by doing nothing,” he said in an email to The College Fix.
Sexbots, especially those which can be programmed to act as if they are being raped, and those which act and appear to be young children, are already here and in use, Banzhaf said.
“The obvious first step would be to have hearings and do studies to determine just how serious the threat is, whether there are any real benefits to having sexbots programmed to simulate being raped, and then what if any new laws, regulations, etc. might be appropriate,” he said.

So in the first paragraph he says there's evidence, but in the third, he seemingly refutes this and demands hearings and studies, presumably to gin up the desired evidence, a clarion call for junk science if ever I heard one.

Be interesting to see which lawmakers step up to get positions on the committees investigating the use of sex bots.

Noting that geneticists have discovered some 3 or 4 genes that make dogs friendly, I suspect that a similar number of genes will be discovered that compel people to obsessively try to micromanage other peoples affairs. I nominate Prof Banzhaf as a carrier of these genes. The disorder can be named for any famous person determined to be so afflicted. Ralph Nader or Dianne Feinstein come to mind although the possibility of getting the affliction named Banzhafs Syndrome might be enough to persuade the professor to join the study.

More EPA Fraud

It seems the EPA has been promulgating rules based on less than wonderful data. I'm shocked! Shocked! to hear that a trusted government agency would use dubious data to help justify its existence. And mushroom-like growth.

Toxicologist Albert Donnay says he’s found evidence a 1989 study commissioned by EPA on the health effects of carbon monoxide, which, if true, could call into question 25 years of regulations and billions of dollars on catalytic converters for automobiles.

OTOH I've been pointing out for years that the requirement for catalytic converters was based on the American auto industry's inability to meet the EPAs standards when the Japanese did it  without the use of a converter. The Japs simply designed a cleaner engine, while GM ran to congress and demanded that everyone be required to put a converter on their cars and pay GM a nice royalty for the privilege.

Food - Breakfast

I like an omlette for breakfast now and again, usually made with meat of some sort, hash browns, and cheese. One of these will keep me going until 2 PM easily. It also leaves me kind of logy if I don't have a non-stop project going.

Here's the solution: In a frying pan toss 1 strip of thick cut bacon or equivalent weight of other meat.
Add 3-4 tablespoons of this instead of any potatoes:

Note that they don't call it veggie mix or anything like that. It's "Bold Fiesta Protein".  The ingredient list is on the bag, just below the word Protein. In the lower right corner it notes that it must be cooked before using, so do that beforehand and store it in a container. Click the pic to make it readable.
Cook until the meat's done, add an egg, pre scrambled with Cholula sauce, and top with cheese. Serves one old guy.

Keeps me going until 2 pm and I never feel logy. Supposedly this stuff is better for you than potatoes but that can be adjusted with your meat selection. Delicious!

No one paid me for this endorsement. It's just too good not to share.

Japanese Beetles

These little pests are rapidly becoming a big deal around here, appearing in large numbers in some places and not at all in others. Along with this there is a thriving cottage industry in ways to get rid of them without resorting to nuclear weapons, which only help until the next generation of grubs emerges.

Larkspur greens puree'd into a "tea" kills the bugs. Can be made just like classic sun tea or in a blender but it is not recommended using the blender for foods after.

As a friend of mine commented, avoiding alkaloid poisoning is pretty high on my list. I think I'd try the pepper and garlic spray first. Or maybe the mint, pepper, and onion spray. Recipes for home made beetle toxins can be found here. I bet some of those home made toxins make the dead bugs mighty tasty. Feel free to try them and let me know.

Traps are popular but have the traditional drawback all traps for pests have in that they must first attract the pests. One fellow noted that placing a five gallon bucket under a bag trap resulted in about as many bugs in the bucket as in the bag, suggesting that the bugs aim, when falling into the bag, isn't very good. Anyway it still leaves the problem of what to do with large numbers of possibly not dead yet beetles. I flush mine down the toilet but be advised to do this when the bag trap in no more than 1/4 full. Dumping half a bag of beetles in the toilet looks like a Rhinoceros just had a bad case of diarrhea in your commode.

I'm trying to enlist the local parks and recreation dept in the battle by attaching the pheromone part of the beetle trap to a small buoy to be anchored out in the many small park ponds around here. The theory is that the large numbers of beetles the trap attracts will hit the trap and fall into the pond where the pond critters will find them tasty. Here's a model of such a buoy: It only requires a 1 L bottle with about 3/4 of a pound of ballast to hold it upright. Not shown is a hook on the bottom for the anchor string to keep the thing from blowing around.

 

Here's the finished prototype floating in a bucket. If you look closely you can see a couple of beetles already floating in the water.

Yes, it draws them in in great quantity. I'm estimating that this rig was getting about 1 bug/minute in my back yard.
 The arrangement on the right replaces the bag with a small do-it-yourself bucket containing about 1/2" of soapy water. A couple drops of dish soap as a wetting agent kills the varmints pretty quickly and it's easier to dump than the bag.