Stoneman Shooting

This needs wider circulation. An annotated timeline of what happened, when it happened, and what, if anything, was done.

From Gun Free Zone.

Holiday Wishes

Shamelessly stolen from the Grouchy Old Cripple:

Peak Wind? Who Knew

It is said that if you put the government in charge of the Sahara Desert, and in 6 months there will be a shortage of sand. It seems this works for resources as common as wind as well.

Of course if we locate the wind farms closer to D.C. the problem may be quickly solved. Could it be that Washington is sucking all the air out of...... Nah!

Admitting That Gun Control Still Isn't Popular

I got a fund-raising email this morning from Giffords.org asking me to donate to their cause. I have no idea why they thought I might respond, maybe they bought a customer list from Lee Precision thinking it was Lee jeans, but here's the "money quote":

But at the start of the month, we set a goal of 15,000 individual donations for December. We thought that would put us in good shape when the new Congress is sworn in. And as of this morning, we were at 4,983. Not great.

Great, like most adjectives, is a relative term. For Giffords, in the face of a Dem controlled House, getting a 30% response might be described as "not great". For me, considering the same circumstances, coupled with excited media coverage for the more rabid true believers, this is not bad news. I would have to say that the probability of another run on ammo or guns is much reduced.

Don't get cocky. Write your Senators and tell them to NOT support any gun control legislation in the face of falling crime rates. Keep reminding them which side of the toast has the butter.

I'm sure Bloomberg will chip in to help them out.

If you have some spare cash, donate to NRA/ILA or GOA or CCRKBA, or SAF.

Toy/Project - Making It Move

Got the original cylinder off, tore it apart, reassembled it carefully, and it refuses to work in any configuration. Screw it, I have a 2" cylinder to temporarily replace it with.

Turned the table over and soaked the working parts in gas over night, and voila! it turns, however reluctantly. I'm thinking it should free up with some use.

Put in the new air cylinder, after finding out that the Bellows company seems to have used some thread pitches not listed in the charts of standard SAE threads. They also installed a set screw in a spot that requires a good deal of disassembly before it can be either seen or reached and in a spot where attempted disassembly will cause damage to some fairly important threaded parts.


The new cylinder moves the table fairly easily with only 25-30 psi air which means only 75-90 lb force. a smaller cylinder will do the job, say 1-1/5" dia running at a modest 50 psi.

That brass pipe sticking out the center is the air supply to the little cylinders on the top. Unfortunately it hangs down a couple of inches below the bottom of the table and over the years it has been bent and banged up. I will need a banjo fitting for that at some point.

Still have no idea how the top is supposed to be removed from the bottom, and there is no indexing mechanism to set the table after each rotation. Oh well, some assembly is required.

Evening News - Update

I was originally going to post this on Hot Air here, but they seem to be fully vested members of the Vast Left-wing conspiracy to let Big Tech censor everything by requiring a Facebook membership to be allowed to speak there. Shame on you guys!

They do have a piece up noting that it is now possible for computers to generate exceptionally realistic human faces. This opens up a lot of possibilities for TV News stations, politicians, and blackmailers of all sorts.

This is a technological jump over the proposal I fronted 2 or 3 years ago. Then, I suggested that animatronic robots could be used to to replace the high priced talking heads on the nightly news with only a wig change required to get from news to sports, and with lipstick, to weather. Now even that is no longer required. The CG heads can recite whatever a committee of wonks has decided is news, and if there's bias, it's distributed across the committee and no one gets fired. Cost of software and regular upgrades would be far less than the annual salaries of the actors currently staring back from the screens.

The Economy - Didja Notice?

On election day, the Dow stood at 26,180 and change. Today, as of 10:03 EST, it's at 23,900, a loss of 2880 points.

The Dems don't get to start warming their chairs in the House for another month yet, and the Dow is down 11%. You'd think the Dems had taken the whole banana and Hillary was about to name BHO as her chief economic adviser. Still, the DJIA is a forward-looking indicator so maybe the market mavens see something coming that we don't, and the MSM won't.

Remember, if the market crashes, the only thing to change is the makeup of the House so that would be the place to lay the blame.

Since taxation and spending bills originate in the House, and the House seems to be preparing for 2 years of all out effort to overturn the results of the '16 election and nothing else, maybe there is some cause to worry.

Toy/Project

No, I did not find an old Ferrari in a barn. Much more mundane than that. I helped a friend move his machine shop, and as his new digs are much cozier than the old ones, He generously gifted me with a doorstop.

 This is a 24 stage rotary feed table, with 7 "stations" and one empty. Not shown is the big brass air cylinder which normally attaches to the right hand side of the thing and causes the upper part to rotate when activated. So far I have been unable to get the cylinder to move at all except by pushing it in and out manually. The valve attached to it is a marvel to behold, and possibly an even bigger marvel to make work. I've removed the cylinder and disassembled the valve. I may sent it to the Smithsonian with my blessing as long as they promise not to send it back.

The Table is a product of the Bellows Company, which seems to have vanished from the face of the earth unless the Schraeder/Bellows/Parker company is the corporate descendant of it. Anyone in Akron know anything? That's where the thing was reputedly made. There's even a Bellows St in Akron so there's a possibility there are drawings for this thing there.

Having removed the recalcitrant air cylinder and soaked the underpinnings in gasoline, I'm seeing some movement of the upper part, however reluctant.

I'm thinking of trying to make a fully functional reloading press out of this at some point, but having something this steampunk ker-chunking about might serve even as a piece of art. No one has any idea what this thing was used for originally.

Arguing With Liberals

Found at Power Line Blogs week in photos which is always worth the clickover:

To my observation, asking questions back is the quickest way to silence a liberal.

Next year I plan to attend the hearings for the anti-gun bills and ask a lot of questions.

Internet Speeds Increase

In most places, but not so much around here:

This is no better than its ever been. Of course my provider is employing an old retired telegraph operator to relay my page requests on to whomever it is that actually provides them, so when I ask for a page I can almost hear the clacking of the brass telegraph key.

Boulder CO - Gun Games

The Oh-So-P.C. city council of Boulder passed an ordinance forbidding the ownership of "assault weapons" but in a gesture of good will, they allowed the ownership of weapons acquired prior to the passage of the law. If you live in Boulder and want an evil black rifle, or whatever it is they define as an assault weapon, you'll have to drive a few miles to Erie or Longmont to get one. Of course if you get caught coming home with it, you could get a ticket:

The city council promised that there would be no records kept, and no registration as a precursor to future confiscation. Compliance, for all practical purposes, would be left up to the gun-owning citizens themselves.

Boulder City Attorney Tom Carr said that anyone found with a “non-certified” firearm in his possession after December 27 would be subject to a fine of up to $1,000 and (not or) 90 days in jail. The now-illegal firearm would be confiscated and destroyed.

 Emphasis mine. No mention of what might happen if you claim to have owned the weapon for the last 5 years and forgot to get it registered certified.

The paper process involves paying a fee, for which the city would give you a receipt, of which they would keep a copy along with a note explaining what the money was collected for, getting another background check, of which they would keep a copy along with a note explaining why they had it done, and give you 2 copies of your certification papers, one of which must be kept with the gun.

The story is here along with some math (show your work!) suggesting that there might be as many as 150,000 "assault weapons" in need of "non-registration" up there. So far, and with 17 days left to go before they all become criminals, some 85 guns have been registered certified for a compliance rate of .056%.

I love it when a plan like that comes together.

Christmas Music Update

Found at IOTW, here's a ragtime/Jazz version of the Nutcracker Suite

Ragtime Nutcracker

https://iotwreport.com/rag-of-the-reed-flutes/

https://iotwreport.com/cakewalk-of-the-sugar-plum-fairies/

https://iotwreport.com/arabic-tango/

https://iotwreport.com/rag-of-the-reed-flutes/

https://iotwreport.com/chinese-blues/

Pretty cool.

Gun Sales Show No Signs Of Panic

Here's the latest NICS count, with the usual caveat that a NICS check has only about a 71% chance of actually representing a gun sale:

I will interpret this as a position of confidence that although the House will likely pass lots of gun bills, a Republican Senate will likely vote them down in committee. Of course this sets up the Donks to propose every half-baked anti gun idea ever heard of in the expectation that they will all get tossed so they can tell their constituents that they tried, and that their next opponent will forget that they did this and won't use it against them.

There are ways around this but it remains to be seen if the Dems will try them or push very hard if they do. A Dem can, under the upcoming regime, attach a draconian anti gun bit to one of the "must pass" bills that will come up, and dig in to the point of threatening a government shutdown and blame Republicans for valuing the lack of "common sense gun control" for failing to say, fund the military.

Of course this could work both ways with the Reps loudly proclaiming that the Dems would render the country defenseless in order to let them revert to type, abridging the civil rights of the citizens.

Interpreting The Headlines: Bush - Trump

From that great bastion of journalistic integrity, the Washington Pest Post:

‘Honorable, gracious and decent’: In death, Bush becomes a yardstick for President Trump

I interpret this to mean that the WaPo thinks that now that H W Bush is dead, and has advanced from Chimpy McBushitler to honorable great statesman, the only way Trump will be able to live up to that standard would be for him to drop dead.

Denver To Subsidize Heroin Use

Story here.
They probably think they'll get less of it, or maybe they actually want more of it but just need the junkies to stay alive long enough to vote in the next election.

Flat Earth - The Convention

The Colorado Sun, a new news source made up of refugees from the dying Denver Post and other places, went to the Flat Earth Society convention here in Denver, and has reported on the doings. I almost wish I had been able to go as some of the memorabilia would have made fine supplements to my collection.

Putting Up An Antenna

What do you do when you have a ham radio and you're out in the boonies, and you need an antenna, as high up as feasible?

You launch it. Here's my co-conspirator, Jed, with the antenna launcher he built from PVC pipe and a lawn sprinkler valve

He's holding a large nerf dart here as it turned out his barrel was the same size as the larger gun/launcher on the porch behind him.

The fat pipe is the air reservoir which we pump up to 60 psi, not wanting to over stress the plastic. Not shown is the small dart made from 2 pipe caps and filled with sand that will carry the line that will pull the antenna wire high up into a tree or something. In testing today we threw the dart just over 100 yards across a flat park.

Here's the trigger. when you vent the top of the valve, the main body opens. Note the tastefully tactical O.D. and flat black paint job. Any operator would be proud.

Here's the business end. The short barrel limits the range but I am assured that what we got was sufficient. I tried to get a pic of the nerf dart leaving the barrel of the gun, but the dart is way faster than the shutter on my pocket camera.

Stealth Taxes

Here in East California Colorado, there's a thing called the TABOR amendment to the constitution that says that all taxes and/or increases must be approved by the voters of the state.

The issue relates to Tesla's corporate problems and California's efforts to bail them out at the taxpayers expense.

“Today, Colorado’s Air Quality Control Commission rubber-stamped California’s vehicle emission regulations,” said CADA President and CEO Tim Jackson. This will add a $2,110 tax to the sticker price of average new vehicles in Colorado, a tax that will be even higher on the SUVs and trucks that Coloradans prefer. This is hard-earned cash that the typical new vehicle buyer in Colorado will not recover and will have the biggest negative impact on working families and the economically disadvantaged.

Read the whole thing to see what's going on. Just as General Motors was bailed out by BHO, I guess we can rest assured that Tesla would be bailed out by a President Hickenlooper with taxpayer money so that $150,000 compact cars can be sold for $30,000.

UPDATE: So it's not an actual tax, just an estimate of the price increase on an average car due to Colorado's conformance to California's emissions and fuel economy standards. It's a very low number as the price of a new car seems to grow by 3.4-4%/year all by itself.

Nuking The Gun Owners

Rep Eric Swalwell has offered up an across the board ban on "assault weapons" and has threatened to use nuclear weapons on holdouts. His policy would run along the lines of "turn 'em in or we'll nuke you".

So Rep Swalwell, let me help you out here. If push comes to shove, all us gun owners will be gathered in one place to make your job easier. You'll find us all huddled in the basement, under our various state capitol domes. No need to check, just target the dome and you'll be fine.

You're welcome.

And they think we're violent?

Another Shooting, Another Opportunity

Every Communist must grasp the truth, "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." Our principle is that the Party commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to command the Party. Yet, having guns, we can create Party organizations, as witness the powerful Party organizations which the Eighth Route Army has created in northern China. We can also create cadres, create schools, create culture, create mass movements. Everything in Yenan has been created by having guns. All things grow out of the barrel of a gun. According to the Marxist theory of the state, the army is the chief component of state power. Whoever wants to seize and retain state power must have a strong army. Some people ridicule us as advocates of the "omnipotence of war". Yes, we are advocates of the omnipotence of revolutionary war; that is good, not bad, it is Marxist. The guns of the Russian Communist Party created socialism. We shall create a democratic republic. Experience in the class struggle in the era of imperialism teaches us that it is only by the power of the gun that the working class and the labouring masses can defeat the armed bourgeoisie and landlords; in this sense we may say that only with guns can the whole world be transformed.Mao Tse-tung
November 6, 1938

So give the state a monopoly on the use of the gun, and the state, in the name of the "labouring (sic) masses and the working class" will use that to secure its monopoly in perpetuity.

Cali Bar Shooting - New Gun Law

Cali will soon require that anyone planning a mass shooting must post their plans on Facebook or Twitter 10 days in advance of actually beginning to shoot. If the person is banned from the media for threatening Democrats, they will be assumed to be Republicans and no action will be taken. Dead snowflakes are useful when proposing additional gun laws. Dead conservatives not so much.

QOTD - Midterms

Found at Indy:

UPDATE: Iowahawk tweets, “Forget Libertarians, the Dead Pimps are the 3rd party that can actually win.” Heh, indeed.™

 Rest of the story here.

The Fun Never Ends

It seems that the election process in my county is not even close to over. As a background note, several of the county officers including the Sheriff and county clerk are Republicans whom everyone likes and were not considered in any danger of losing their jobs. The Dems had put in opposition candidates simply to avoid letting the officers go unopposed. Actual qualification for the job was considered less important than getting the box filled on the ballot.

During the counting process, a hose broke on the counting machine. Presumably an air hose, but this brought the process to a halt with some 40,000 ballots yet to be counted. As of right now, the placeholder candidates are in a tight race with the incumbent regulars with the Sheriff challenger actually leading by a very small amount. The first clue was probably an announcement from the Clerk that some 1500 unsigned ballots might well swing the election one way or the other.

These jobs, in this county, are not normally considered seriously at risk.

I just have visions of our clerk and recorder, down at the counting warehouse, frantically stroking a bicycle pump in an effort to get the counting machine back on line.

Coming Soon From Speaker Pelosi

Now that they have subpoena power, the Dems will surely be demanding a passport and complete academic records from President Trump.

Won't they?

How To Campaign

Or maybe how not to. Stacy Abrams is running for Governor in Georgia. After Mrs Abrams called for AW confiscation, the Black Panthers went out on parade carrying AK variants, the next poll shows her down 12 points.

Can't imagine how that could have happened. The GOP would do well to pay the Panthers to lead Donk parades in every city.

From the 11/5 Colorado RKBA newsletter I get:

Politics in Georgia: During a rally on Sunday, President Donald Trump warned Georgians, “If Stacey Abrams gets in [as governor], your Second Amendment is gone.” Trump made this statement the same day in which Stacey Abrams admitted that her gun control plans could require people to “turn their guns in.” She told CNN’s Jake Tapper that “AR-15s are not necessary on our streets” and called for more gun controls on “semiautomatic weapons” in general... (In the meantime, Black Panthers campaigning for Adams videoed themselves displaying a SCAR 17, a C39V2 [a Kalashnikov variant from Century Arms] and a Remington model 870 with a law enforcement folder [second link]. Adams may not have authorized this unorthodox get-out-the-vote demonstration but it's not uncommon with Progressives that sauce for the goose is not also deemed sauce for the gander.)

As of right this instant, Drudge shows the race at 48.8/50 in the Republican favor. 

Gun Sales - No Surprises So Far

Despite the anticipated takeover of the House by the Dems, there seems to be a strong undercurrent of belief that even if they do, the Senate will remain safely Red, and the president would veto anything overly egregious.

At this point I would predict the 2018 curve to follow the historical path and end the year in a 3-way tie with the December marks of 2012 and 2016, or possibly slightly below them.

If the Donks take the house, we can expect 2 more years without a Hearing Protection Act or National CCW Reciprocity. OTOH, with a deadlocked congress, we won't see much of anything else, like a budget.

Nerdy? Moi?

Found the link to this on another fellows blog and being bored...




One of the questions was how nerdy I thought I might be. I guessed down mid-range which suggests that among the people I hang out with I probably am. It's just that the people I hang out with are pretty nerdy.

Click the graphic and try it yourself. There's a follow-up test that says I'm pretty good with science and math.

Crimes?

Found at A Crime A Day

A Crime a Day‏ @CrimeADay Oct 20

49 USC §5124, 49 CFR §173.309(a)(1), (b)(1), (c)(1) & (d)(1) make it a federal crime to transport fire extinguishers if they contain an extinguishing agent that's flammable.

So what kind of fire extinguisher contains flammable suppressant?

President Hillary?

Hill would like to be president. Big deal, so would I. In fact I'd like to be absolute dictator of the world, but I'd settle for POTUS. My big disadvantage is that no one knows who I am. Her big hurdle is that everybody does.

At this point I'm giving myself a slight advantage over her.

Hospital Loses Its Ass

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/10/28/kansas-medical-center-offering-1000-reward-missing-inflatable-colon/

There's a reward.

Flat Earth Conference In Denver

This should be interesting if only for the entertainment value. Still, there is probably something to be learned from the persuasion talents that drive this group.

Meantime, I picked this T-shirt up at the Science Fiction con last weekend.

Having worked a good while in the aerospace biz, I have a good deal more faith in the conventional viewpoint.

Bumper stickers

Just print out in landscape, fold to size, and tape to window. Post election you can pull it off.

If you wait for real stickers, the election will be over before they ship.

Maker Faire

The Maker Faire events are one of the most fun ways to spend a weekend I've found, the only problem being when the stuff I bring proves to be one of the most popular items there and supervising an endless flow of kids keeps me from visiting some of the exhibitors I personally wanted to see.

Last weekends Faire filled a large exhibition hall at the Denver stockyards with demonstrations of everything from Rube Goldberg robot making to high end 3-D modeling software. There were exhibitors with fancy clothing 

Laser cut doo-dads like this light switch cover

 which might inspire other things made the same way

An exhibit of the steps involved in custom motorcycle building 

Some very fancy steampunk lamp fixtures 

An exhibit of stuff produced by the STEM students at a local school including fighting robots and pumpkin tossers 

Metal working, casting, metal cutting and engraving

Another exhibit gave everyone a chance to raid a junkyard for parts and build their own robot

And of course a chance for the kids to take a shot at a stuffed camel

with a huge Nerf gun 

This year the nerf gun featured a rifled barrel which got the kids noticeably smaller groups. This called for better sights 

 which the folks at Epilog Laser were kind enough to knock out right there

I also brought my can crusher and the kids ran some 3 large bags of cans through it for me. We discovered that when mounted horizontally, the crusher can't reliably hit a rectangular trash can sitting directly under it. Turned vertically, it tosses the cans about 12-15 feet giving the kids a challenge to catch them in a bag.

A rudimentary Iron Man exoskeleton which may find application in assisted living facilities was right next to me but somehow I don't seem to have any good pictures. That's it behind the crusher.

There was one drawback to all this. When the nerf dart (2in dia x 12" long) hit the table holding the camel, the bang of the impact on the sounding board of the table immediately attracted every kid within 100 yards to get in line for a shot. As a result I was busy herding cats being range officer from 9 AM to 6 PM at which point I was barely able to remain standing. It also meant I missed seeing some of the exhibitors I really wanted to talk to. The Solid Works rep, for example.

Joe Biden Near Death?

This article on Breitbart News suggests he may not be much longer for this world. My guess would be an accident involving two blasts from his own shotgun in an attempt to foil a botched robbery.

If You Don't Like The Weather...

Just hang in there a bit. Even better here in Colorado we can supply everything on the same day. Possibly at the same time. Remember the lyrics from Sweet Betsy From Pike, presumably Pike county Iowa and not Pikes Peak, Colorado.

Check the weather this morning before letting the dog abuse me through the 'hood. Note not only the "36 but feels like 58, and note also the freeze warning in the yellow band. At least it didn't include a hurricane, flood, and drought warning.

Punkin Chunkin 2018

Held once again in the thin air at the Arapahoe county fairgrounds.

My friend Mike brought his air cannon, Kamakazi  whose best launch was his second of the day on Sunday - 3,970 ft.

He was in the lead until the last two launches of the event. Sonic Gourd came out of the woodwork w/ a distance of 4,209 ft., but was immediately edged out by Big 10 Inch at 4,276 ft., leaving him w/ the 3rd Place trophy.

The JCOS school where I help out was using a rolling arm trebuchet which was pretty much completely new this year due to last years treb being pretty much self destructed on their last shot last year. The old familiar scene of the team assembling the machine for the first time on the firing line played out about like you'd expect with a couple of pieces missing and frantic efforts to fabricate them.

 They got the machine assembled midway through Saturday, and tested it with minimum (180 lb) weights. The arm was supposed to fit between the deck plates about 6 ft off the ground, but the spacing of the deck plates and the width of the verge turned out to be exactly the same at 4 inches which left no room for wobble. Since there is always some wobble, the arm stuck halfway down and slightly damaged the 2 rear deck plates. By Sunday the oversights had been corrected and a first test shot got them 273 feet. This group holds the division record at 498 ft so optimism ran high. By the time they were ready for their second shot, time was running out so it would be the last. They loaded ALL the available weights ( about 1100 lb) onto the machine and let fly for a shot of 407 ft. This might have been enough to win it but the plate attaching the weight bar to the verge tore out of the verge and the verge traveled about 20 ft down range with the pumpkin. Alas this disqualified the shot. The 273 ft shot got them 3rd place. This week I'll be giving a lecture on splice plates, bolt spacing, and fastener count which should hold everything together next year.

The plan for next year is to reassemble the machine about a month before the event and sort out all the weak spots before setting up at the event. EX: dropping 1200 lb requires more than 3 bolts out near the end of the verge to keep the parts together. The bracket was whipped together the day before the event and absolutely NOTHING was actually tested in advance.

Exception: I tested the Microlaminate verge before cutting the taper in it using the E value supplied by the manufacturer (2,000,000). Then I calculated the actual E value based on the deflections I got (1,000,000), then calculated the actual allowable taper we could use. Then added half an inch. That part worked.

 L to R: The SCA brought 4 trebs and assured us that the old ways were best, Acme Catapults used about 20 garage door springs and made some impressive throws, over 2000 ft as I recall, and Pluto, essentially 2 trebs on one arm and about 3000 lb of concrete, turned in its usual impressive performance. Alas I don't have numbers for them.

The centrifugal machine on the far end had some teething problems and was not run. Too bad, they had an aircraft turbine to power it up. So there's my days at the range. How was yours?

QOTD

"Beer is proof that God loves us and want's us to have fun and put Brett Kavanaugh on the US Supreme Court."
                                   Benjamin Franklin

Thank You

A heartfelt thanks is due and goes out to the people who made Justice Kavanaugh possible.

First Sen. Harry Reid who made thenecessary reforms to the filibuster system.

Second to the Democratic Senators who were the face of the Democratic party during the hearings and made it crystal clear who Judge Ks enemies were. After all one can learn about as much about a man from his enemies as one can from his friends.

Thirdly, if any doubt remained, I'd like to add the boys and girls of Antifa for providing the anti-social behavior up to and including the death threats to the congressmen, their spouses, their friends, and their children. We now fully understand that behind the collegiality of the hearings there is an army of kneecappers ready and willing to commit violence against our elected representatives. 

Fourthly the various witnesses provided by the Dems who got up there and forthrightly showed us that there are an unlimited number of the party faithful who are willing to risk charges of perjury, witness tampering, and suborning of perjury and the associated time in the Federal Clink, to take one (or more) for the team. Suggestion: Next time don't use Hollywood horror movie writers to prepare your scripts. They come across as a bit over the top.

Lastly I'd like to thank the Republican Senators who have figured out that standing up to bullies will berewarded at the polls. 

NOTE 1: If you think the Donks have learned anything from this, just wait. If Notorious RBG should shuffle off the mortal coil on Trumps watch, the use of nuclear weapons will not be off the table. Kim Jong-Un could probably sell one to Antifa for delivery in Mexico with shipping up to the customer.

Note 2: If you think Roe v Wade has anything at all to do with this, be advised that the Donks don't really care if you live or die. After all you vote for them either way. Just watch the gun control laws that now come up for review. Armed, mad, taxpayers are the lefts worst nightmare.

Gun Sales

Overall gun sales thru October came in pretty flat with no mass shootings or big political setbacks in the news. I suppose a lot of people are waiting to see how the Kavanaugh nomination fares, and to a lesser extent, the mid-terms.

As of right now, Judge K seems like a pretty secure bet.

Speculation abounds as to what might happen if the GOP loses the House with the latest being Impeachment proceedings beginning Jan 22 next year against the Judge and with that presumed success, a move on the President.

Winning the House would make the attempt possible, but you need super majorities in both houses to make anything stick and it may already be dawning on even the party faithful that the reputation of the Dems is currently on a par with some of the more violent inmates of selected state institutions. OTOH as has been observed, no one ever went broke underestimating the tastes or intelligence of the American public.

For A Good Time

Quit watching the news and pop on over to the Punkin Chunkin event held in the thin air of Aurora CO at the Arapahoe County Fairgrounds. If you happen to be in town, it's on the south side of Quincy Ave, just East of E470 and is well marked. They'll want a few bucks for parking, but that's about it. Look for the Dead Ent, which is my schools entry.

Tomorrow and Sunday, 9 to 4.

Next weekend is the Denver Maker Faire featuring everything from simple crafts to fighting robots, to a full scale B-25 built by trade school students. No, it doesn't fly, but it makes up for that with noise and your kids can climb up and sit in the pilot, bombardiers, or turret gunners seats. Denver stockyards coliseum on the North side of I-70, Saturday and Sunday. Bring kids, they'll love it.

Next Election

OK there are a couple of things on the ballot this year which probably deserve to pass. Initiative 109 promises to do much needed road repair without hitting us with a big tax increase. One can hope.

Items X and Y promise new and improved gerrymandering. They're one of those things where the Stupid party and the Evil party get together to do something that's both evil and stupid which is called bipartisanship. Might help, might not but it seems like it shouldn't make it any worse.

Here's a sticker that should get you through most elections. You should never have to take it off from one election to the next. Click to get the full size, print it out on landscape and tape it to your back window.

Bad Weather

Back in the day when the Russians were industriously attempting to nationalize the agricultural sector, farms were appropriated and tossed into collectives which were managed by bureaucrats favored by the party. To no ones surprise, agricultural production tanked. The blame was promptly placed on capitalist resisters who were summarily shot, but the food shortages continued.

Apparatchiks, anxious to avoid the fate of the Kulaks, began reporting that "bad weather" was responsible, and used this excuse so often that it became widely reported in the U.S. that the Russkies were working on weather modification devices so powerful that they got blamed for any untoward weather in the U.S.

Today it is reluctantly observed that the agricultural disasters were the fault of the bureaucrats put in charge of the farms but the meme is a powerful one, assigning blame to a bogeyman who conveniently cannot be called to testify, put in jail, or shot.

The latest politician to ride this hobby horse is Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York who doesn't want his states economic woes to be laid at his feet in a possible upcoming presidential run. With New York leading the nation* in economic exodus, he is blaming the outflow of refugees on ........ Bad Weather.

Right. Eventually someone is going to figure out that there is nothing happening on Wall St that can't happen just as fast and at half the cost at an address on Pearl St. in Dallas.

*Maybe not first but certainly in the top 5.

Pickups From Down Under

I have been looking over the offerings in the way of small pickups and have discovered that anything much smaller than a Kenworth just doesn't seem to be available in the U.S. Outside the country, however, there's a bunch. In Mexico GM sells the Tornado/Montana whose name varies depending on weather the Montana van in also offered, and Ford has the Bantam/Courier .

Chrysler has the Ram 700, a Fiat Stradabased pickup 

Shown here in long cab configuration, this is a 3-door.

GM has the Tornado, a Chevy Cobalt based unit 

Ford has been selling the Courier,based on the Focus 

for a while now  and the Bantam .

 The Courier may even make the US market eventually.

The Aussies have/had the Ford Falcon ute 

and the Holden which comes in a couple of styling and performance variants 

The long cab version is called the Crewman.

To the best of my knowledge, no cars are currently being produced in Oz right now. Seems the government originally subsidized auto manufacture to the tune of some $3200/unit in order to increase employment, but couldn't keep that big a subsidy going. The subsidies ended and the resultant economics produced no profit margin for anyone. Sucks to run out of other peoples money eh? Aussie cars are currently being built in Thailand.

Nevertheless, you can get a Falcon or a Holden in the U.S. if you don't mind paying a premium for the shipping and the required mods. Left Hand Utes will build you a Ford or a Holden in the $45K and up price range which will be equipped with either a Corvette or Mustang V8. Nice looking cars, real head-turners, and fast as well.

The process starts with getting a nice clean ute in Oz and having the engine and tranny removed. This makes the remainder classified as “parts” rather than a automobile, which the feds would confiscate at the port of entry. The parts arrive in Denver and the remaining odd bits are removed, the headlights, parts of the electrical system, the dashboard and the firewall panel. These are replaced with matching parts from a donor car, either a Mustang or a Pontiac GTO. The finished vehicle is given a US title, using the original VIN number and is ready to go.

Next to a mustang for length comparison.

Standard equipment includes a fiberglass bed cover and everything you'd expect in a performance vehicle.

Amendment 74 To Shut Down All Municipal Governments In Colorado

At least that's the way the opponents are portraying this one. Here's the text:

 “Shall there be an amendment to the Colorado constitution requiring the government to award just compensation to owners of private property when a government law or regulation reduces the fair market value of the property?”  

Sounds like someone cribbed this from the U.S. constitutions 5th amendment. That's fine, but the potential for required compensation from the municipalities to bankrupt the municipal governments is what sells me on this. I suppose their past actions would be grandfathered but a lot of what they do would be brought to a sudden halt.

Pretty much any regulation regulating anything would impact the value of all properties within the reach of the regulation so whatever the City Council does would invite a class action suit from the city residents.

Colorado Dem Platform

The complete platform can be found here. It's pretty predictable, higher taxes, more regulation, opposition to charter schools and gun control.

The gun control stuff is on page 5 and starts right off with a call for a ban on "assault weapons". Note the phraseology here. Almost anything can be a weapon, and adding the word "assault" simply means that the weapon in question is specifically called out either by make and model or by physical description. I other words, anything we don't like, which would be all of them.

And of course, opposition to Citizens United. Seems that when a group of people get together to do something they couldn't otherwise do individually, it's OK if they're paid by Michael Bloomberg, but not OK if they're being paid by the Acme Corporation.

It goes on and on.

Drug Testing Congressmen

And women too of course. In some districts a positive result would probably increase their vote count. In any case one could count on a Republican to withdraw/step down, and a Dem to flaunt the results.

The Definition Of "Common Use"

In an attempt to get Judge Kavanaugh to somehow side with the gun-grabbers, Sen Feinstein went back to one of his dissents that noted that semi automatic rifles are in common use all over the country. Sen Feinstein wanted to know what surveys or studies he used to come to this conclusion and argued that if you're not regularly firing your gun, it's not "in use" and therefore subject to restrictions.

Well, Senator, I might point out that your own constituents use theirs regularly in Pasadena at group dinners, and in Washington at baseball games, and in Florida at night clubs. How much more common can usage get? If she really wanted to reduce crime, she would support legislation to forbid firearms ownership to Democrats and Muslims.

Getting Out The Vote

The city of Golden, CO would seem to be the ideal spot for a one-party government with a large college campus full of 18-21 year old minds, amenable to promises of low cost beer and other free goodies, but it seems the city council has some as yet unannounced plans for which even college students won't go for.

In their defense, the students there at Colorado School of Mines are probably in the top couple of percentage points for brains and even allowing for a lack of experience there are some things they can't be persuaded to vote for. Hence the latest attempt to preempt the adults in town: lowering the voting age to 16. Think what the average 16 year old wants, and at much reduced cost, then think what the city council might suggest they would consider if they will see to it that they survive the voter indignation at having to pay for the white elephants the council really wants.

Of course the real advantage to this is that the average 16 year old is assuredly NOT School of Mines material which would make them even easier to persuade. Imagine a municipal government elected by children on a promise to install a skateboard only lane on Highway 6 up Clear Creek Canyon.

Of course one must take into consideration my own personal position, that being that the voting age should probably be raised to 25 and the franchise withheld from anyone drawing a government paycheck. Yes, I know, I'm on Social Security, but how long do you think it would take to see the SS system revised to individual mandatory IRAs and the geezers allowed to vote until SS is completely phased out? If you're working for the government or on welfare and want to vote, then get a job in the private sector. For the geezers, this is much more difficult, hence the temporary forbearance.

The Importance Of Planning To A Space Program

Some folks at the University of Glasgow are proposing nudging some modest sized (90-100 ft diameter) asteroids into Earth orbit where that would be more conveniently studied and/or mined. This sounds to me like a swell idea and may well be a way to get past any future proposals to declare space to be like the oceans, "a common heritage of mankind". That common heritage crap is why no one is mining the oceans for the nearly unlimited supplies of various minerals to be found there as everyone from the UN to the Bumfarkistan Liberation Front would demand a piece of the action.

Of course there are the usual Luddites tut-tuting that if anything went wrong with this project, the asteroid might well wind up being mineable right here on earth. The solution is easy enough, as the proponents of the project are double-dome boffins who could plot the asteroids path to within a yard or so and thus guarantee that if something did go wrong, the resultant crater would be located somewhere where no real damage would be done. Of course what would likely happen is that the maths would be left to math majors who would assume that the project being Scottish, the weights would be in stone, and the distances in leagues.

Them being Scottish, they'd probably put London at the top of their list.

Who Is Running The Country

It is said that the country is run by a small, rich cadre of people, to which none of us belong. Scott Adams suggests that the big decisions are made by the congress, the small ones are made by the bureaucracy, and everything in between is the realm of Mark Zuckerberg and 3 or 4 of his peers.

Check his reasoning here.

I think that as long as Facebook/Google/Twitter can control the flow of ideas without making it overly obvious, they can probably get away with it. This approach worked for the MSM for years. Once it got to the point where they couldn't get away with it, the deal collapsed.

Give it a listen.

Health Issues - 2c

Cuban sandwiches and beer are back on the menu, and I did 25 miles on the bike today. Slower than usual, and my legs were telling me that I'd been off the bike too long, but not a bad start. My guts are still not working normally, but by now they work well enough.

That club match I talked about in the previous update went reasonably smoothly, I finished 5 of 8 which was lower than I usually do, but better than I expected. Part of that also is attributable to my lack of a decent light for the low light stage that seems to almost always get tossed in. I may have that fixed. 588 lumens makes things mighty bright.

Pedals and Pints is a social group in the Meetup list that sets up bike rides from brew pub to brew pub. Most of the attendees are 30 somethings and most of them can ride much faster than me. It's still fun, and for me a 4 oz beer is plenty with 3 or 4 of them on a ride. There's a ride coming up on the 15th. 4 pubs, and only 5 total miles of riding. At this rate I could probably keep up walking.

Jargon - Controlling The Language

Again with the caterpillar for whom words had whatever meaning he wished them to have. I noticed that the text of Washington initiative 1639 referred throughout to "semiautomatic assault rifles." The upshot of this being that any semi-auto rifle was to be considered an assault weapon, all the way down to your 10-22.

Last I looked, a rifle, might be equipped with a muzzle thingie, handlebars, headlights, tail fins, bottle opener or anything else, but unless it has full auto capabilities, it is decidedly NOT and assault weapon.

Thinking about this for a bit, the next obvious step will be to define new classes of weapons to include the "bolt action assault rifle", the "lever action assault rifle", the "pump action assault weapon", and the "revolving cylinder assault weapon". In fact, it might be advantageous for the pro-gun folks to adopt this nomenclature first to make it as obvious as possible to all that the opposition is making things up as they go along, hoping that no one will notice.

Is not ridicule the best weapon, at least up to the point where the shooting starts?

Scrubbing The Clinton Legacy

Way, way back when, the California legislature decided that if coal MUST be burned in their state, it would have to be as free as possible of any impurities like sulfur. When the law was passed, there was only one source for coal that met California's standards, and that was in Indonesia. The mine was owned by one James Riady who quickly became rich as monopoly coal supplier to California.

A few years later, around 1990, another deposit of the stuff was located, this time conveniently in southern Utah. Before any mining action could begin, an election year reared its ugly head, and Mr. Riady found it expeditious to donate generously to the Clinton campaign. Indirectly of course. President Clinton then decided that a large patch of Southern Utah needed to be designated a national monument, so we got the Grand Staircase National Monument. Within its boundaries, mining activities were forbidden. One presumes the Riadys were grateful.

Forward to today when the Trump administration announces it thinks we have probably more national monument land under the Federal thumb then is really necessary, and cuts a chunk of Grand Staircase loose. Almost immediately a coal company announces it will be opening mining operations in the newly freed up area. No one has specifically said that the mine would be in the Clinton-Riady enclave, but at this point it's the way to bet. No more Indonesian donations to the Clinton Foundation, eh?

Gun Law In The Courts

Massachusetts has a fairly draconian gun law that bans pretty much all center fire semi-auto rifles. A Colorado think tank has weighed in with a judge who recently upheld the law saying:

In his April ruling, however, U.S. District Judge William Young in Boston said popularity doesn’t matter.

[T]he AR-15’s present-day popularity is not constitutionally material,” he wrote in his ruling. “This is because the words of our Constitution are not mutable. They mean the same today as they did 227 years ago when the Second Amendment was adopted.”

 One of the recent SCOTUS decisions held that the 2A covered the keeping and bearing of any weapon "in common use" and was not limited to flintlocks. The AR pattern rifle being currently the most popular rifle in the country at the moment, it would seem to be covered.

OTOH, if as the judge says, "the words of our constitution are not mutable" then let's go back to the original document where it says "shall not be infringed." It seems like a good starting point.

Tariffs On Compact Trucks

The Europeans have announced that they're willing to negotiate on vehicle tariffs with Trump, proposing a zero-for-zero tariff rate an motor vehicles. This sounds great and makes perfect sense, but how did we get there?

The 25% tariff on light trucks was imposed in retaliation for a European tariff on U.S. frozen chickens. Euros don't buy pickups like we do but Ford builds the Ranger in Germany, hence no Rangers in the U.S. Because we can sell Hans or Pierre a frozen chicken for less than Fritz can, shipping included. The American consumers and the European auto makers lost, but the European chicken farmers won, which should tell you where the votes and money are although I have a hard time seeing this.

The Best Gun?

It's the one you've got in your hand when you find you really need it. There are differences of course, and the study below goes into several of them. It also makes some questionable assumptions about the circumstances under which you anticipate using your gun, but just keep your own likely situation in mind as you watch this:

Found at hellinahandbasket.

Local Politics

Jarid Polis continues to try to buy the Colorado Governorship with tepid endorsements all around. Here's my contribution:

It appeals to his base, and pretty much sums up the candidate in one sticker.

Fiddly difference, same message. As usual, print out on landscape paper, tape into back window, remove post election.

Privatizing Tyranny

Of late the left has come up with new and improved ways of getting their agenda enacted, this time without having to bother with a troublesome legislature. The very latest is anti-gun Gov. Cuomo's effort to cripple the NRA by threatening any bank or insurance company that does business with them with delisting or at least crippling in the large New York market. Here he gets around any prohibitions against interfering with interstate commerce by simply threatening a long and expensive deluge of red tape. In the end I suspect he would lose, but getting from here to there would take six to 10 years and cost a fortune.

Shopify has announced that it will no longer support sales of anything gun related, and defines this using the boilerplate Bloomberg definitions pushed by the most restrictive states.

Twitter and Facebook are busily suppressing all the conservative messages they can find conveniently just before the elections so that any legal efforts to make them honor the first amendment probably won't get a hearing before the 2020 elections. Their argument is that as private businesses they can do as they please, which reminds me of the signs I used to see in businesses in the '50s stating "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone." which was weasel-speak for "We don't serve blacks here."

My bullet and reloading stuff supplier, Rocky Mountain Reloading, was recently hit with a notice that their brass and lead component business was outside the realm of what their financial services supplier wanted to serve and that they had zero time to go somewhere else. This involved ginning up a new website as well.

You may be asking yourself why we would be switching to a new website when we just barely launched the one we had back in December. Well, we are free to finally make this announcement. We were one of the gun related companies that was targeted for destruction through elimination of our credit card processor. Luckily we had the foresight, knowing that it could become an issue, to put it in writing that they would not ever drop us because of our involvement in the firearm industry. Even so, we were issued a termination letter with threats to hold our deposits for up to six months. At the time we had over $40k in deposits for them to hold. We wouldn't have been able to pay our bills and we have been in a very bad position. Anyway, we contacted a lawyer and informed them that we were doing so and we were able to get them to allow us a window for finding a new credit card processor. That in-and-of-itself would be no big deal but the current website provider only had Paypal and our processor as payment options. Neither of which would allow bullet or casing sales. Again all this because the financial wonks have caved to the leftists and can use the "we're a private business and can refuse service to anyone." argument. If you reload, check them out. Good product, good prices. My own bank, Bank of the West has been overtaken by the PC movement as well. When I first started there it was a local operation and very friendly. They're still friendly enough but they've changed hands several times and the current parent company doesn't want to have anything to do with the tobacco, energy, or firearms businesses. The energy industry supplies a lot of jobs here in Colorado and I like it when people have jobs. They tend to vote Republican in order to help them keep more of their hard earned money. I'll be reluctantly be looking for a new bank then. So we see, more and more, the infringements on our rights are coming less directly from the government, which wouldn't be allowed to do that anyway, and more from private industry which depends on licenses and approvals from governments to exist. Tyranny by proxy, neatly privatized and all legal. Expect a lot more of this if no one figures out how to stop it. By way of stopping it, I'm told that if Twitter and Facebook were to be declared to be "common carriers" they would have to accept anyone and anything at all. Shades of the good old days. This would require legislation however, and requiring those two to allow free speech would open any politician supporting such an idea to charges of supporting Nazis and pedos from people who like having their opposition silenced.