Bike to Work

Posting has been light lately on account of the new job. The new job is fun, fast-paced, and close by. So close, in fact, that it's possible for me to get there on my bicycle. This, alone, is worth $140/month over the last job against driving the truck, or half that in the summer, versus riding the motorcycle. It's a nice ride, about half on a trail, and the other half busting stop signs and red lights like Lance Armstrong on crack.

The health benefits are good, too. I'm told that a bit of regular exercise improves ones thinking processes, and will reduce the recovery time one spends in the hospital after being run down by an irate car driver after busting a stop sign or red light.

Forget the red light part. In Littleton, the lights are so screwed up that it's worth it to take a slightly longer route rather then get stuck waiting for the things to eventually change, so my route no longer includes any light-controlled intersections.

I ride a recumbent, so avoiding traffic is probably a good idea anyway.

Friday Humor

Because it's Friday, I've shamelessly stolen this from someone else, who stole it from someone else without attribution, too.

MENTAL HOSPITAL PHONE MENU

Hello and thank you for calling The State Mental Hospital

Please select from the following options menu:

If you are obsessive-compulsive, press 1 repeatedly.

If you are co-dependent, please ask someone to press 2 for you.

If you have multiple personalities, press 3, 4, 5 and 6.

If you are paranoid, we know who you are and what you want, stay on the line so we can trace your call.

If you are delusional, press 7 and your call will be forwarded to the Mother Ship.

If you are schizophrenic, listen carefully and a little voice will tell you which number to press.

If you are manic-depressive, it doesn't matter which number you press, nothing will make you happy anyway.

If you are dyslexic, press 9696969696969696.

If you are bipolar, please leave a message after the beep or before the beep or after the beep. Please wait for the beep.

If you have short-term memory loss, press 9. If you have short-term memory loss, press 9. If you have short-term memory loss, press 9.

If you have low self-esteem, please hang up; our operators are too busy to talk with you.

If you are menopausal, put the gun down, hang up, turn on the fan, lie down and cry. You won't be crazy forever.

If you are blonde, don't press any buttons, you'll just mess it up.

This coming week is National Mental Health Care week.

You can do your part by referring this post at least one unstable person to show you care.

Smart Cars

I was chatting with a salesman today, who passed on this bit of automotive trivia: It seems that he was in Germany on business, and motoring down the autobahn at about 160kph (100 mph) in a BMW when he saw headlights flashing in his mirror. Being a courteous driver, he moved over to let the faster car pass. He described it as a turbo version of the smart car, and estimated it was doing about 200kph (125 mph).

He probably was not getting 60 MPG at the time.

Light-hearted Humor

Here's a quiz for you: What Kind of a Western Bad-Ass are You?

You scored as a Clint Eastwood

Names aren't important as you dish out steaming bowls of piping hot brutality to your enemies. You also enjoy a good spaghetti dinner once in a while.

Clint Eastwood 100% Lee Marvin 75% John Wayne 63% Lee Van Cleef 50% Charles Bronson 50%

And I like his hat, too.

Ding Dong, the Wicked Witch…

May not actually be dead, but AP and others are reporting that the Big O has the delegates to take the nomination. I’m half expecting a report later this evening that Hillary, after securing herself in her underground bunker, and sending out orders to her campaign staff to “kill all the chickens”*, has offed herself and ordered her body burned so as to prevent it falling into the enemies hands.

Of course there’s always the chance that Obama might offer her the #2 spot on the ticket. I’m thinking she’d take it, but even Obama knows that if he won the election on such a ticket he would be unable to buy life insurance anywhere in the US.

Why does this all remind me of South Park.

The news is also reporting that Obama is now reaching out to the Clinton folks. As long as he pre-screens the speeches and carefully removes any references to “crackers”, I suppose.

One of the things that sticks in my mind from the last several presidential elections, is that it seemed that at least one, and sometimes both parties did not actually want to win the election, seeing bad times and unpopular decisions ahead. This seems like one of those years, writ really large, with both parties stuck with only marginally popular candidates. I have voted for candidates before, not really liking them, but because I felt they would do me less damage than their opposite numbers. This year looks like a choice between “Death or Zub-zub”.

( In the joke, Zub-zub is a long, drawn out, humiliating and painful near-death experience, and death seems like a definite improvement until you find out that it is preceded by Zub-zub.)

*Look it up.

.

Civics test

This is a civics literacy test, it is only a test.....

You answered 50 out of 60 correctly — 83.33 %

Average score for this quiz during May: 73.4%
Average score since September 18, 2007: 73.4%

Some of the questions are pretty esoteric. I guess I should have read more of the heavy philosophers so I could understand the real, underlying reasons for shooting at revenuers.

Gun Goodness

Based on the results from the last club match, and the last postal match, I'm a bit off my pace, and in need of more range time.

Mmmmm range time.

The next postal match is up at Sebastians, and what do you know, it's something I've done before: NRA Silhouette. He's even added a masochists class for you folks who believe in leaving no target unshot, no matter what it takes.
1.Bring lots of ammo for this one.
2. You will be expected to count ALL the holes.

For me, this would be easy since by the time I hit every single target, there would be only one large ragged hole in the paper.

Sex in the City

Whilst hanging about with my homies at the range today, we put our collective heads together and figured out how to get husbands and S.O.s to take their ladies to the otherwise too-chic(k)-to-be-seen-at woofer of a flick: Place it at multiplexes, and insure that the theater across the hall is showing a Best of Benny Hill compilation. Going to a movie together doesn't necessarily mean sitting together, now does it?

Cap and Trade, or Rationing Fire

John McCain has proposed a “Cap and Trade” scheme to help save the world from Global warming (see post below). Let me try to explain in simple terms that even I can understand, just what this means.

First, there’s carbon, in the form of carbon dioxide. When Mr. McCain proposes limiting carbon emissions, you bet he isn’t talking about the black solid stuff. That’s called coal, and is used for fuel in a process called combustion, or if you are a simple rock-banger like me: fire. Now there are two types of fire, the traditional type used for cooking or transportation, and the lower-level, but no less important kind called metabolism, without which you become a candidate for use of the first kind, which changes your status from “member of society” to “food”.

“Cap and Trade” refers primarily to the first kind. You burn carbon (mostly) and in return you get cooked food, transportation, and a warm place to sleep. So far, so good. Under the proposed scheme, everybody will be given a ration card (allocation) for an arbitrary amount of fire (permission to burn carbon). Some will need more than their allocation, and some will need less. Maybe you agree with Pope Al that the world is getting warmer, and decide to drive to Jellystone park for a summer vacation, betting that winter will be warm, and you won’t need permission to burn extra carbon to heat your house in December. If you’re wrong, and you have some money, you can buy permission to burn carbon from someone who doesn’t need as much heat or transport as you, say the Cuban government. Of course if you don’t have money, you may have to sit out the snowfall wrapped in blankets at home. Remember, any powered transport at all requires a ration card to use. Hope you live close to work.

Speaking of work, note that businesses are also included in this plan. In fact, they’re the primary targets of it. Imagine that the company you work at, say Acme Widgett, needs to produce 4 million widgets a year to cover their expenses, including, but not limited to, your paycheck. Now, imagine that the amount of fire allocated to them by the Dept of Fire, falls a bit short of what’s actually needed to produce those widgets. First off, nobody gets a raise next year, as the money is necessary to buy more fire rations. Second, some of the employees will be let go, for the same reason. Third, unpaid overtime will be required, and lastly, the factory will be relocated to some place where all you have to pay for is the energy, and not some damnfool permission slip to actually use it. Places like this are, universally, in another country, and you can bet they won’t pay to relocate you there, even if you actually wanted to go.

So Cap and Trade is actually an all-encompassing tax on fire in pretty much any and all forms, coupled with an arbitrary, and decreasing limit on how much can be used for any purpose, independent of population shifts or anything else.

Imagine a utopian future in which Winter is cold, Summer is hot, shelter is a cave, and food is killed with a pointy stick and eaten raw, as nature intended.

Global Warming

I love a good hoax. Properly executed, they provide entertainment by causing some folks to behave irrationally to the amusement of others. The scale is only limited by the means of communication for the thing. One of the largest was H.G.Wells radio broadcast of War of the Worlds. My own personal favorite in recent history was the “Bananas-as-a-hallucinogen” hoax of the late 60s. Think of them as the practical jokes of the mind.

They can be abused, however, and when this happens, they transform from a relatively harmless hoax to an outright fraud, the difference being that a fraud is perpetrated to separate someone from their life, liberty, or property, and is a crime in most societies.

Historic frauds include various end-of-the-world scams involving perps predicting the imminent demise of everybody, and promising salvation, or something, to anyone who would turn over their soon-to-be-worthless worldly goods to them. Several of these turned out not too badly when the instigators, apparently believing their own prophecies, neglected to leave town in a timely manner with the most portable of the worldly goods, and were treated to their very own apocalypse by their former devotees.

I am NOT advocating that anyone set out to make their living by becoming a professional grafter, but if you must, the best way to run one of these is to describe some vaguely defined, but definitely bad outcome that can only be forestalled by a modest, but regular sacrifice. Money, for example. An example of this is the ongoing NPR fund drive, without which, NPR would have to rely exclusively on taxpayer funding. Donate, they say, or else we’ll be shut down. Unlikely, I say.

The best scam yet, millennial division, has to be Global Warming. For this, you pick a phenomenon that’s been going on since the rocks cooled, and inform people that unless they sacrifice mightily, the phenomenon will …. keep on happening, but you won’t like it. The threat is so nebulous that anything at all can be used to “prove” it, and the consequences so awful (Canadian wine, Manhattan populated by gondolas) that no tax is too high, no regulation too onerous, and no bureaucracy too useless if it forestall the coming doom.

Here is a list of things that will happen, or might have already happened, as a result of global warming. For myself, I suppose I can tolerate the beer shortage . I’ll drink rum and suffer.

H.T. to my friend Robert for the disaster list.

Blow Up The World

This is the RSVP page/post. RSVP in the comments.
Below is the map, note location in upper right-hand corner.


Google Maps address is 35550 E. 144th Ave, Hudson, CO.

The Republican Party

There has been a good deal of discussion lately on what, exactly ails the Republican party. At the end of the day, it has too be a wholesale abandonment of first principles. Last year, while chatting with a friend, i blamed this on the Dems sudden apparent lurch to the left, exiling Lieberman and all that. As nature abhors a vacuum, the leftward shift of the Dems set off a leftward shift in the Republicans, seeking to cover the abandoned center-left ground.

My position is that socialism-lite is like smoking lite cigarettes: doesn't taste as bad, but in the end, you're just as dead.

The republicans were quite successful with the "Contract with America" concept which laid out basic principles, and required signatory candidates to at least promise to abide by them. Good idea then, good idea now. The Republicans should produce a very basic document outlining very basic principles, (KISS principle) stating that the undersigned candidates will abide by them.

They need to make sure this document is widely circulated and as time passes, make REAL sure the signatories stick with the contract.

Signatories would call themselves the Contract Coalition, which can, in time, morph into a real party in and of itself.

Vote CC.
Get what you pay for.

Possible line items for this document would be:
1. Less government. There are lots of things the government has no business doing.
2. Lower taxes. If the government isn't trying to mind everybody's business, it doesn't need the money it collects to do this.
3. Pay closer attention to legitimate obligations. do cost-benefit studies before spending Brazillions on stadiums or toy train sets.
4a. Border security. At the local level, requiring proof of citizenship and e-verification of SSN goes a long ways toward discouraging illegal immigration. If you know in advance that there's no jobs and no government dole here if you're illegal, it really reduces the incentive to come here in the first place.

At the Federal level, national defense and free trade become important issues. An awful lot of other stuff is at best, fluff, at worst, pork.

4b Border security. Same as 4a, but includes actually securing the border.

5. Tort reform. Several states have accomplished this on their own. Needs to be done at the Federal level. Won't happen at all until the lawyers' lackeys are run out of town.

Other items could certainly be added, but I think the list should profitably be kept to 5 major items at either the local or Federal level.


On a slightly different note, Boris Johnson, in his campaign for Mayor of London, lampooned his opponent, "Red" Ken Livingstone's extravagant, if baseless promises by facetiously promising that, if elected, every mans wife would have bigger breasts, and there would be a BMW Z3 in every garage. Boris is a conservative while "Red" Ken didn't get the tag for his hair color.

Boris, now that I think about it, was probably to an extent, justified in making such a promise.
Elect a conservative and he will stop the job-killing, tax-hiking BS the left proposes, and your job won't need to be outsourced, you'll keep more of your paycheck, and you'll be able to afford cosmetic surgery and a new sports car (YMMV). It's your money, after all.

Polar Bear Endangered

The DOI has declared the polar bear an endangered species, so if you find one rooting through your trash, don't shoot it. Go out and give it a big hug.

Political humor

British scientists got the go-ahead today to begin producing human-animal hybrids.

Ted Kennedy is having all his female staffers donate cells to be sent over and mixed with fish DNA in hopes of producing a campaign aide who can breathe under water.

Ba-dump, ching!

CZ vz82 vs. Rossi .357

Just finished a postal match over at Armes et tir passion, using both my regular 6" Rossi .357 and my new (to me) CZ 82. The results rather surprised me. The Rossi is a known quantity, and I've been shooting it in informal competitions for several years now. The CZ is my first centerfire semiauto and I'm still getting used to it.


Disregarding the flier on the center target, the Rossi delivered an average score of 7.75/shot, while the 4" CZ on the left, delivers 8.4.

The second target is a single bowling pin image. Bullseye is the triangle on the bottom half of the pin.
At the rather modest distances I was shooting at, the point of aim for the Rossi was about 1/2" above the bottom center of the pin, and for the CZ it was the lower RH corner of the dark stripe around the pin neck. The Rossi delivered a 2.75" group, and the CZ came in at 3.4".




















All things considered, including the fact that this was not one of my better days at the range, the little CZ is proving to be quite good.

NOTE: In case you're not familiar with pin shooting, a real pin shoot features real pins on a table with some depth to it, so that if you don't get a good square hit, the pin falls over and rolls to a position that presents the smallest possible area and worst angle to the shooter, and your time runs until you clear the table. I would not recommend the CZ for pin shooting as it's a bit underpowered for this kind of work, but for paper pins, it works fine.