Greek Bailout

This could be, in the longer run, fairly amusing to watch. The Germans can take a page from the Obama TARP book, and when the Greeks have trouble paying off the big bailout (you think they won't?), the Greek Prime Minister may find a couple of VERY influential advisers on his cabinet, just like G.M.

Of course it's also worth noting that the German loan is being backed by the U.S. which currently finds itself awash in money. While the Greeks may get foreclosed on by the Germans, Mrs. Merkel may find she has some new advisers in her cabinet, fresh from Chicago, but unfortunately not from the famous university. Take their advice, and avoid the concrete overshoes at the bottom of the Rhine.

One badly timed and placed bankruptcy, and the Chicago mob winds up owning Europe!

Mullah Omar Captured?

Brietbart is reporting that his sooper seekrit sources in Pakistan and Afghanistan are reporting that Mullah Omar, the number 2 man in the Taliban, has been captured and has been in Pakistani custody for over 10 days now.

News from that part of the world is no more reliable than news from AP or Reuters around here, but the part about his being quietly held incommunicado has a certain ring of truth. If news got out before he was properly secured in an undisclosed location, preferably in another dimension, there would likely be riotous repercussions in Pakistan.

So put a cold one in the fridge, and wait for video of either his head on a stick, or him walking out of a New York court building, free on a technicality.

Gun Control, Chicago Style

Chicago has some of the most draconian gun laws in the country. Coincidentally, they are also #2 in the country for murder. The Washington Times has noticed this, along with the pols in Chicago whining to the Governor for the National Guard.

So far this year, fewer U.S. citizens were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan combined, than in Chicago. In all fairness, U.S. citizens in the middle east wear body armor and carry a rifle when they go out, which helps. One could also note that Baghdad or Kabul probably constitute a rougher neighborhood than even the South side of Chicago. Still...

That means it is up to the Supreme Court to restore to Chicagoans their fundamental right to self-defense. In the pending case of McDonald v. Chicago, a number of residents are asking the high court to apply the reasoning it used to strike down Washington's gun ban. It is worth noting that a year after the landmark District of Columbia v. Heller ruling, Washington's murder rate dropped 25 percent - without resorting to using the National Guard.

Encouraging personal ownership of guns is the only proven solution to Chicago's crime problem.

Last time I looked, D.C. has edged out Chicago and Detroit for the title of "Murder Capitol of the U.S.", so the situation in D.C. is markedly improved, and this with the D.C. council dragging its feet on allowing new gun registrations. Criminals may be making some poor career choices, but they're better at math then the Chicago city council. A 5% chance of doing time in the county lockup may not be much of a deterrent, but a 5% chance of doing time in the county morgue gets their attention.

BTW: If you click to the article, the fellow in the picture is doing what gunnies call a New York Reload, in which an empty weapon is discarded in favor of another one.

Kinetics Is Coming Back!

A long time tradition around here, the Kinetics, is coming back after a couple of years of absence. Here's a photomontage with music.

For those of you who have never seen this, it involves teams of crazies and engineering undergrads (but I repeat myself) building a human-powered vehicle to move on land and across water. Points are awarded for style and performance.

Since some of these vehicles get their first shakedown run at the start line, one of my favorite awards is the Titanic trophy for the best sinking at the start line.

Tentative date this year is August 28th, so there's still time to get building your human-powered hovercraft. The venue will be Union Reservoir, in Longmont, just up the road from the old venue.
One of these two babies will provide the motivation at the start. Participants have until I can reload to get out of range, so speed will be at a premium.

Oh snap! I'm told I can't do that.

Never fear, there will be at least an earth-shattering Ka-Boom.

Gun Technology

Here's a clever device that claims to bring both the front sight and the target, way out there, into focus, if not magnification. Looks like a useful gadget.

I volunteer to test one.

The name, MicroSight, is in current use with several other makers on several other devices.

Deportation, The Numbers

Foreign Policy has a short piece asking the age-old question: If all the illegal immigrants in this country were to be deported at once, how many buses would it take?

They posit the use of 60 passenger buses, and conclude that some 200,000 would be required. To which I say nonsense.

Recently I saw a clip of a police helicopter video tracking an 11 passenger van as it rolled through the suburbs. Eventually it ran a stop sign, side-swiped another car, veered into the ditch, and turned over on its side. In moments the doors popped open, and, by my count, some 25 people climbed out, and ran away. Since they were not wearing fright wigs or large shoes, let's assume they were illegals.

Given this demonstrated ability to pack them selves in, the 60 passenger bus now holds some 135, and the number required drops to 88,000, saving the taxpayer big bucks, but why stop there?

The larger school buses are rated for up to 80 students, which translates into 182 deportees per bus. To move 12 million requires only 65,934. An enterprising person would be able to low-ball his bid, beat out Greyhound, and still make a nice profit.

Inflation

The government insists it's not happening, so for the benefit of anyone who graduated from a public high school in the last 10 years or so, here's this:

Americans saw prices rise two percent in the year to March according to the Commerce Department's personal consumption expenditures index published on Monday.

Now 2% is a modest inflation rate, but this is the shrinkage in your wallet for one month only. For a projection of the annual inflation rate, multiply this by the number of months in a year.

24%!!!

Holy Guacamole! that's a rate usually reserved for the most poorly managed banana republics. Sounds excessive? Sure. The government has been touting 3% annual for years.
The trick is to report the rate thusly:

"Excluding the highly volatile food, clothing, and shelter components, last months inflation was a modest 1.1%." Or words to that effect.

Except I don't know anyone who doesn't buy food, clothing, and shelter, which includes energy costs. You have to dig a bit to get the rest of the story:

Energy and food costs rose 18.7 percent against March 2009, up almost four percentage points compared with February.

So last years number was right up there, no?

Wikipedia defines the Consumer Price Index, which is a prime component for calculating the inflation rate, as the average of price times weight:

The prices of 95,000 items from 22,000 stores, and 35,000 rental units are added together and averaged. They are weighted this way: Housing: 41.4%, Food and Beverage: 17.4%, Transport: 17.0%, Medical Care: 6.9%, Other: 6.9%, Apparel: 6.0%, Entertainment: 4.4%. Taxes (43%) are not included in CPI computation.

Good thing taxes aren't included, eh?

Quote Of The Year

And to think, Vexxarr has only been serving as galactic fish in the barrel for five years.
I came to the same conclusion years ago. Here's the full-sized image.

Puerto Rico Statehood

There is a movement afoot to make P.R. a state. Notice the wording here, make. Normally the U.S. does not annex territories into itself, but waits until the territory requests to join the union. OTOH, the U.S. is doing a lot of things it doesn't normally do.

The Puerto Ricans have had statehood referendums in the past, and have rejected them, usually by reasonable margins. The reason for this is that P.R. enjoys many of the benefits, such as trade and welfare benefits, that states enjoy, but is free of a lot of federal meddling in the local affairs. Thus when the question is "Shall Puerto Rico petition for statehood?" the answer has always been "no".

The technique to be used this time is the sort of thing the Corlione family would love, and works like this. First the Puerto Ricians will be offered a choice. Shall our status regarding the U.S. remain the same, or shall we pursue something else? Phrased like this, the "something else" option has a great chance of passing. Should the "something else" option pass, another referendum will be presented, with only two options: Statehood or independence. An offer of statehood you can't easily refuse.

The administration fully expects that the six new Representatives and 2 new Senators will all have D's after their names, although with its current track record, that could turn out different.

New Record

A British sniper has set a new record for the long shot by bagging not one, but two Talibani at a distance of 8,120 ft, just over 1-1/2 miles. The two were servicing a belt-fed machine gun in an attack on Brit soldiers at the time.

Harrison killed one machine gunner with his first attempt and felled the other with his next shot. He then let off a final round to knock the enemy weapon out of action.

Destroying their weapon at that distance is really rubbing their noses in it. The rifle manufacturer says that at that distance, luck begins to be a large factor, but hey, if you're on a roll...

Bowling Pins

Not only did I enjoy great success hunting the wily wild bowling pins, I actually won the match.

Still life fruit with bullet-riddled bowling pin.

The wife says I can keep the traveling trophy at least until next month when I'm under some sort of veiled threat to throw the next match, if necessary. I think it looks great over the fireplace.

I attribute my success to the use of a revolver, as Caleb recommends, and a stance that involves bending backwards. Say what you will, it puts my C.G. over my feet while holding a heavy gun out at arms length. I've seen pictures of myself doing this. It looks awful.

Brought the Hi Point 4095 along too. Several people tried it, and all seemed to like it. To date, zero jams or misfeeds. The biggest guys felt the stock was too short, so if you're over 6'4", you might want to add a butt extension. Consensus of opinion is that if the iron sights art to be replaced, a 1-4x scout scope with a wide aperture would be the top choice.

Gun Fun

Hunting the wily wild bowling pin tomorrow.

30 overnight, 53 for a high. We've had warmer days than this in January.

Civil Collapse

PDB has a post in which he suggests that a reduction in police services may be an early symptom of impending civil collapse.
Over here, is a piece in which a judge in Ohio suggests that the citizenry arm themselves in the face of police budget cuts and layoffs.

I'm not seeing an impending collapse of civilization as we know it. Both these examples suggest that the people are capable of sorting out a certain amount of kerfufflery on their own, which is the basis for a working libertarian society. What I think I'm seeing is an increasingly incompetent government providing less and less of the basic services a government should provide, and paying themselves more and more to do less and less.

To me this looks like an impending regime change.

What bothers me is that the left believes, down to the bottoms of their hearts, that the government can and should take care of everything, the Republicans, while giving lip service to the notion of limited government, won't do anything to roll it back. In their heyday, the Whigs policy was to repeal anything they could on the premise that laws passed by the opposition were intrusive, expensive, and not actually needed. Their laissez faire attitude toward everything except government eventually proved their downfall as they were unable to take a position on slavery, and vanished as a political force in the 1850s.

Today I find their active hostility toward government intervention to be more and more attractive.

More Postal Match Fun

Those folks in Tennessee have had some good matches so far with interesting targets. This time it was one in honor of tax day:
Since this was designated as a tax form to be completed with a pistol, the rules were appropriately confusing.

First and foremost: You MUST "sign" your form. This is done by hitting the IRS logo on the lower left. You have no idea how frustrating it is to put a 5-hole "smiley" under that logo, without hitting anything else.
Next, use your remaining 9 rounds (you got it first shot, right?) to hit the coinage. There are 5 $1 coins, and 4 quarters, so your maximum "refund" would be $6.

Note the .05 and .10 Euro coins. The IRS won't accept foreign currency, so if you hit those, it counts off your score. Each coin counts only once. Good luck.

Results should be posted at the link sometime next week.

Hidden Agenda

Now why didn't we think of that?
Oh yes, Colorado is, for the moment, a blue state.