WeckUpToThees!

readings

2012-02-13T17:28:00.002-07:00

Just finished: The American Revolution by Wood.

Now reading: Goldberg's Liberal Fascism.

Next up: either Strauss's Emergency, or Baze's The Road Home.

not bad

2012-02-04T20:39:00.002-07:00

Ordinarily I don't watch any TV sports. However, there's a pretty good film on ESPN Classic about steroids, bodybuilding, and the Law.

Bigger, Stronger, Faster.

Buying American

2012-01-15T13:37:00.002-07:00

Am recently on a jag to buy American more often. Seems to me that I'd rather spend $100 to hire an American to repair an older chainsaw, than $100 to buy a new chainsaw made elsewhere. The $100 spent in town on American labor to fix an older piece is likely to stay in town.

QFTD

2011-11-21T22:18:00.000-07:00

The first generation of kids who grew up using hand sanitizer every 30 seconds and everyone gets a trophy is currently Occupying Whatever.

Says Uncle

If you can't protect it, don't collect it

2011-11-21T20:59:00.002-07:00

Chez Fûz just received two identical letters from a company that does IT work for TriCare. One addressed to Her and one addressed to Him.

We are sorry to inform you that a backup tape of many healthcare transactions, while being transported by one of our employees, was stolen from the employee's vehicle. This tape includes sosh-scurty numbers, addresses, names, and piles of other information prone to compromise. Your information may be among those records lost, we aren't sure. Because we feel so very very very very very sorry, we're telling you about it more than 2 months after our employee notified us of the theft, and encouraging you to monitor your credit reports very carefully for the foreseeable future, in case the guy who went to such extraordinary effort to steal this data tries to use it.

And by the way, we have arranged for a fourth party company to watch your credit reports for you, for free, for one year. All you have to do is send them your sosh-scurty number, name, address, and much of the other data that we already have, but have allowed to become stolen. Just fill out the attached form and put it in the postage-paid envelope.

If I were the guy reading this letter, my first thought would be that this is a mother-schtupping phish. Sainted wife will call TriCare tomorrow to rule that out.

My next thought would be, DOD cannot transition from the SSN to a randomly-assigned service number fast enough. As the DOD's successes, failures, and lessons-learned accumulate, the rest of the Fed Gov should be compelled to follow suit.

The next thought after that would be, let's adjust all future contracts between DOD and TriCare to require them and their subcontractors to apply the same risk management practices over these records that GIs are required to use when they plan anything more dangerous than the company picnic. Make them liable for costs plus penalties for the abuse of the lost data. The dollar signs will probably tell them that they should catalog and encrypt every backup volume that ever leaves their data center, and use a courier service to transport those volumes.

Then let's require TriCare and their subcontractors to identify the clients whose records were on the lost volume, and notify only those clients. Within 48 hours of the loss.

And I was the guy reading that letter. How many thousands of other letters just like it have been read tonight?

Nervous reflex

2011-11-21T20:51:00.004-07:00

Congress punts the spending-reduction deal. All of Europe, not just the PIIGS, at risk of collapse. I missed National Ammo Day. Bennetton pulls its ad with the photo of the Pope and the imam swapping spit. My knee-jerk reaction?

I ordered more shelf-stable stuff from Honeyville Grain, and am adjusting the shopping list for Sam's Club. Buying in bulk.

third-world visual impression in DFW

2011-11-15T19:07:00.004-07:00

Passing through a major airport this weekend, my eyes fell on a wall-sized ad for Christmas toys. Except for the name of the retailer, there were no other English characters, just pictures of the toys, each with its QR thingy beside it. It made me feel like I was back in Barrigada, or Bizerte. Don't people here read English, dammit? Well, uh, no they don't.

C33 at DFW, BTW.

higher education bubble visible to the military

2011-11-15T18:53:00.003-07:00

One of the biggest pushers of higher education is the United States military. They encourage it among their enlisted, they require it of their officers, and Congress lets them craft myriad ways to shower money on it. I myself am a shameless beneficiary in my own modest way.

This week, for the first time, I heard an education counselor for the military admit that there are perhaps too many Masters degrees in circulation. "How would your life be any different if there were fewer" higher-degree holders, he asked. It wouldn't, he answered for us. Then, "how would your life be different if there were fewer engine mechanics, chefs, or plumbers?" Insert vague reference to Occupy Wall Street encampments here.

He was hinting that fields needing advanced degrees are saturated with graduates, and reminding his audience that GI bill education benefits also are eligible for the trades. The benefits taper off quickly over time in such apprenticeships, because the GIs receiving them are drawing steadily increasing pay.

Makes me want to drop out, again, and go to gunsmithing school.

CCW bleg

2011-11-15T18:52:00.001-07:00

Anybody fly through Dulles with checked pistol recently?

IAD is supposedly on D.C. soil.

It has arrived

2011-11-07T16:42:00.002-07:00

It has arrived.

Update: We didn't make it while it was playing in theaters. Sainted wife and I watched it, and I was delighted with how it was done. Wife at once dug out my 32-year-old paperback copy and started in on it.

an addition to the if-wishes-were-horses wish list

2011-09-16T21:10:00.002-06:00

I'd like to see R. Lee Ermey do I Like to Move It as a jody call. Lyrics should be adjusted to suit the messenger.

Friedrich Hayek on the Military Decision Making Process

2011-09-16T20:42:00.004-06:00

Compare this:

The peculiar character of the problem of a rational economic order is determined precisely by the fact that the knowledge of the circumstances of which we must make use never exists in concentrated or integrated form but solely as the dispersed bits of incomplete and frequently contradictory knowledge which all the separate individuals possess.

. . . in any society in which many people collaborate, this planning, whoever does it, will in some measure have to be based on knowledge which, in the first instance, is not given to the planner but to somebody else, which somehow will have to be conveyed to the planner. The various ways in which the knowledge on which people base their plans is communicated to them is the crucial problem for any theory explaining the economic process, and the problem of what is the best way of utilizing knowledge initially dispersed among all the people is at least one of the main problems of economic policy—or of designing an efficient economic system.

to this:

The peculiar character of the problem of battle command is determined precisely by the fact that the knowledge of the circumstances of which that command operates does not spring into being in a concentrated or integrated form but solely as the dispersed bits of incomplete and frequently contradictory knowledge which all the various members of the command's staff possess, and must consciously concentrate and integrate under the command's leadership.

. . . in any military organization . . . planning . . . will in some measure have to be based on knowledge which, in the first instance, is not given to the planner but to somebody else, which somehow will have to be conveyed to the planner. The various ways in which the knowledge on which a battle staff bases its plans is gathered is the crucial problem for any theory explaining the staff process-—thus the main problem of designing a coherent operation.

Such problems, consequences of how information is distributed among line units and staff agencies, appear even in very small organizations.

bugger

2011-09-03T16:18:00.001-06:00

it appears that blogrolling is tango uniform now too. What next?

for a friend and valued reader

2011-08-23T20:20:00.002-06:00

Cancer strikes another person near me. Please visit TheFatGuy, find the tipjar, and donate.

how high definition television has made my life worse

2011-08-23T19:57:00.003-06:00

Watching HD programming on a good HD set now enables me to see the blemishes that stage makeup erased before.

Today, a fairly attractive 30-something woman spoke about finance on a cable news network. Her blouse was sleeveless and exposed all of her neck and some of her chest. The makeup on her face, under her chin, and going halfway down her neck was flawless. The digital compression of HD video also tends to smoothe out made-up skin.

But right about where the first wrinkle on her neck would be, the makeup stopped. Abruptly. From there down, it almost looked like a rash. The same fine texture also appeared on her shoulders and upper arms. It moved consistently with the limb and the skin upon the limb.

So that's what real skin looks like in HDTV under studio lighting. Gals, HD television cameras add a lot more detail than earlier cameras did. Cover up with either clothing or foundation, not just halfway down the neck.

Notes found in the Comments window

2011-08-08T22:09:00.008-06:00

of the Training Schedule for Period 47 in DTMS:

The Commander has an agenda. The Deputy Commander has an agenda. The Sergeant Major has an agenda. Hell, S6 has an agenda. They're schemers. Schemers trying to control their little worlds. I have no agenda. So when I say that the S4 not making captain's career course this FY was nothing personal, you'll know that I'm telling the truth.

It's the schemers that put you where you are. You were a schemer, you had an agenda. . . . and, well, look where that got you.

I just did what I do best. I took your little agenda and stood it on its head. Look at what I did to this unit with a couple of MFRs and FM 7-0! Hmmm?

You know what I noticed? Nobody panics when things go according to their agenda. Even if the agenda is horrifying. If tomorrow we're cancelling thirty days of leaves in the brigade to catch up on AWT, or we're changing lanes dates because of the availability of airlift, nobody panics, because that's all part of the plan. "Embrace the suck" or "everybody gets a bite of the shit sandwich" or "would you rather be in the Stans?" or some such, all just attempts to distract you from their failure to make good plans and adhere to them.

But when four of our Soldiers have overdue travel cards because they're waiting for airfare refunds, well then everyone loses their minds!

Introduce a little FM 7-0. Upset their agendas, set them against one another until they all collapse. Then the only agenda that can prevail is no agenda at all: doctrine.

I'm an agent of doctrine. Oh, and you know the one thing about doctrine?

It's fair.

Anime characters that really look Japanese

2011-07-18T21:03:00.002-06:00

Aside from Mushi-shi, what other anime series draw their characters to really look Japanese?

I like the heck out of Mushi-shi. Damn near everything about it.

why indeed?

2011-06-15T16:34:00.003-06:00

The Wisconsin Senate passed a bill Tuesday that would allow concealed weapons in the state Capitol and other public places, but not in ... specifically exempted locations.

"If this bill helps make Wisconsin safer, then why are there any exceptions?" said Sen. Tim Cullen, D-Janesville.

Because your party introduced the exceptions. You would have added more if you could have gotten away with it:

Before Tuesday's vote, Democrats introduced about 20 amendments that would have expanded the number of locations where concealed carry wouldn't be allowed. Those sites included the Capitol, polling places and places of worship. Those amendments were all voted down.

And this:

Sen. Spencer Coggs, a Democrat from Milwaukee, . . . said the way to deal with violence in cities wasn't to encourage people to carry hidden weapons.

"The solution is less guns, not more guns," he said.

Prove it, numbskull. Do you have one of those CoEx1St bumper stickers too?

Gary Johnson writing clearly

2011-06-05T21:04:00.002-06:00

If you get the deadtree of American Spectator, the one that just hit your mailbox has a good Freedom Watch column by Gary Johnson, former governor of New Mexico and Ilya Somin's kinda-preferred libertarian candidate for GOP nomination for President of the US.

Not available today, but go buy the deadtree if you must not wait: Government Spends Too Much Because It Does Too Much.

"you cannot limit government spending with an unlimited government."

"Truly controlling spending demands much more than juggling numbers on spreadsheets: it demands a long overdue return to the proper role of government."

2011-05-04T18:53:00.002-06:00

Manga heroine?

GOP Presidential straw polls

2011-04-24T19:58:00.005-06:00

I notice ads posted by Townhall.com, polling readers' opinions on GOP Presidential candidates. (Update: I navigated back to it, here).

I picked Herman Cain, just to back the dark horse as I usually do (no pun intended) (no, really, no pun intended) (honest).

What was missing, especially at this stage in the race---it's too early even to call it a race---is the option to pick which pre-candidates do not deserve further interest. Instead of picking "your favorite Republican candidate", Republicans (and I am not one) should be winnowing the field.

The usual suspects were all there, even Santorum. I don't recall whether Trump was there (going to Townhall.com's home page didn't even cough that ad up, either, so I still don't know whether Trump is there). Trump can stay, for right now, just to give the Donks something to throw tomatoes at. Update: No Trump. Maybe Townhall takes the Presidency seriously.

It was refreshing to see "Name YOUR Favorite for 2012" where the reader could supply another dark horse name if I could think of one. Well crap, I can think of five. Fred Thompson, Dick Armey, Steve Forbes, Walter Williams, and Bob Barr. But that's not the problem. The ad/poll listed, well, there must have been at least 30 potential candidates (Update: 18 plus Fill in the Blank). This many candidates being proffered, or launching exploratory committees, is a sign of a vacuum, a dearth, a void.

The GOP needs to be told who they should keep on the back benches, who they need to bring in from outside, and who they need to bring forward from the shadows. Some folks who were listed on this poll need to stay where they are and actually achieve legislative goals there before being groomed for higher office: it's too soon for Ryan and Bachmann, for example. And, frankly, Governor Palin too. Too early for Christie, and I wouldn't vote for him anyway given his RKBA stance. We're all better off with him keeping New Jersey afloat.

Besides, the office of the President isn't where the problem or the solution lies. It's Congress---the Senate most urgently, the House only less so. They're hosed and they are where discipline will do the most good.

After-Action Report: Gunsite's "Battle Rifle" Class

2011-04-11T13:53:00.004-06:00

OK, folks, long post here. Thought I'd jot down a few (hundred?) thoughts about the Gunsite "Battle Rifle" class I attended last week.

Background

I've been slinging around these things called "battle rifles" for a decade or so now. I bounced around the spectrum of them -- FALs, HKs/PTRs, M1As, M1 Garands -- and finally settled on the M1As. (Don't worry, I kept the Garands...) I've been shooting the local CMP matches with the M1As for about five years and doing . . . . . OK. (High score so far: 465-10X) I also shoot 3-Gun matches with the M1As, running in the "Heavy Metal" -- aka, "He-Man Irons" -- division. Again, I do OK, albeit slowly. Last year I scored a Rifleman patch from the Appleseed folks using my iron-sighted LRB. So, needless to say, I can hit with an M1A.

But one thing I'm not with an M1A is fast -- and the thought of having to use iron sights in an "expedient fashion" always gave me the wiggins. So I decided to attend Gunsite's "Battle Rifle" course with an iron-sighted M1A with the hopes of remedying that.

This was to be my fourth trip to Gunsite, having taken Pistol 250, Arizona CCW, and Carbine 223 previously. I'd been warned by an attendee of the inaugural Battle Rifle class that it was heavily derived from Carbine 223 and that there'd be overlap. That didn't phase me. Carbine 223 helped me get a lot faster with that platform; I expected the same from Battle Rifle.

I was not to be disappointed.

The Curriculum

The class is one of Gunsite's 5-day "total immersion" affairs. The schedule was roughly (and with some probable ordering/sequence errors on my part):

Day 1:

Introduction, safety briefing, syllabus, and rifle fundamentals
Sight alignment and trigger control
Natural Point of Aim
Zeroing at 100 yards and 200 yards
Shooting positions

Day 2:

Introduction to the "school drills"
Ballistics
School drills
Tactical reloads and ammo management

Day 3:

School drills
Speed reloads
Movement and turns
Shooting from cover
Transitions to a sidearm
Non-standard response (moving beyond "two to the body, one to the head")
300-yard shooting

Day 4:

School drills, school drills, and more school drills, with time pressure
El Presidente
Moving targets
House clearing
Field courses: walking and running
Night shoot

Day 5:

400-yard shooting
School drills, school drills, and more school drills, with time pressure
El Presidente
School drill, El Prez "final exam"
Shoot-off
Graduation

Each day began with a quick confirmation of our 200-yard zeroes.

The school drills were:

One shot to the head @ 25 yards in 2 seconds, off-hand, starting from low-ready
Two shots to center-of-mass (COM) @ 50 yards in 4 seconds, off-hand, starting from low-ready
Two shots to COM @ 100 yards in 13 seconds, dropping to kneeling/squatting from low-ready
Two shots to COM @ 100 yards in 13 seconds, dropping to sitting from low-ready
Two shots to COM @ 200 yards in 15 seconds, dropping to prone from low-ready

Depending on your experience level, those times may seem too fast or too slow. For me, running irons, they were just barely long enough, with the targets typically turning away just as I was recovering my sight picture from the final shot.

The El Presidente was:

One shot to COM on each of three targets @ 25 yards, off-hand, starting from low ready, followed by
A speed reload, followed by
One shot to COM on each of three targets @ 25 yards

The goal was 10 seconds. My best time was 11 seconds.

Results

Well, I can say one thing for sure: I'm a lot faster now! Gunsite is all about repetition and establishing muscle memory. We performed the school drills until I couldn't stand it anymore. While it was difficult to do them quickly with iron sights, by the end of the week, I was doing them in half the time I was at the start of the week. We were taught a very clever trick to perform a speed reload on the M1As and the FALs. (Basically, lever-out the empty mag using the full mag that'll replace it...) On a full-sized Pepper Popper, I was able to make 90% of my hits at 300 yards and 2/3rds of them at 400 yards. And, yes, that little range knob on the left-hand side of the M1A's rear sight really does work! Me and my M1A -- dubbed "Mindy" (aka, "Hit Girl") -- gelled into quite a team.

On the final day, we did a "rotating" shoot-off with all of the students in the class, shooting from indoor ready against a 100-yard Popper (off-hand) and a 200-yard falling plate (prone), with a movement of firing positions in between. I was the only student in the class with iron sights and I had to haul-ass to keep up. I won 6 of the 8 initial pairings, putting me in a three-way tie for first place. Unfortunately, I was eliminated in the first round of the final shoot-off and had to be content with 3rd place, not that I was upset about that. I was congratulated by my fellow classmates, all of them impressed that I was keeping up with iron sights. Upon graduation, I received a grade of "Marksman I", the Gunsite the equivalent of a "B".

And, man, was I exhausted!

Equipment

Rifle: Springfield Armory M1A Standard, green composite stock, iron sights

Ammunition: German DAG mil-surp

Sidearm: Springfield Armory Mil-Spec 1911 (not the GI model)

Rifle Mags: CMI 20-rnd mags (I brought 35 of them)

Rifle Sling: Specter Gear "Two-Point Tactical" for the M1A

Tac Vest: an old Blackhawk MOLLE

Mag Pouches: three Tactical Tailor single-mag pouches, attached to the vest

Sidearm Holster: Blackhawk "generic" drop-leg

Hearing protection: ear plugs and Peltor electronic muffs (LOUD! I was double-protected all week...)

Problems and Equipment Failures

Ammunition: The M1A started giving me problems on the morning of the second day, not going completely into battery on random occasions. Typically, the bolt would "lock-in" when the hammer dropped but it wouldn't fire the round. (And that's a Good Thing...) This happened independent of the number of rounds in the magazine, so they weren't suspect. The first diagnosis was too much lube, but that wasn't it. I replaced the recoil spring. That wasn't it either. We had the opportunity to chronograph our ammunition and the DAG was clocking-in at measly 2650 fps. That didn't seem right and a quick call back home to the wife confirmed it. She scoured my range notes and found that my "normal" ammo -- Aussie mil-surp -- was pushing 2800 fps. I should have caught this anyway since the ejected DAG cases were barely landing forward of the muzzle when shot from prone. So, the DAG was underpowered and I knew what to do: cleanliness is next to godliness! I performed a full cleaning of the M1A every night and again during lunch, and used grease only in the op-rod's roller channel. Break Free went everywhere else. The failures-to-go-into-battery (FTBs?) all but disappeared after that. (I could usually tell when it was getting close to lunchtime or the end of the day simply by the one or two FTBs I'd start to get...) I'll be using my remaining DAG for matches and save my (more reliable) Aussie for the zombies!

That said, the DAG ammo is *very* accurate, more so than the Aussie. And there were no duds.

Rifle: None, not even after 1050 rounds in 5 days! (Total round count on this M1A is now very close to 2000...) The composite stock sure took a beating, though, and I'm glad I didn't put one of my nice wooden stocks thru this torture. I had to keep tabs on the screw holding the rear sight's elevation knob. It had a tendency to back out. Lok-Tite is the cure, I suspect.

Mags: Nada. Not a single malf could be traced to the CMIs. I had a handful of those Korean mags and they worked fine, too.

Notes and Misc

Number of students in the class: 7

Age range of students: mostly 40-somethings, with a 30- and a couple 50-somethings thrown into the mix.

Number of instructors: 3 the first two days, then 2 thereafter

Knowledge level of the instuctors: on a scale of 1 to 10, an 11.

Patience level of the instructors: (see 'Knowledge').

Rifles: 3 FALs, 3 M1As, 1 AR-10. One of the M1As was a back-up to an AR-10 that was back-up to an AR-10. (Follow that?) At one point or another, all three AR-10s went Tango-Uniform, two of them down for the full ten-count. Not cool. Everyone -- except Yours Truly -- ran an optic of one flavor or another. Aimpoints and ACOGs were the norm. Both of the other M1As were "Scout Squad" models.

Ammo consumption: 1050 rounds.

Fitness: This is not a course for someone that's out of shape. I've been lifting weights 1x or 2x per week for the last three years and I'd really wished I'd done more. Gunsite teaches reloading "up in your workspace" and holding the M1A in front of my face with only my stong-hand for countless tactical reloads had me plum tuckered out! Workouts should emphasize biceps, shoulders, and lower back. Do your stretches, too. It'll help a lot while getting back to your feet from position. In preparation for the class, I'd lost 25 pounds since October. I was grateful for my sub-200 lb weight, especially when dropping into prone!

Lights: The night shoot involves using hand-held and/or weapon-mounted lights. Not wanting to mount anything to the M1A, I'd brought a 205-lumen Fenix light (AA batteries) only to discover that, unlike Surefires, the switch doesn't activate the light until it's released. Grrrr... Nice light, but not "tactical". Lesson learned.

Transitions: Switching between my M1A (with its two-stage trigger) and my 1911 (with what is effectively a single-stage trigger) had me all over the target with the sidearm. It was rather embarrassing, actually. Perhaps my XDM is a better companion to my M1A than the 1911. (Yes, I know: heresy.)

The assistant instructor had one of the new "heavy" (7.62x51) SCARs. All I can say is, "Interesting...."

So, tha-tha-that's all folks -- thanx for hangin' in there through all that verbiage! I loved the class, even though it took a lot out of me. And I certainly don't fear the irons any more! Hope this helps anyone else considering the class.

Ciao!

TCM
(who earns a living from neither Gunsite nor Springfield Armory...)

QFTD

2011-03-27T14:12:00.001-06:00

Airports today are what a certain group of statists want to turn the entire U.S.A. into if they get a chance. These bastards have not captured a single terrorist, or stopped a single terrorist attack. American citizens have done that . . .

This is not America, at least not the America I want to live in.

WTQ

CCW far and wide

2011-03-20T19:33:00.001-06:00

Fûz has now carried in GA and AL.

Remember when a State government was this big? Me neither

2011-03-20T19:13:00.002-06:00

A plaque is set in the grounds in Tuscaloosa, where Alabama's former State Capitol once stood. The plaque shows the floor plan. This is the second floor with the House at one end and the Senate at the other.

The Governor, several of his Secretaries, and the Supreme Court shared the first floor.

In its time it must have been an opulent building, one that inspired pride in all Alabamians. Damn, even far-flung Wyoming's government has spread into many more buildings than this.

Do you know what time it is?

2011-02-19T16:48:00.001-07:00

NRA BOD ballots arrived in the American Rifleman.

Any suggestions on voting for true friends of Liberty?

Dancing in blood is, well, what They do

2011-02-02T20:01:00.006-07:00

Matthew Vadum reports in WashTimes:

Shocked staffers at the Nation report that the publication’s website has been flooded with angry comments, expletives and unprintable threats against Ms. Piven's person.

Of course there is a suggestion that these threats come from Tea Partiers or other friends of Liberty. Rubbish.

From what we have seen of the attempt on Representative Giffords's life, Piven's movement---not ours---is ready and willing to take advantage of martyrs.

Why would we wish to give one to them? Let The Nation look among its own for the source of threats against her.

I, for one, truly wish Frances Fox Piven a long, long life wherein she sees her philosophy abandoned, her beliefs discredited, and her health preserved by doctors taking their payment in cash.

goings on in the Middle East

2011-01-28T21:58:00.004-07:00

. . . prompt talk of an 'internet revolution.' Apparently an internet revolution won't work, or hasn't yet worked in Egypt, because the internet can be seized by the thugs who'd be displaced by the revolution.

So maybe there needs to be development of a revolutionary internet. Hinted at here.

Small, low power, short-range digital radios that relay a short packet one to another. Make them small enough, and cheap enough, that they can be stuck quietly to motor vehicles, even those of the thugs, so they circulate. Each radio repeats a message until another radio gets it.

If enough of them are in close proximity, they can either speed up bandwidth to relay files (photos, for example), or dice up transmission timeslots smaller so more stations can participate. Or both.

Allowing a huge number of hops is acceptable.

The thugs would spend valuable time finding or jamming enough radios to impair the network, while you're deploying more.

For those of us outside the isolated country, we can smuggle or airdrop more of them in. Hell, fasten them to migratory waterfowl. This is something we could already have done for our liberty-minded friends in Egypt.

It's not the internet you grew up with. It won't be internet protocol at all, in fact. But it beats being deaf and blind.

recreational Facebooking, and more

2011-01-22T18:31:00.003-07:00

We do maintain a Facebook account, connected to our real-world identity. Recently, it has provided me some amusement in the form of interacting with the metrosexual people I knew in my teen years.

They spasm at the very mention of Sarah Palin. So I defend her often, by linking to or 'liking' the articles that refute her post-Loughner accusers.

It makes them only more deranged. I giggle.

But then I remember it isn't funny. An innocent person is accused of fomenting hatred and inciting violence. A mentally-ill man is ignored by his local elected peace officer, and his sworn deputies, who could have initiated court proceedings against him. He could have received treatment; at the very least, he could have been kept away from firearms.

No, it isn't funny. And it isn't about a former governor of Alaska either. Nor about talk radio.

I take some comfort from the observations that the psychotic's target, a legislator, lives and struggles to recover; the sheriff, whose badge clots with the blood of the psychotic's victims, may answer for his failures by facing a recall; the nation seems to reject idiotic calls to punish the weapon. Some comfort, not much.

I also think of the torture that the shooter must have felt, years ago, as he sensed that his grasp of the world was failing. The greater torture of realizing that people around him notice that he has changed, but have done little or nothing to help him. What of the abandonment, the isolation, as friends, classmates, employers, even family gave up on him?

Bacchus nails

2010-11-30T19:26:00.001-07:00

When you catch me doing journalist-like things, it’s because the lazy fuckers who claim to be journalists aren’t doing their fucking jobs.

Over here.

My National Ammo Day Haul

2010-11-19T19:18:00.004-07:00

Fuze asks and Fuze gets.

200 rnds 9mm, 115-grn FMJ
50 rnds 22 Mag, 40-grn HP
50 rnds 38 Special +P, 125-grn HPs

(The latter are for Barbaloot to test in a couple of .357 Ruger revolvers real soon like...)

All of it picked up from Sportsman's Warehouse on the way home from work. I'd forgotten about NAD until I read Fuze's post.

So mark me down for 300 rounds. I did my part!!

TCM

And it's still National Ammo Day!

2010-11-19T13:06:00.002-07:00

And it's still National Ammo Day

MidwayUSA ships Rainier 200gr .45 plated flat point. Ordered to arrive today.

C'mon, let's see everybody's Ammo Day hauls.

2010-11-19T12:49:00.001-07:00

It's National Ammo Day!

used HP Photosmart 2575, cheap

2010-11-14T19:43:00.004-07:00

Amusing email from Hewlett Packard:

The third lawsuit (Blennis) claims that HP designed certain inkjet printers and cartridges to shut down on an undisclosed expiration date, and that at this point consumers are prevented from using any ink remaining in the expired cartridge and from using all of the printer's functions until the expired cartridge is replaced. HP denies all these claims. . . . the parties agreed to a Proposed Settlement in order to avoid the expense and risks of continuing the lawsuit.

Having just kicked my last HP printer to the curb, I could care less about getting as settlement an e-credit from HP toward the purchase of another.

And as much as I dislike the practice of litigating every wrong everywhere every time, I'd almost like to see the attorneys open this can of worms and spill it on the table. I was responsible for feeding an HP all-in-one in a TOC, artificially setting its date to 5 years in the past so we could keep using expired inkjet carts. I'm also still trying to remove the last auto-updating HP bloatwares from several computers.

Two-cat night

2010-11-09T23:19:00.002-07:00

Two-cat night

TCM stares down a troll...

2010-11-04T08:46:00.006-06:00

...in comments over at The Truth About Guns.

Probably not my best effort, but it'll do.

Edit:

Apparently, I (shamelessly?) read the TTAG posts chronologically, thereby missing this response. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly the anti-gunners revert to ad hominem attacks. Reasoned discourse, my ass.

TCM

Hie thee off to Alphecca

2010-10-09T21:17:00.002-06:00

Republicans are contorted in the pantaloons over NRA endorsements?

Please leave something in the tip jar for Jeff.

I suddenly find myself wondering

2010-10-02T18:48:00.001-06:00

I suddenly find myself wondering why i need to tell a bartender what "neat" means

Add Nebraska

2010-09-23T18:22:00.002-06:00

. . . to the list of States where I have lawfully carried concealed.

OK, I'll play!!

2010-09-22T20:16:00.013-06:00

The Cabinet Man here...

Below is my "on the body" carry rig:

That's a Springfield Armory XDm in 45 ACP. It rides in a Blade-Tech IWB holster with pull-the-dot loops. The spare mag and a Surefire Z2 Combatlight ride in a Blade-Tech combo pouch. All of that gets strapped on with a Wilderness Tactical 1-1/2" polymer-lined Frequent Flyer belt. The rig conceals pretty well as long as I'm wearing baggy shirts or a vest/jacket. It's surprisingly comfortable, too!

TCM

Carry rigs

2010-09-21T21:35:00.003-06:00

SaysUncle asks, "what's your carry rig?"

Milt Sparks Summer Special above, Dillon kinda Yaqui slide below.

Biter the stainless Commander is comfy in either. She rode in the Sparks all day today.

El Paso Saddlery two-mag carrier (from CheaperThanDirt) not shown.

And visible in the upper edge of the pic is the steel cable for the Center-of-Mass in-car safe, which is indispensable.

No irreversible damage

2010-09-11T19:15:00.004-06:00

The cheap milsurp plastic grips on Beater the utility blaster cracked, right across the panel, through the upper screw hole. Both panels.

A cast-aside 6' slab of 1/4" Lexan was looking at me from the corner of the garage, like the Cheetos cheetah: "you know you want to do it."

I hacked out two pieces about the size of M1911 grip panels, and started rasping away anything that looked like it didn't belong there.

The WECSOG grip panels aren't done. They are fitted to the frame, with the countersinking and the relief for the detent plunger doodad, and the outline. But the contouring is only begun.

When it is to the desired contour, it will be stippled for texture.

Bleg: .22 top end for Glock 23

2010-08-31T19:27:00.003-06:00

Who has the best .22LR conversion for Glock 23?

It's not a 4th-generation. Aside from that, all I can tell you is the serial number.

Flinch needs to be programmed out of the spousal unit.

QFTD

2010-08-29T15:26:00.003-06:00

In comments on Reason.tv's coverage of Glenn Beck's Restoring Honor event, M. said:

Jefferson and Washington would never [have] confused the public sphere with the machinery of government.

Pop quiz: which would our Founders have thought the smaller of the two entities?

'nother: how much smaller would it have been, say as a measure of how many persons were employed by, or paid by, one entity versus the other. Or say as a measure of how much spending is done by one versus the other.

I caught some of Beck's radio program last week, as he and his staff were discussing Brian Williams's appearance on Letterman. Letterman was asking Williams, as if asking Beck and the Tea Partiers through him: "taking our country back from whom?"

At the time I couldn't answer concisely, and in a way that wouldn't spawn countless challenges. Maybe the answer is concisely right there.

It just occurred to me . . .

2010-08-27T14:48:00.002-06:00

. . . that Hannibal Lecter cut his hand off needlessly at the end of Hannibal.

Note that he cut his hand off to escape the handcuff that Clarice slapped on him in the scene right after Hannibal fed Ray Liotta's character part of his own brain.

But didn't Hannibal free himself from handcuffs in the Silence of the Lambs, in seconds, while the deputies were bringing him dinner? And he did so under spartan conditions, where he had to find or smuggle an improvised handcuff key.

So back to Clarice's kitchen. If Clarice had a frigging meat cleaver suitable for severing a man's hand at the wrist, she probably had many other items lying around, as in within three steps of the cleaver, that would have gerry-rigged a handcuff key as easily as the ballpoint pen tube that he used in Silence.

Clarice was heavily doped and not likely to put up much of a fight to this improvisation---the handcuffing was all she could pull off without passing out.

I must conclude that the cleaving of his hand was a dramatic flourish, not a true necessity for a fiend as clever as Hannibal Lecter. I haven't read the book, so I don't know whether that even happened in the book, and the book controls.

Discuss. Submit your coursework in the Comments, in APA 6th edition format.

An exposure to 60Co

2010-08-24T19:03:00.007-06:00

Still catching up on back issues of Liberty, which yields another QFTD, May '07 in fact:

. . . only about 1% of our meat and produce is irradiated. The FDA has dragged its feet, considering irradiation some kind of food additive. They allow irradiation of meat, but with a warning label about possible risks! No such label is required for untreated meat that is laden with microbes . . if Public Citizen, food activists, and the FDA had been around in Pasteur's time, we wouldn't have pasteurization today.

Gary Jason in Bug Out, Reflections

Jason's post was inspired by discovery of salmonella contaminating peanut butter.

Would irradiation have worked on eggs?

Contaminated food scares seem to be more common now than when I was a kid. I don't know whether it's true or just more noticeable. It it's true, I'd like to know whether it's because food processors (or regulators) are just more careless, or we're just producing so much more, or exchanging foods more widely across the planet, or perhaps the contaminating organisms are just tougher now and breaking through the formerly adequate measures that processors have deployed against them.

Regardless, a few more scares like this one and maybe more Americans will be open to a broad use of irradiation, and vigorous tracking of which foods, and handling methods, yield better safety.

QFTD

2010-08-23T20:01:00.002-06:00

The right to honestly acquired private property does not depend on people's deserving their property. People do not deserve their livers or good looks, either; yet they have a right to them.

Leland Yeager paraphrasing Tibor Machan in Liberty, July 2007; sorry, article itself not online

45 ACP Shotshell Handloads for Revolvers

2010-08-15T17:05:00.017-06:00

(In the CD player: Ixnay on the Hombre, The Offspring)

As most of you are aware, CCI is pretty much the "industry standard" for pistol-caliber shotshells. The little buggers are sold mostly to snakeaphobes, though I'm sure a few are bought just for kicks. CCI makes these shotshells in three (centerfire) semi-auto calibers: 9mm, 40 S&W and 45 ACP. Unfortunately, CCI specifically calls-out that these three shotshells are not to be used in revolvers of respective caliber. They bind-up the cylinder in rather unpleasant ways. Because I'm an RTFM kinda' guy, this has not happened to me personally. I've learned from others' mistakes.

While I'm sure that heapin' plenty of God's little critters have succumbed to CCI's factory loadings across the available calibers, I've always felt that the .4X were the smallest loadings I'd trust for serpent. I have a handy-dandy SP-101, which would be an ideal setup were I trusting in the 357 shotshell. But not so much trust here. Next up is the 44 Mag, of which I have two candidates. One is a Redhawk that's a bit too unwieldy for the task, the other a 2-1/2" Taurus Tracker. The latter has a ported barrel which, unfortunately, CCI says is a "no-no" for the shotshells. (RTFM, remember??...) So the 44 is out. The other two .4X offerings are 45 ACP and 45 Long Colt. I want something that can guarantee a follow-up shot so the 45 ACP in a semi-auto is out. I don't have a 45 Long Colt so that's a non-starter.

What's a girl to do?

Well, what I do have are two 45 ACP revolvers. A S&W 625 and a 325 Thunder Ranch, both with 4" barrels. The 625 isn't a whole lot lighter than the Redhawk but the 325 is very light, being divined of a magical Middle Earth compound known as scandium. Knowing that I can't use CCI's 45 ACP shotshells on this platform, I figger'ed I'd set out to roll my own 45 ACP revolver loads.

And roll'em I did!

(It's at this point that I must interject that reloading data follows. This data worked wonderfully for me, in my gun, with the batch of components I had on hand, on the day I did the testing. The same cannot be assumed for you. By duplicating these loads for your own use, you assume all risk of death, dismemberment, or damaged guns and hold harmless Yours Truly in the case that any or all of those unfortunate events actually come to pass. Legal mumbo-jumbo, blah, blah, blah...)

Referring back to an article written by Mike Venturino (American Handgunner, Jan/Feb 2007), I started formulating a plan. Mike loaded his 45 Long Colt shotshells with 45 caliber Speer shot capsules, #12 shot, and Unique powder. So I snagged a box of the capsules, scrounged a ten-pound bag of #11 shot, whipped out my own jug of Unique, and set myself to loading. I went with #11 shot since I wanted something larger than #12. (If you've ever seen #11 or #12 shot, you'll understand that "larger" is a strictly relative term...)

The shot capsules hold 163.5 grains of #11 shot, or about 408 pellets. The capsule and shot combined weighs almost exactly 180 grains. Mike used 9.0 grains of Unique in his 45 Long Colt load. Speer recommends 7.5 grains for the 45 Long Colt. So I figger'ed I'd start with 6.5 grains of Unique for the 45 ACP. I seated the capsules by hand -- squishing them in place between a scrap piece of 2x2 and my reloading bench -- to an OAL of 1.55", +/- 0.03 depending on who manufactured the shell casing. I used a 45 ACP Lee Factory Crimp die to make a taper crimp. (Since I also have a 45 ACP roll crimp die, I tried that. Fail. It just managed to crack the capsule and send #11 shot scattering everywhere...)

As you can see, the capsule extends quite a ways out the mouth of the case, despite a rather deep seating.

But it still fits in the 325's cylinder with plenty of room to spare.

Just for grits-n-shins, I tried chambering one of them in my 1911. It didn't work, the capsule catching the rifling well before the case could headspace.

Then it was off to the range. (Unfortunately, I forgot the camera. So here are your thousand words...)

In a nutshell, the experiment was a success!! The patterns made at roughly 10 feet were exactly what you'd expect: ~18", with good distribution. Recoil was noticeable but mild. There was nothing untoward as a result of using the capsules: no plastic shards flying about or jamming up the cylinder works. Cases extracted w/o problem. Sorry, no chrono data.

One thing I wanted to check -- and I'm glad I did -- was "capsule creep" due to recoil. I loaded one moon clip with five of my 200-grn FMJ match rounds and one shotshell. I "staged" the cylinder so that the shotshell fired after the five match rounds. Indeed, the capsule crept out of the case and would have bound the cylinder. Admittedly, I didn't have the tightest taper crimp on these loads. I'll need to do a bit more experimentation on the crimp. Probably a few cycles of "tighten it until it snaps, then back off a 1/4 turn." Even if I can't get the exact crimp I want, the shotshell would always be staged to fire first and recoil creep would be a non-issue. Still, I wanna' get it right...

Finally, Mike V. used the "potato test" as criteria for an effective shotshell load. He believes that if one of these babies blasts apart a raw potato, it's good enough for snakes. Well, my 45 ACP loads sent a spud to the Big Potato Patch in the Sky. In many pieces!

So, if you have 45 ACP revolver that you wanna' roll some shotshells for, have at it. It can be done.

TCM

more Grendel reloads

2010-08-07T15:07:00.002-06:00

Crosswinds exceeding 30mph today.

BobbieJo sent some more 95 grain Hornady V Max downrange today. All were CCI 200 primers, Wolf brass. 5-round samples at 100 yards.

29.0 grains WC846, mild crimp. Average 2528 fps, SD 13.0 fps. All stayed in a 4" square at 100 yards

29.5 grains WC846, no crimp. Average 2591 fps, SD 25.1 fps. Not as well confined to 4" square.

29.5 grains WC846, mild crimp. Average 2600 fps, SD 17.2 fps. About the same spread as without crimp.

Elevation 6300 feet above sea level.

Gear Review (of sorts): Fenix LD20 R4

2010-08-01T16:52:00.006-06:00

[In the CD player: Lush, Gala...]

The wife and I currently use two 20th century bicycle headlights that use incandescent bulbs and lead-acid battery "cells". Categorizing these systems as marginal is something of an understatement. They're heavy, bulky, and not all that bright, even with recently-replaced battery packs. Unless it's absolutely pitch black and we're pedaling along at a lazy 10 MPH, they cannot be trusted to properly illuminate the roadway for us to clearly identify road hazards. At best, they'll alert a driver to our presence at night. Maybe. Bicycle lights have come a long way since I first invested in these systems almost 15 years ago. But they can still be expensive.

Then I found an alternative.

What we're gonna' talk about today is the Fenix LD20 R4 flashlight. (This is the newer LD20, that has a max 205 lumens...) I first caught wind of this little guy by way of the kind folks over at EcoVelo. There'd been a couple posts over there about using flashlights for bicycle lights and I really liked the idea. What appealed to me about the LD20 was (1) it's price, given that it can fill two roles, (2) the fact that it can take AA batteries, and (3) that it uses a constant-current LED drive circuit.

Most of the really bright flashlights (Surefire and Streamlight, for example) run off of CR123A batteries. These flashlights are great and I own several of them. The Missus gifted me a Surefire LED model that's bright enough to weld with! But I want something that uses rechargeable batteries, specifically rechargeable AAs. The problem with using the AA rechargeables is that their charged voltage is only ~1.2 volts. This voltage is low enough that most of my electronics gear fusses that the power is running low when I just installed freshly charged batteries. This is where the LD20's constant-current circuit comes in handy. Within reason, it doesn't care what the battery voltage is, as long as the batteries have the capacity to run the circuitry. Which the AA rechargeables do!

I won't go into a lot of detail about the LD20 'cuz you can get all that info for yourself just by following the linky. But the "added value" of the time you've spent reading this post is how the LD20 behaves while using different battery types. The Fenix web-site gives out the basics on time-vs-brightness, but what they don't tell you is under what conditions the tests were conducted. Well folks, I think I can answer a few questions about that since I was curious enough to conduct my own tests.

I borrowed a PIC microcontroller board and a photocell from work. I rewrote a mess of C code to turn the board into a data logger, rigged a cardboard box to act as the test rack, and proceeded to test the LD20 with five different types of batteries: Energizer Ultimate Lithium, Energizer Rechargeable (older), Energizer Rechargeable (newer), Energizer Alkaline, and Sony Eneloop rechargeable. The older Energizer rechargeables are probably four years old, though their charge/discharge count is pretty low. The newer ones are spankin' new, not even two weeks old. I used the 50 lumen setting for all the tests, which Fenix says provides 13 hours of runtime. (And the 50-lumen setting provides quite a bit more light than our current bicycle light systems.) Testing was done inside, so, say............, 75F.

The following graph shows relative brightness over time. I couldn't tell you what the exact brightness is in lumens, it's just the reading off of the A/D converter attached to the photocell. Just assume it's the advertised 50 lumens. This graph makes it obvious that the constant-current circuit is doing its thing: when the batteries are dead, they're dead!!

As one would expect, the Ultimate Lithiums produce significantly better results than the other batteries. However, they're not rechargeable and they're wicked expensive at over $2 each!! They would be a good choice, however, for emergency operations where long run-times (and shelf-lives) are important -- and cost is not. (Lithiums will also perform better at temperature extremes than the other batteries will...) The other four batteries are quite comparable in their performances. The good news is that the rechargeables -- even with their lower full-charge voltage -- have capacities nearly equal to that of the alkalines.

To summarize the run-times:

It looks like we have a winner! Of course it remains to be seen how the rechargeables will work in colder weather, which is really the only time we need to use lights on the bicycles. But even if they give us a full week's commuting between charges (~6 hours, worse case), then they'll work great. So check back in about 6 months and we'll update on how this arrangement works. Until then .............. ciao!!

TCM

Hallelujah!

2010-07-17T19:48:00.001-06:00

Old Western Scrounger still breathes!!!!!

I hadn't ordered anything from them since before the intertubes.

Found via Gibbs Rifle via SayUncle.

aftermarket AK replacement parts

2010-07-11T20:16:00.002-06:00

This is either an opportunity for an enterprising cottage industry type, or a bleg:

Who makes high-reliability domestic replacement parts for the Kalashnikov? Extractor, extractor spring and pin, firing pin and retaining pin, mainspring?

Sure, the original Warsaw Pact parts are making their way to the States, and probably in volumes that make aftermarket parts not worth the bother. I'm tempted to just get another kit or two (the ones with the worthless cut-up barrels) just to have replacement parts. But I'd probably just get Amerikanski barrels and build them.

Anybody have a lead?

If Glenn really wanted a solar-powered air conditioner

2010-07-11T12:35:00.007-06:00

We should borrow recreational vehicle technology. I grasp the concept of the latent heat of vaporization, though this article on propane-powered RV refrigerators is a bit harder to follow.

What could be so difficult about scaling this hardware up to a size that could air-condition a house? The difficult part is radiating away the heat after the hardware is done with it. That task would be enhanced with a leetle photovoltaic power to drive a fan over the radiator.

Such a system would be about as obtrusive and unsightly as existing A/C units, if the solar collector and radiator can be hidden in roofing and chimneys. This is where engineers earn their pay. There would be greater difficulty selling these units past the esthetics prudes of homeowners' associations, than getting the equipment to work.

It's not as if we'd be dealing with dangerous or exotic materials: ammonia and water and a bit of hydrogen. The hydrogen would have to be replaced periodically, but that's easier, at the scales of the service technician and of the national economy, than powering automobiles with hydrogen.

Durability? Remember, the existing units are mounted on moving vehicles, getting vibrated and going through temperature and humidity cycles. It should be cake to build a unit like this suitable for home use in a climate with a lot of direct sunlight, like Colorado or Wyoming. Then it has the added Gaia-closed-cycle-ness of making more cold air when more is needed. Let's not burn propane to do this.

The domestic water heater can probably be integrated into this equipment too. Waste heat, remember?

PMC .45 ACP

2010-07-09T18:12:00.001-06:00

$19.99 for box of 50, 230gr FMJ.

At your local Murdoch's.

If you don't have a local Murdoch's, well, it sucks to be you.

A ring job in order

2010-06-26T19:12:00.004-06:00

At about 200 rounds of Wolf Gold 6.5mm Grendel, and after firing fewer than 40 rounds of reloads, Bobbie Jo is in need of a ring job.

These are the rings originally provided by Alexander Arms with their bolt/barrel set. From left to right, the rings are nearest bolt face to farthest, so the ring closest to the hot gases is the one on the right, the one with most of its substance eaten away:

Bobbie Jo now sports a McFarland one-piece gapless ring, and the other ARs will probably have theirs soon too. But it makes me wonder, am I not lubricating the rings adequately for break-in? Can break-in of gas rings be improved with bore paste?

I can also see which parts I want in a spares kit for ARs, and which deserve periodic replacement.

BTW, the reloads were a) 120 gr Sierra Pro Hunters in front of 30.5 gr AA2520, 2349 fps, and b) 95 gr Hornady V-Max over 28.5 gr WC846, 2257 fps. At 6100 feet above MSL, with Alexander's (E. R. Shaw's) 16" stainless barrel, stock midlength gas tube.

So would I, brother, so would I

2010-06-11T19:53:00.001-06:00

I’d be very curious to know which law professors, if any, thought it was appropriate to sign their name to a piece ghostwritten by a member of the Clinton administration, defending Clinton.

VC.

Things that make me go, "hunh"

2010-06-10T20:23:00.003-06:00

A tradesman came to the house recently to quote some work. It was just as the school year here was closing, so he had a grandson in tow.

In the course of introductions, the Latino grandfather told me the boy's name was "Shehadi." He said it with, it seemed to me, some minor embarrassment.

Did Grandpa understand that this boy's name literally means Muslim confession of faith, and figuratively means 'martyr'? Is there a trend among Latino women to make names up from thin air or overheard phonemes on broadcast media?

The harmonic makes her move

2010-06-08T22:18:00.003-06:00

Firstborn and I chose to attend the Rocky Mountain Hamvention this year in Casper. As we discussed it, Mlle. Sklodovska took an interest and invited herself along.

The first hour we were there, we came to the end of the swapmeet tables and found the checkin counter. Firstborn and I got our badges, and the convention organizers let Mlle. Sklodovska into the festivities with a smile, and printed her a badge, "Harmonic of [Fûz's callsign]." That use of the term 'harmonic' was new to me, but clever and likable.

The two girls found another amateur waving a VHF yagi around for the indoor foxhunt, which is what sold Firstborn on the hamvention in the first place. All 3 girls spent the next hour or so on the foxhunt.

Since then she's been asking to find her old Uncle's breadboard and start learning electronics. I dug it out and put a few quick sketches of Ohm's law and RC time constants on a whiteboard, then walked her through building a 555 one-shot on the breadboard.

It didn't work, but she said "we'll try again tomorrow night."

Clearly she will be the next ham in the house.

Car-Free Month Post-Mortem

2010-06-03T19:14:00.008-06:00

[in the CD player: Curve, Doppelganger]

Sorry, folks -- I should know better than to promise that I'll do something involving discretionary time...

So here's the (anxiously awaited!) postmortem of the Car-Free Month (CFM).

Let's start with the good stuff.

Of the 20 available workdays in May, the Missus and I rode to/from work 19 times. That's 95% -- and better than we'd expected! We took a vehicle to work on the 12th due to icy roads in the neighborhood. Of the five Sundays (grocery days) in May, we hauled groceries by human power four times. We drove a vehicle on the 16th because we were on a wicked-tight schedule that day and every second counted. We took a vehicle to the gun club every Saturday (twice on two days) because we were hauling match equipment that would have been impractical (impossible?) by bicycle. On those days, we twice took advantage of access to the vehicle for "side trips" to Home Depot. I took my motorcycle to a meeting on the 4th that was across town and notorious for finishing well after dark. Looking at the mileage:

Bicycle:

Work: 14 miles round trip (R/T) x 19 days x 2 bicycles = 532 miles
Groceries: 2 miles R/T x 4 weekends x 2 bicycles = 16 miles
Country Spin: 30 miles x 2 bicycles = 60 miles

Total = 608 miles

Vehicle:

Meeting: 18 miles R/T x 1 day x 1 vehicle = 18 miles
Work: 14 miles R/T x 1 day x 1 vehicle = 14 miles
Club: 40 miles R/T x 7 days x 1 vehicle = 280 miles
Side trips: 6 miles x 5 days x 1 vehicle = 30 miles
Groceries: 2 miles R/T x 1 day x 1 vehicle = 2 miles

Total = 344 miles

So we put in almost twice the mileage on the bicycles than on the vehicles. Woo-Hoo!!

Commuting to/from work, we mostly stuck to the roads, taking the Front Range Trail for the entire commute only once. When we were both on bicycles -- as opposed to me being on the TerraTrike Tour (TTT) tadpole recumbent -- we tended to return home by way of downtown. It saves almost ten minutes, a acceptable ROI for having to deal with "city traffic" for a mere four blocks. I only took the trike thru downtown once, trying to outrun the rain. The TTT is definitely not at home in that environment!

I alternated between the Cannondale and the TTT, splitting the miles pretty evenly between the two. The Missus has only her road-tired mountain bike so all her miles were put onto it. On Mondays, we always bring to work our week's breakfasts and lunches. For the CFM, we employed the BOB trailer for this task and it handled the 20 meals just fine. Other than 15 minutes spent re-aligning the rear derailleur on the Cannondale, there were no mechanical issues.

The weather was (mostly) cooperative. The morning temps are still pretty nippy in May 'round these parts. More than half the mornings were below 40 and only three were 50 or above. A handful of the afternoon rides home were done in 80+ temps. We got rained on three times: both trips to/from work on one day and an afternoon of heavy dizzle / light rain last week. This isn't bad, especially since the (every afternoon!) 15-minute thunderstorms start in June and run thru August.

Now that I have 200 or so miles on the TerraTrike Tour, I can make some (reasonably) intelligent comments about it.

TTT Cons:

It's just too low to the ground for mingling with congested traffic. I'm OK with it on lightly-vehicled side streets or roads with Lots O'Shoulder but I get the wiggins in heavy traffic. I do plan to do some week-long (+) tours on it at some point so I'll have to be double careful when I pedal thru any towns. The biggest problem I've faced is people backing their cars out of driveways. They simply cannot see me -- and so I'm continuously in condition red when I'm pedaling thru the 'burbs.

You can't "muscle" the trike like you can a bicycle and it's very unforgiving of being stuck in too high a gear. I find myself doing a lot of shifting to keep my pedal cadence "reasonable" (80 RPM, +/-). Stopping at a traffic light while three gears too high is a real experience! Fortunately, in the the worst cases of "duh...", I can just grab the wheels with my hands (wheelchair-style) and get rolling enough to downshift without grinding metal.

The Trike takes steep climbs very slowly. We have an ugly (but short) climb on the way to work and it's One Steep 'Muther. On the Trike, I'm in lowest gear in no time and grinding-out the climb, rookie-style. I'm sure this is a combination of higher weight and higher rolling resistance compared to a bicycle. Since it's hard to "muscle" the Trike up a steep climb, you really do need to keep the gears low and just crawl. After a half-dozen trips on the TTT and returning to the Cannondale, I was quickly reminded how much of a mountain goat the T2000 really is. The Cannondale's climbing speeds were 50% higher than the TTT's on the hard stuff. That said, the TTT is fine on "normal" hills and I didn't feel all that disadvantaged. I spent a good part of the month grumbling about its climbing abilities and not until we did the 30-mile "country ride" did I discover that it can handle eastern Colorado rollers just fine.

The TTT's high-speed stability leaves a bit to be desired. Above 25 MPH, the steering starts to get a little twitchy. I've found I can calm things down considerably by letting the bars free-float in my hands on these high-speed descents. This technique doesn't completely eliminate the "unpredictability" and as speeds increase upwards of 30 MPH, things get .................. interesting.

I used to own a Polaris ATV. It was a lot of fun until I started developing some confidence and mustered the courage to tackle more difficult terrain. One of the things I noticed about the problems I repeatedly found myself getting into was "picking a line". See, I grew up riding dirt bikes -- so picking a line thru a difficult stretch was just that: picking a line. One line. Once I got the ATV, I was faced with finding two lines thru whatever mess I was about to get into. And I invariably found one good line and one bad line. But the second track of tires still had to go somewhere. And usually "somewhere" was trouble.

What does an ATV have to do with this post? Well, the TTT has three lines. Granted I don't ride the TTT off-road but that doesn't mean that street surfaces are perfect. Some of those potholes are downright vicious. So when I'm on the Trike, I spend a lot of time focusing on the road surface because I gotta' get three tires thru whatever mess I'm about to tangle with. More than once I've had to make the split-second decision: which of the three tires am I gonna' run into that pothole. Kinda' distracting sometimes...

This is a minor nitpick but there's no speedometer mount. There's some sort of bracket on the left (front) that tracks with the wheel which I employed to hold the speedo pickup but it's a poor solution. I tried tie-wrapping some small-diameter PVC to the bracket but the solution didn't really take. I was forever plucking the pickup out of the track of the magnet after some major jarring caused the mount to shift. I'm sure if I really, really thought about the problem, the solution would be obvious. I haven't, so it's not. TerraTrike would do well to solve that for its customers. Maybe they have and I just haven't looked hard enough.

One of the things a bicycle rider learns once he crosses the threshold from recreational (bike path) riding to hard-core (obsessive racing) riding is that seat height is very important. I'm surprised how small the window is between my bicycle seat being too high or too low. For me that window is about 1/4" and getting it wrong results in a couple mighty angry knees. In fact, I went thru quite the gyrations to make sure my SPD-equipped mountain bike (and T2000) had the exact same seat height as my Look-equipped Litespeed. The TTT doesn't have "seat height" as a bicyclist might understand. It does, however, have an adjustment to move the cyclist back-n-forth in relation to the pedals. The difficulty of this adjustment is compounded by the fact that the back-rest angle can be changed, which ultimately changes the (effective) "seat height". So there was a lot of trial-n-error getting it right. Ultimately the adjustments are kinda' coarse but, fortunately, I found a spot that worked very nicely.

The trick was staying in that spot. See, the nylon seat is really slippery. For folks that pedal their trikes around in shorts or jeans [hack, spit], it's probably not an issue. But I ride in Spandex (B&PBUI) and sliding around on the TTT's seat was totally screwing with my "seat height". I tweaked a knee on the second ride and it was a couple days before it worked itself out. But I found a rather brilliant solution: anti-slip matting. This is the stuff you can buy to put under throw rugs to keep them from sliding around on tile/wood floors. It also shows up as "bottom liner" in the produce bins at supermarkets. I had some that I'd bought to protect the plastic surfaces of my motorcycle from my saddlebags. The stuff is "perforated" so it breathes (sorta') and it's cheap enough to replace regularly. It keeps me parked in the seat and it works great.

Lastly, there's no way to wear a backpack/Camelbak or messenger bag. This is obvious and I knew it going into this deal -- but I miss having that flexibility. It's not fatal, of course.

TTT Pros:

No review of the TerraTrike would be complete without a discussion of just how comfortable this machine really is. I'm amazed that the Missus and I pedaled a 30-mile loop and nothing -- NOTHING!! -- hurt. Usually, I'm fighting to keep my hands (or balls) from going numb or my seat bones from getting sore. I know what you're thinking: "Dude, your bicycle ergos are all wrong!" That'd be a true statement if I didn't have a huge box full of saddles, seat posts, and head sets -- all remnants of the Fruitless Search for Bicycle Comfort. Sure, some days are better than others and after 100s of combinations-and-permutations, I've gotten really, really close on the bicycles. Just not perfect. But nuthin' wears so little on the body as the TTT. Think of it as a Lay-Z-Boy with pedals. With all I've mentioned above concerning the TTT's cons, the comfort level of this trike trumps all that. Period.

And while I stated that the TTT can't be muscled, don't confuse that with it being sluggish. It's a surprisingly sprightly machine when handled properly (correct gearing, anticipating "obstacles", avoiding unnecessary weight, correct ergos, etc). While it can't come close to the acceleration potential of the Litespeed, the TTT is pretty much on par with the T2000, when the latter is ridden as it was designed. The turning radius is rarely a hindrance and can be ............... abbreviated with brake-steering. I'm sure that regular heavy doses of that could lead to the premature wear of various hard parts but I wouldn't expect a little "brake English" now-n-again to cause many problems.

Another overlooked advantage is what I'll call "foot-free stopping". At first, it's kinda' weird to pull up to a stoplight and not have to put a foot down. You just, well......................., stop. No cleats slipping on oily roads and no fighting to get re-cleated upon starting. Depending on your ride, you can probably lock-in in the garage and unlock when you return two hours later. I once test rode a Piaggio MP3 for a friend that had no motorcycle license. These scooters -- like the TTT -- have two wheels up front and one in the rear. The MP3 has a complicated (to me) front end suspension system that allows the scooter to be leaned thru a curve. However, it also has a "suspension locking" feature that locks the tilting hardware at speeds below (something like) 5 MPH, which means the rider can stop at a light w/o putting a foot down. This allows Miss DMA (Dainty Management Assistant) to wear her high heels to work and not have to get them mucky at a stoplight. I always thought it was a silly feature but riding the TTT has changed my mind. So, to Piaggio, I apologize. Well done!!

There's one more indirect advantage to the TTT: bar ends shifters. The TTT comes with them and they're The Tool For The Job. I'm pretty much a Luddite when it comes to mechanical doo-hickeys but I'd long-ago grown quite fond of the Shimano STI shifter/brake setup that came with the Litespeed. When I completed the cross-country trip in 1998, I thought it might be cool to have the T2000's (perfectly reliable) bar-ends replaced with an STI system. So I did and it was. For about a week. For the next 12 years I regretted that decision. After the first half-dozen rides on the TTT, I said, "That's it, dammit -- the T2000 gets its bar-ends back!" I dug out the old parts and cashed-in on a local bike shop's pre-season tune-up special to get them re-installed. And I couldn't be happier! (Part of me -- the Luddite part of me -- briefly considered having down-tube shifters installed but that's a bit too retro for even TCM...)

So that's pretty much the summary. I had a great time riding thru May and look forward to falling back on those good habits in the future. The Missus was uncertain about not only the CFM but the 30-miler as well. But she dug deep and completed both with grace and aplomb. She now has the confidence and the fitness base to go father and faster. Hell, there may even be a bike trip in our future!! Who knows??

So thanx for checking back. Sorry it look so long...

TCM

[Editor's note: The other day, the hardware engineering manager -- the Missus' boss and fellow cyclist -- asked me where he might find some old-style thumb shifters. Not the early RapidFire-style shifters, but older than that even. The only place I figger'ed might have them was Rivendell. (And I was right...) Which reminded me that I always thought that Rivendell's moustache handlebar was really cool and would work well on a commuter bike. So I spent the next 1/2-hour or so employing Google-fu to find pictures of the moustache bars installed on various bikes. Unfortunately, during my net wanderings, I stumbled across this and this:

O. M. G.

I'm sorry folks but that is quite possibly the most attractive bicycle TCM has ever laid eyes upon. ("Sorry, Litespeed, my dear, I'm not taking it back...") It's a Rivendell "Sam Hillborne" and I suspect it's wearing custom paint and fenders. That bike right there would make me wish I had my driver's license revoked and a 40-mile R/T commute to work!! That's one damned fine lookin' ride, sir, and I am terminally jealous...]

Too clever by half

2010-05-14T18:21:00.004-06:00

A meme running around Facebook these days, about violence against women:

While you SCREAM at your woman, there's a guy who wants to whisper in her ear . . .

and so forth.

Two thoughts on that:

There are surely women who provoke their men into batshit-unhinged anger, and who are not meanwhile stealing smiles from other men. There are women who piss off every man they encounter. I can name names.
"There is a man wishing to make love to her" is not the kind of stuff to be telling a man who is prone to abuse in relationships. Guys who get jealous easily should not be made, err, jealous.

I am not making light of domestic violence. But if eloquent feminists want to draw attention to it and get women and men to post something on their Walls condemning domestic violence, this is not the message.

Isn't it enough to say that men who intimidate the women who are close to them deserve to be beaten nearly to death and abandoned along some Godforsaken logging rut? Hell, isn't it enough to say that anybody who abuses anybody joined to him or her in an intimate relationship needs to cut it out?

Update: on some consideration, this passage is not directed at guys to try to get them to stop abusing women. This message is directed at women. Is it encouraging women to abandon abusive relationships---"c'mon, girl, you can do better"?

Which rules violated? Rather, how many?

2010-05-08T10:51:00.005-06:00

Shooters regularly pass opinions on negligent discharges they hear about in the media. Which of Cooper's Four Rules of firearm safety were violated in such-and-such event? This is no Monday-morning quarterbacking, it's a reminder to gun owners of their responsibilities and the risks they face.

Now that Uncle Radley has drawn widespread attention to the militarization of police, and the excessive use of dynamic entries, by the now-famous video, perhaps it's time for these entries to receive similar scrutiny against a set of rules that allow us to judge (yes, judge: to sit in judgment of, to criticize, to pass opinion on) the actions of police officers.

The acts of police must face scrutiny just as the acts of mayors, presidents, senators, or representatives. They act on our behalf. To those who complain that mere civilians cannot presume to judge the actions of SWAT officers because have not walked in their boots, I call bullshit. If we cannot evaluate the actions of those who claim to serve us, we cannot determine whether they are serving us at all, and we cannot determine whether they are breaking laws themselves. The role of servant and served would be reversed.

To judge their actions, we need a standard. It was Say Uncle or James Rummel (I can't remember) who pointed me to Sir Robert Peel's (or Mayne's) principles of policing.

So, gentle readers: which principles of police conduct were violated in the Columbia raid? For the moment let's convene on Peel's version of the principles.

Note: whether the dad was a dope-dealing scumbag is not relevant. Don't address it. The rules aren't about him.

another use for advanced airships

2010-05-04T21:44:00.002-06:00

I didn't bother to follow the link on Instapundit this evening about "cellphones for Cuba." My imagination, though, suggested that sending piles of discarded functioning mobile phones to Cuba to encourage freedom wouldn't help the cause if Raoul kept his thumbs tightly on the mobile phone carriers. Florida is a bit too far to give good bars to those phones.

But if Hermanos al Rescate commissioned an airship with cellular equipment aboard, using tight directional antennae---gain---and kept that ship in the air for days at a time, constantly moving but keeping those beams trained on the island, the phones might work in spite of Raoul's jammers.

But I think another country needs internet bandwidth out to the rest of the world a hell of a lot worse than Cuba.

Iran. The airships could run up and down the Iraqi border, and over the Persian Gulf coasts. Sadly the beams would not reach Tehran.

Seems that we should be dropping HF radios into the country so the horror stories can get out and the dissidents can coordinate.

The Car-Free Month

2010-04-30T18:38:00.010-06:00

It's The Cabinet Man again. Long time no post.

We gun nuts are so often accused of being mono-topic drolls, incapable of interests outside of rolling naked in piles freshly reloaded ammunition. But just like most folks, we actually enjoy other pursuits at times. For me, well, I'm a bicycle freak. I yoosta be a USCF flunky and had grand aspirations for racing the RAAM. I once competed in the Eagleman (Half-)Ironman Triathlon as the bicycle leg of a team. My greatest bragging rights, though, lie in my completion of the 4400-mile TransAm Trail that runs from Virginia to Oregon. I rode that solo -- and unsupported -- in 1998. While my ambitions are far tamer than they were a decade ago, I still enjoy throwing a leg over the top tube and grinding out the miles.

(And I'm not the only bicycling gun-nut. Tam and Xavier are two more examples...)

So the Missus and I are gonna' try this whole bicycle-to-work (-grocery store, -gun shop, -porn outlet) for a month. In May.

Why?

Fair question. It'd be easy to say that we're tree-hugging Earth First'ers that want to save the planet and be a good example to Gaia-loving bipeds everywhere. Or that we like making Arab oil shieks pissy! But that'd be 180-proof blatherskype. (Well, maybe there's some truth to that last one...)

In all honesty, we just like riding our bicycles. And we have a couple of them:

(Yes, that's a titanium Litespeed you're drooling over, blessings and praises be upon it...)

I recently picked up the TerraTrike Tour (TTT) tadpole recumbent for me:

and a BOB trailer off Craig's List for the Missus:

(I have an old Rev 1.0 BOB for myself. The Missus doesn't wanna' haul all the groceries...)

So with all that, we wanna' ride!

We plan to use this car-free month as a springboard for developing better ride-to-____ habits. Just as importantly, we're hoping the commitment will result in more pedal time and less waistline. I need to shed about three stones and the last time I decisively lost tonnage was when I was riding religiously for 10+ hours a week. (20+ hours, actually, but we gotta' start some where...)

I'll probably split my time between the TTT and my beloved Cannondale T2000, the latter being my trusty TransAm steed. The TTT is a blast to ride and the very definition of comfortable. It's an imperfect solution, though. It's so low to the ground that I get the wiggins in heavy traffic. It climbs a bit slower than my two-wheelers but the Missus likes that since I don't drop her on the hills. She'll be riding her GT mountain bike that we've fitted with road tires. We'll both be towing the BOBs on grocery day.

There will be some exceptions to "riding everywhere". We have obligations to our local gun club that can't be fulfilled by bicycle. Hauling hundreds of pounds of steel plates under human power is entirely out of the question. As is the 240-mile round trip to The Property. The Missus isn't keen on riding to the base of the Manitou Incline for our weekly summiting, so that's probably an exception as well. But everything else is fair game: work, groceries, dentist and Sportsman's Warehouse.

I'll try to keep the posts coming on our progress and failures. At least once a week. Check back early and often!

TCM

No, Mister President,

2010-04-27T21:31:00.003-06:00

if you are shopping for a new Supreme Court justice,

Not that Napolitano, but this one.

He's already a judge, if that's important to you. Not particularly important to me, because I believe that already being a judge would disincline one from making waves among other judges. Sorry, that's what the Supreme Court is supposed to do, in a way: point out other judges' errors, even the errors of prior Supreme Court justices. Slaughter Slaughterhouse, anyone?

That's probably why Andrew here so excites as an already-Judge. He's willing to call bullsh on other judges, rather than go along and allow their errors to perpetuate.

Gun pr0n dreamy dreams

2010-04-27T20:55:00.005-06:00

First, I always wanted one of these, more than I lusted for a SPAS 12, say.
The High Standard 10B, a bullpup shotgun. I'm borrowing this photo from a Gunbroker auction, sorry if that offends.

If I were a lunatic independently-wealthy tinkering gunsmith, I'd apply the 10B treatment to a newer semi-auto, and extend that tubular magazine right out to the muzzle. Then I'd package the treatment as a kit for the hobbyist to mount on his own. I don't know enough about modern selfloading shotguns to pick the right one. Bleg?

Meanwhile, on the AR front:

With everybody except me offering a gas-piston AR clone design, the criticisms of the gas piston versus direct gas impingement are emerging, and the most cogent I've heard is this: the direct impingement system applies force exactly along the axis of the bore, breechbolt, and bolt carrier. All are in balance.

A piston offsets that force above the bore axis, causing the bolt carrier to tilt and shave away the soft aluminum of the AR's receiver pieces. A full-auto pistonized AR will grind itself to swarf in one firefight. AKs, in comparison, have rails that guide the bolt carrier and bolt in the needed direction; the offset force harms nothing.

If I were a lunatic independently-wealthy tinkering gunsmith, I'd solve that problem by integrating a steel supporting rail in the roof of the upper receiver. It would take the place of the cocking piece, and probably still function as one. The face of the bolt carrier that takes the force of the gas piston (no longer a "key") would be shaped to ride in that rail, and would not come down out of that rail unless the rail itself were extracted from the upper. The rail would have ample room for lubrication and for the accumulation of chum for the happy soldier to clean away. The bolt carrier would then have little or no surface on it to bear against the inside of the upper receiver---the rail handles all of that. No damage to aluminum receiver.

Whether this configuration would continue to use the existing buffer spring, buffer and buffer tube assembly is still undecided. Maybe the bolt carrier can be carved up to make room for recoil springs that fit within the upper receiver, like on the para FAL?

TENUE CORRECTE EXIGEE

2010-04-26T19:17:00.003-06:00

A Yank wearing a NASCAR T-shirt, jeans, and a ballcap should not be surprised to receive poor service in a restaurant that caters to Eurotrash.

You're gonna wait so long for your dessert that you'll have to go to the maitre d' to remind the establishment that you ordered it.

Just sayin'.

Oh, socialism, where is thy sting?

2010-04-04T20:21:00.004-06:00

To paraphrase Dr Henry Jones, it wasn't until my oldest kid reached the age of 13 that they became interesting.

So over Easter dinner Firstborn, Mlle Sklodovska, Barbaloot and I compared the concepts of nationalism, Nazism (national socialism), and fascism.

There is no sting to equating ObamaCare (probably better called Reid/PelosiCare) with socialism. The word 'socialism' does not invoke the outrage, the indignation, that it once did when I was a boy.

Libertarians: don't bother. It won't get you traction with anyone whose help you'd welcome. You are surrounded by people who hope to start collecting wealth redistribution, via Social Security, sooner than you'll pay off your current car loan. The only outrage they will exhibit is if Sosh Scurty is depleted before they get theirs; by then it will be too late. Cries of 'socialism' today won't motivate them.

Besides, it isn't quite true. ObamaCare (SoetoroCare?) is not socialism, it's fascism.

Something the reader will have to look up. Next up, regulatory capture.

the matriarchy is oppressing me again (some (more) editing)

2010-04-03T20:54:00.007-06:00

This in a comment at drhelen's, on a now famous post about how controlling pornography is an attempt to control men's sexuality.

It takes TWO people for a marriage to work. You will only get out whatever effort you put in.

Let me ask, "huh?" If you get out what you put in, regardless of what the other person of the two of you put in, what is the point of having the other person?

If it takes two people for a marriage to work (and assuming a he and a she in it), he will definitely not get out whatever he put in it, he will get out only what she put in. In the long run, she will not invest more than he does, nor he more than she did; but VB didn't say that. Would have been helpful if VB had.

What would it take, from the standpoint of a talented aphorist, to get these two proverbs to work together, in describing the effort to keep a marriage?

FWIW, drhelen and many of her commenters are conjecturing that the author of the article under scrutiny is a feminist harridan who froze her poor hubby out. That has a ring of truth to it, in a way that cuts very close to my own experience from 25 or so years ago.

Dr Anonymous, the article's author, seems to have taken an easy way to dismiss a serious problem, that He was addicted to Porn!, just as easy for drhelen's commenters to reply that Dr Anonymous was Frigid.

The truth is somewhere in between, I would guess, and really hinges on how well Dr Anonymous and Porn Addicted Husband communicated before she took on Frigid properties and he took on porn addict properties. It could have been averted.

Waste of ethics.

2010-03-20T20:15:00.004-06:00

'Clause' for the day rather than 'quote' for the day. Sorry, that's the best I can muster.

What exactly would constitute a "waste of ethics"? In that ethics is self-approval in what one does not do, "waste of ethics" represents an exertion, an effort, an application of energy, to avoid doing what one's philosophy tells one not to do because the consequences (if discovered) are, um, existential. If your lapse is discovered, your reputation is forfeit. However, if you apply this effort and gain no return, is the effort wasted?

In short, can one look back on the effort one exerted to be ethical and deem it a failure or loss? Can one waste ethics?

My confusion elicits this post.

I happened upon that clause by following this chain: Bacchus to Susie Bright to a commenter at Susie Bright.

Warning: Joan Jett is involved. Don't tell Berke Breathed.

NRA Board of Directors 2010

2010-03-13T10:07:00.003-07:00

This year I followed the recommendations of that there Snowflake guy.

With one exception. I voted for Bob Barr instead of Matt Blunt. In retrospect maybe I should have kept Gov Blunt because he led the reforms that made it lawful for me to CCW on my last trip to his State.

Oh well. I'll make up for that mild error by throwing some money to GOA.

Add Missouri

2010-03-06T14:29:00.002-07:00

to the list of States where I have lawfully carried concealed.

So which is it?

2010-02-25T16:41:00.002-07:00

On the one hand, it's going to be terrible, your son will have a violent alcoholic daddy, your wife will no longer recognize her ruined, spent and joyless man. Sackcloth and ashes:

There is unemployment, . . . and there is unemployment—chronic, all-consuming. The former is a necessary lubricant in any engine of economic growth. The latter is a pestilence that slowly eats away at people, families, and, if it spreads widely enough, the fabric of society. Indeed, history suggests that it is perhaps society’s most noxious ill.

On the other hand, we just didn't have enough confidence in what really works, we took our eyes off the ball, and we listened to the hucksters, disbelievers and naysayers, and we need to just buck up and smile:

When equity prices were falling in 2007 or 2008, the first time the market closed 10.0001 percent below its previous high, they were putting brightly colored banner headlines on television announcing the official onset of a bear market. But this didn't happen on the way up.

I'm confused.

Though as I read to the end of the gloomier article, the policy prescriptions therein have the ring of untruth. Gotta finish the cheerier article and come back.

how things have changed

2010-02-25T16:27:00.003-07:00

I had to rent a car this week. In the compact lines, the only makes Alamo offered were Hyundai and Kia.

Back in the salad days of salarymanhood, they were always Buicks and Pontiacs. Earlier, they were Hertz Thunderbirds. Those days I stuck with one rental agency all the time, and usually rented mid-size then, but I still don't recall seeing Oriental imports on their lots at all in the late Nineties or early Aughts. Now they have crowded Murcan makes out the lowest rungs of the rental fleets as well as some prized places in luxury classes.

Not that I'm complaining, the compact handles competently if a little stiffly, and my favoritest-ever car was a Golf. Rental agencies surely have access to the numbers about durability, cost of ownership, and (ahem) brand loyalty. They wouldn't be renting Korean cars if it didn't make sense, and there were too many of them for it to be an experiment.

When did this happen, and where was I looking instead?

Actually I like Dan's better

2010-02-23T20:04:00.004-07:00

Dan Hurwitz in Liberty, April 2007, p14:

What if Iraq were to model its new government not on the representative democracy of the United States, nor the parliamentary democracy of Great Britain, but rather the direct democracy of Switzerland? ... both are composed of fiercely independent, culturally diverse local communities......

The Swiss system is probably the most democratic on earth. It consists of a federal government and 26 semi-independent cantons (or states). The federal government — more properly called a confederation — provides a political umbrella guaranteeing individual rights, safeguarding property, and overseeing functions that are inherently national in scope, such as defense, public works, freedom of movement, and economic matters.

Your humble narrator, 4 years beforehand:

Don't try to build or rebuild a democratically governed Iraq. We should, instead, partition The Country Formerly Known as Iraq along those ethnic lines again. While the country is still reeling from its violent recovery from Saddam Hussein, we have the opportunity to draw some wide chalk lines on the map, to shove these people back into ethnic/religious cantons.

My submission was a lot weaker on the freedom of movement stuff and a bit more hawkish overall.

Quote from yesterday

2010-02-07T07:24:00.001-07:00

In a free society, it is hard for 'good' people to do 'good,' but that is a small price to pay for making it hard for 'evil' people to do 'evil,' especially since one man's good is another's evil.

Milton Friedman

Layers of fact checkers

2010-01-30T12:26:00.003-07:00

Boston Globe, in a story about the wardrobe choices of Senator Brown, R-MA:

Correction: Because of a reporting error, a story in today's "g" section about Senator-elect Scott Brown's barn jacket incorrectly implies that author Naomi Wolf advised Al Gore on his clothing choices during his 2000 presidential bid. Wolf consulted on women's policy issues for the Gore campaign.

Jessica Simpson mistakenly complementing the US Secretary of the Interior:

"I was introduced to the Secretary of the Interior, Gale Norton, I said, 'I really like what you've done with the place.' I had no idea that she was a member of the Cabinet, not an interior decorator!"

the junkman prevails

2010-01-23T20:01:00.005-07:00

My outfit was spring-cleaning not long ago, and a TrippLite PR40 was destined for the heap.

It's a 40-ampere DC power supply. Well, it was, but it wouldn't supply any DC recently, and it was part of a suite of electronics that had been forklift-upgraded anyway. The proponent of the forklift upgrade didn't ask for it to be turned in.

Your humble narrator chose to snag it instead of letting it go to the heap, because I need a supply for other amateur radio gear that comes along.

This supply had no output voltage at all. I opened it and took the regulated DC off of the final board. Bingo, 22VDC. The crowbar circuit on the final board was shorting the output to ground, as designed.

TrippLite does not offer schematic diagrams for its products. It offered to take this PR40 back and offer me a sweet deal on a refurbished PR40. Total with shipping (this units weighs about 30 pounds) would have been around $200.

I asked around on qrz.com and was told that, likely, there are 4 NPN power transistors in parallel that clamp raw dc down to 13.8VDC, and one of them is smoked. If I wanted to go the incremental route, first change the IC that was applying the bias to those 4 transistors. For comparable power supplies, like an Astron, there's an IC just to do that. The TrippLite does not use that part, but 3 of the 4 opamps on a quad IC instead.

The quad opamp came for about $10 shipped. That didn't do it, replacing the power transistors would come next. I parked this project in the man cave.

The project came back around on the lost-cause rotation, so I sought out a good price on 2N3771 in TO3 cans on eBay. Somebody took my Make An Offer offer, 4 of them plus shipping for under $10.

I put them in tonight. With their outputs still away from the final board, dammit the output voltage was still 22V.

I touched up the joints on the opamp pins and tried again. Still nope. As I started to pack the tools away, it occurred to me that the IC on the final board might not be able to bias the transistors to cut the raw dc down to the desired 13.8V, if the outputs of the transistors are not coupled to the final board.

With the regulator outputs connected to the final board, the output voltage settled at 13.86 or so VDC.

I assembled the supply as far back to factory as possible, and found that I needed a new way to insulate the output post from the cabinet. The original supply used a stack of plastic washers, which disintegrated as I disassembled the supply the first time.

I improvised a pair of insulators from scrap lexan, one inside and one outside the cabinet, with a dab of silicone caulk to keep the red post centered in its hole through the cabinet.

I'll go back inside in a few days and put a rubber O-ring around the red post to better center it in the hole so it doesn't short out.

So now we have a 40A regulated DC supply for about $20. And we also can hook on to the raw DC in this supply for DC of higher voltage than the pickup truck would provide, the next time there's some anodizing to do.

Strip the Supremes of 'their' clerks

2010-01-22T08:08:00.003-07:00

Lawprof goodness:

The simplest solution would be to strip the Justices of all their clerks. We think such a step is unnecessarily radical. Instead, we propose that Congress reassign the clerks (perhaps in reduced numbers) to the staff of the Court’s Librarian. The Librarian would choose and supervise the clerks, who would not be permitted to draft legal opinions. . . our intent is not to punish the Court or its members, but to encourage the Court to operate more like a judicial body and less like an academic faculty cum super-legislature.

Guest bloggers at VC.

There's a parallel here with Members of Congress voting on laws they haven't read: judges deciding cases on the bases of research they haven't read, and expressing their decisions through rulings they didn't even write.

We often get our cause and effect reversed

2010-01-22T07:44:00.003-07:00

Gallup today:

PRINCETON, NJ -- In the wake of Republican Scott Brown's victory in Tuesday's U.S. Senate election in Massachusetts, the majority of Americans (55%) favor Congress' putting the brakes on its current healthcare reform efforts

No, I think Gallup has it backwards, even exactly backwards. Because Americans disfavor current health care legislation, a Republican running against it won the U.S. Senate election in Massachusetts.

"In the wake of" is a sloppy way to write of cause and effect anyway. It implies sudden displacement rather than the steadily accumulating boilover that actually took place.

Quote for the day

2010-01-16T16:29:00.001-07:00

Courtesy Radley Balko:

If only the media had as much contempt for lying, thieving, corrupt politicians as they do for sports stars who use steroids.

Some things are ageless

2010-01-16T09:36:00.002-07:00

A reader at Instapundit notes:

I can’t think of any other transportation device, and very few machines of any kind, that can still function as a profit making business tool nearly 80 years after they were designed.

Emphasis mine. John Moses Browning's M1911 is still out there, profitably if you will. But it wasn't designed by committee.

The humble can opener really needs updating to the XXI Century.

More relevant than ever

2009-12-31T13:44:00.006-07:00

Miles O'Brien:

. . . maybe we should just get it over with and fly like the fat, old French guys I see strolling around this little cute Caribbean town: in Speedos and plastic sandals.

What with Captain Underpants and a quote for today, I recall a post from the very earliest days of WUTT!

Those who would trade liberty for frequent traveler miles . . .

My prognostication failed in one respect: I figured travelers would be confined to their seats for the last 30 minutes of the flight, rather than 60.

The background check fee of $75 sounds a little outdated too.

Repeal the 17th

2009-12-28T11:25:00.003-07:00

How many embarrassed Montanans would call their State legislature today to demand Max Baucus's resignation?

How many folks in Nebraska would like to recall Ben Nelson?

Well, they can't.

Just a thought.

homemade agitation videos against Obamacare

2009-12-24T21:51:00.003-07:00

I'm contemplating borrowing the digital camcorder from work, and finding a few lab coats and doc-smocks, and hacking together a few low budget youtube commercials against Obamacare.

The pwogwessives did it to undermine GWB against Kerry, didn't they?

C'mon kids, get out your Flip camcorders and get crackin'!

there is life after the US Senate

2009-12-20T16:28:00.002-07:00

Kimball via Instapundit:

"Nelson is a pathetic pawn in this game. He’s history and I hope he has plans for a new day job. He’ll need ‘em."

Actually, his prospects are rather bright for a lobbying job in DC, or a regulatory or Executive job in, er, . . . DC. He has shown his future clients that he knows how to hold out for a better deal. He also knows that the Tea Parties have a tough time converging on DC a) during a snowstorm and b) the last weekend before Christmas.

What Mr Kimball should be hoping for, in addition to an end to Nelson's career in the Senate, is that Nelson doesn't file amended tax returns for the last umpty-ump years.

Our only hope of limiting that man's future influence on or service in the Federal Government now lies in catching his fingers in the till, someway, somehow. He needs to be Daschled, good and hard and right the hell now.

Home parkerizing

2009-11-08T19:11:00.004-07:00

Bettie Jean got the home parkerizing treatment. The parts kit from Sarco had some parts in need of a refinishing. Trigger guard and housing in particular. Before:

Brownell's Zinc Phosphate was the source, though I read of some hardcore DIY people who will cook their own from concrete etch solution and steel wool. I wanted zinc because of the gray appearance. Most of the rest of Bettie Jean's furniture is done in zinc already, and in good shape.

I cooked the parts in the parkerizing bath in a Pyrex casserole from the Goodwill store, heated on a Coleman camp stove. After 15 minutes of immersion, I rinsed the part off with hot water from a 30-cup coffeemaker (damned handy item) then shot it with WD40 while it was still hot. After that, I wiped off then blew off with compressed air all the WD40 I could, and bathed the part in vegetable oil.

After:

Next up, the gas cylinder and rearmost of the op rod.

Cops and non-lethal weapons

2009-09-30T20:19:00.003-06:00

If you object to the use of non-lethal weapons by police (as I do) then pop over to this post at Volokh.

The post examines legislative presumptions about the right to use force, lethal or nonlethal, in self defense, it isn't really about stun-guns in use by cops per se; I do want to see EV take that topic on, though, and if enough knowledgable commenters show up he might take the hint.

Kimchi

2009-09-27T20:23:00.002-06:00

A fresh batch of kim chi is slowly fermenting in the fridge, waiting for the garden boxes to be turned over for the winter. The glass jar will move out there when the zucchini is pulled out and the winds blow cold.

Meanwhile, a teaspoonful of the brine of this kimchi is a nice addition to a martini, in lieu of the olives and their brine. That is, if you are into that sort of thing.

One full head of napa cabbage starts it off. Sterilize the gallon glass jar you found at WalMart. Two tablespoons of kosher salt are scattered among the fresh, rinsed and chopped cabbage, with its heart pared out. A gallon ziploc bag of sterile water is laid on top of the cabbage after its outside has been sterilized, and sterile water added around that bag so all the cabbage is submerged.

Two days later, lift out the ziploc bag, and set it aside on a clean surface. Drain the cabbage through a strainer, saving much of the brine, letting the last cup or so of brine fall back into the jar.

Then add finely minced red Fresno peppers, garlic, ginger root, and (for me) shaved carrot. Bring the cabbage back in, and mix, then cover again with the bag. Add only enough brine back to cover all the vegetables again. Refrigerate again.

Let her rip.

inverted V dipole

2009-09-27T16:37:00.002-06:00

I'm hacking one, from CPVC, aluminum electric fence line, and .080-inch string trimmer line. Strung from two trees on the ranchito, in a roughly North-South orientation.
The angle of the vee is about 135 degrees.

It's not as high as I'd like, only about 3 feet above the ridgeline of the house, but that makes it easier to reach until it's tuned and I've wound a balun for the feedline.

My MFJ207 says it shows 3-plus-to-1 VSWR at 14.285 MHz, and bottoms out at 1.1:1 or so at 15.75 MHz. The balun goes on next, and a longer permanent feedline, and some more hardware so the CPVC feedpoint comes off without untying trimmer line. Then get that pup about 10 feet higher up, which involves ladder work on the trees.

I'll tune this better to 20-meters by reducing the angle (the guy points for the poles stay where they are, while the feedpoint rises) then later by cutting length off the two poles.

Let's see how this stands up against Wyoming's wind. Twas a bit breezy today and feedpoint was relatively stable.

Gets me to wondering

2009-09-21T19:31:00.003-06:00

Dave Hardy notes that this week will be interesting for Supreme Court handling of cases that bear on the RKBA.

Thursday, the Ninth Circuit rehears Nordyke en banc. The following Tuesday, the Supremes vote on whether they'll grant cert to the Chicago cases.

Is not the Nordyke rehearing public, therefore covered by the media? I wonder whether the Supremes will, discreetly, read transcripts of the Nordyke hearing, and would Nordyke, in turn, influence any Justices to hear or not hear the Chicago cases? Nordyke, after all, contains in dicta an argument that the Second is incorporated upon the States.

Have we been in similar circumstances before, where a Circuit is hearing (or rehearing) a case that bears very directly on another case for which the Supreme Court is weighing cert?

"Interesting times" indeed. Civil rights era? Abolition of slavery? Hell, even abortion?

Rather concise

2009-09-21T16:01:00.003-06:00

David Bernstein, at the ever-relevant VC:

The Supreme Court, institutionally, does not like to be exposed on controversial issues without any support from the political branches. The most ideological Justices (e.g., Thomas) may not care, but the swing voters do.

That kinda cinches it.

Update: Ilya Somin weighs in.

The most ideologically committed justices (e.g. - Thomas) might be willing to take the risk. But the moderates won't.

Then what's the purpose again of lifetime appointment and all the other bennies that come with the Supreme Court appointment?

Dude, where's my independent judiciary?

Tongue in cheek

2009-09-13T19:40:00.003-06:00

SteveF, tongue firmly in cheek at DailyPundit:

As any manager or politician can tell you, you’re not important unless you tell other people what to do. Scientists, engineers, mechanics, and other people who work with their hands are all interchangeable.

God, it feels that way.

As a mere sprout reading my Dad's Popular Mechanics, I recall the fullpage ad, black and white, grainy and gritty, of clenched hands dramatically lit on perfect black background: "the future belongs to those who are willing to get their hands dirty."

I described this ad, and its sentiment, to a salaryman manager type in my salaryman days. He smirked at me as if I had been wearing a clip-on tie. I never liked that guy anyway.

Instead of telling my sons that they should know how to change oil, sharpen a knife, keep a backhoe from falling into the hole dug with it, or turn an animal he shot into a stack of meat wrapped for the freezer, should I tell them they must master telling other men to do these things for them?

Had to cut somewhere

2009-08-24T20:09:00.004-06:00

Unread newsmagazines have been piling up in Chez Fûz since before this weblog was even born. I used to board a plane for somewhere almost weekly, thus having an uninterrupted block of 3+ hours twice a week to plow through my favorites. Those days are over.

Also, with the intertubes commonly available in the lodgings of choice these days, there's more incentive to read what's interesting online.

The weblog didn't help either: I have a hell of a lot more to say, on the basis of what I read, and far more of a means to say it, compared to October of 2001.

The sainted Spousal Unit has noticed and reminds me frequently. She is limiting where she allows the unread magazines to pile up, and threatens to pitch them. Sorry, that's not acceptable. I keep all of them, they are boxed in my basement.

But I had to cut somewhere. Reason, American Rifleman, American Spectator, Liberty, and Wired (links on the right). The scrip to Liberty lapsed about two years ago, and I miss it.

Reason gets the cover-to-cover treatment and always satisfies. American Rifleman gets a quick browse (who else is making a 1911 clone, or an AR clone, this month?) then into the packing box.

In AmSpec, I'll skip an article if not captivated two or three paragraphs in, and I haven't read Ben Stein bitching about his spoiled son for at least three years. Still I won't give it up.

Wired began arriving at my home very shortly after Condé Nast picked it up. They excited, they stimulated. They had the quirky sense of humor, they had weird typography and novel graphics. But they seem to have gotten completely into the tank for The Won, settling into the warm KoolAid quickly but painstakingly without splashing (ooooo, what will he do without a Blackberry?). It should have been obvious from how they front-cover adored Ahhnold the Governator. Praising some Microsoft executive as a visionary for suggesting that Office will become a subscription-basis application suite? I'll be visionary for letting my subscription to Wired lapse.

Besides, Wired is the absolute worst for packaging and advertising. My first duty upon handling a magazine is removing the blow-ins, glue-ins, and bind-ins, and Wired took the longest.

It's not the money, y'all. I'll probably replace Wired with a renewed scrip to Liberty, if they're still in business (and order the back issues I've missed), and the monthly journal for the American Radio Relay League. It will cost me every bit as much casheesh as Wired won't be getting from me any more.

What Wired content I need I will follow as a link posted by somebody else. I read more Wired that way than on paper today anyway.

It was a hard choice. Too bad.

new player

2009-08-21T19:52:00.004-06:00

The cheap little 8GB ChiPod disgusts. After the file names started looking like Old English runes, and the files themselves elicited "Format error!" after six or eight deletions and reloads, I've given up on it. Now it won't even boot up.

And taken up a new player. Cowon, whoever they are, offer the iAudio M5, packing a 20GB hard drive, and all the codecs that my beloved iRiver i120 used to, even Ogg.

There are yet more similarities between the M5 and the i120, but two very nice differences: it is about 2/3 the weight of the i120, and about a sixth the price, unadjusted for inflation.

There's a stack of them for $57 each in the BX at Andersen AFB. I'll wager this ride is discontinued. I would very much like to find the remote and the dock for it, but don't want to spend as much for them as I did for the player itself.

another fine vendor

2009-08-06T17:46:00.002-06:00

All of Bill Quick's SHTF ruminations remind me of Honeyville Grain. Into the blogroll with them!

If I had a Mormon bishop's store nearer to me, I'd be shopping there to stock up on certain items before H1N1 hits. But I don't, and Honeyville fills the void.

Honeyville packs some very good staple foods in well-sized packages. When the shipping is considered, the prices are good, I think. We've ordered nothing larger than 5# cans, but we may be about to. The Big Brown Truck is happy to drop it off.

Whole grains, TVP, freeze-dried fruits, dehydrated dairy and egg products. Go browse. I found them while searching for bulk red wheat.

in context, not a bad price

2009-08-04T21:21:00.003-06:00

7.62mm NATO ball ammo for under a dollar a round. Reloadable.

Not a bad price considering, well, a bloody shortage. Ctrl-F down the page for "Igman."

I'd a liked to die

2009-08-03T21:28:00.001-06:00

Have a looky.

a new Iwanna

2009-08-02T18:51:00.002-06:00

Something else to add to the list of things I lust for.

A Crankandstein grain mill. Just the guts, I'll build the rest. It can be chucked into an electric drill. But I'd really want a flywheel hand crank. SHTF y'know.

Where next?

2009-07-26T19:44:00.006-06:00

The TEA Parties are delightfully morphing into an agile protest machine. Two developments in particular.

One, they are organizing to appear in response to key legislation---Obamacare in particular---on key dates.

Two, they are appearing as counterprotestors to spoil the protests of opposing groups.

This shows agility. But both of these developments are still reactive, and as the general said, we need to recover the Initiative. It's great to have the shorter OODA loop than your opponent, but we need to take the fight to him. He wins who chooses where and when to fight.

The TEA Party I've attended so far is organized consciously and deliberately with the goal of restoring Federalism, and they strive to defer any other goals, alliances, or identifications that could detract from that one.

So where next? The next likely Federal holiday that will release us proletarians from our yokes long enough to appear on the Capitol steps is, er, Labor Day? Well, I guess that could work. Veterans' Day? That's too long.

I think Obamacare still presents a fat target. If Congress truly has deferred any further work on nationalizing medical care until after the August recess, at best that means Obamacare sponsors and lobbyists will be redoubling their efforts through that recess to get a New Improved Obamacare proposal ready for the first hour of the first day Congress is back.

That leaves TEA Partiers only that long to turn their momentum into Initiative, using Federalism as the frame of reference because that's what TEA Parties do (at least the TEA Party apparatus here in Cheyenne).

Well then, what is the Federalism nexus for nationalized medical care? The straightforward Tenth Amendment argument isn't enough: "They can't be allowed to move all of us into a single-payer system because the Constitution doesn't assign them that power!!!" I can hear the crickets already, especially with an electorate that put Obama in power. Even if disapproval of Obama is at its most plangent, arguing to do nothing, or to let the Federal government do nothing, rings flat and hollow.

So perhaps this: we can agree with President Obama that the current trend in medical care costs is untenable. Sure. But we can also argue, taking the initiative and taking the streets, that everything about the current system that makes it untenable can be traced back to the government, at some level.

Take away the Obamacare argument that the free market is failing in health care. We don't have a free market in health care, and we haven't since World Ware II.

Take away the Obamacare argument that CEOs get Cadillac plans while the working blokes get laid off and have no plans. Corporate income taxes made both ends of that stick possible, by connecting medical care to employment.

And so forth.

The signs won't be easy to write, but that can be trusted to all of us dollar-a-day working blokes who have to shoulder the payment otherwise. We've done the sign-making very well so far. The TEA Party movement just needs to call in the signs and the loudspeakers, and find a place and time for the lawnchairs.

Meanwhile, we need to cover a few flanks. What other legislative or executive fronts will President Obama open up to improve his chances on medical care? Back to cap-and-trade? Another stimulus?

You are entitled to be angry

2009-07-26T19:34:00.004-06:00

I'm the bastard who bids on all that stuff on eBay with at least 5 days to go in the auction.

Sure, I'd buy the item for $19.99 if the remaining 5 days, 19 hours and 43 minutes pass with no other bids for a $600 weather station. You would too. But some other bastard will notice, and because he has no job and no life, he'll hang out, watching and waiting, and snipe it. Or he'll steal hours and internet bandwidth from his employer to do it.

So I feel obligated to bid, just to pump the price up earlier and summon karmic justice for the sniper's employer. Call it amusement, call it sour grapes, call it pissing in the well.

Seriously, I would respect eBay a lot more if they adopted gunbroker's 15-minute rule.