Dear Sweet Jesus We Are All Doomed.

Apparently, some really (otherwise-)smart people have NEVER seen any of Gov. Schwarzenegger's Terminator series, or much Sci-fi at all for that matter. They are building a robot that weighs what a big man does, that can go over apparently any terrain, and carry what five men could. Autonomously. And it can right itself if you try to kick it over. Watch this. Turn the sound low because it sounds like a weedeater when it's on gas power.



Okay, that is seriously cool, as well as creepy, and it does (as Drawing Toward Armageddon points out) tend to evoke sympathy when it struggles, but...

Big Dog only needs a gun, and a connection to SkyNet, and we're done. Come on people, if you need to carry more stuff in, get more people. It'll all end in tears, this way.

Well now, wait a minute, right? It is, after all, only a machine, right?

After all, It's not like a robot will just go off on its own and start killing people, right? I mean, what's the worst that could happen?

Ask yourself: wouldn't it be helpful? I mean, you wouldn't have to use people to police the streets OR the floors!

Hold on there.

It's all fun & games, until we lose control of the system.

Well, We Couldn't Have Guessed THAT Would Happen,

or, If You Will Not Defend Yourself, No-One Will.

Gunshots bring abrupt end to frantic 911 call (from CNN)

So a woman hears someone breaking into her house and does what the Leftists want us to do: call the police and hunker down.

So, guess how that worked out for her?

Hafta ask her husband because the 911 dispatcher heard the woman murdered.

Well maybe she'd been alright if she called the police ahead of time to warn them. Well that didn't work out so well either, did it?

If you think you or your aging parents should get a monitored alarm system for security, I have a better suggestion.

These people were sure it wouldn't happen to them. Just like you are. Note please that the leftists consider it newsworthy that the evil are 'depressed'. Really? Depressed how, depressed like your whole family got killed depressed? No? SIDDOWN!

Since self-defense is a human right, and since the police have NO RESPONSIBILITY to protect you, don't you think you should at least consider getting a useful tool to protect you from those who only want to see you dead?

If you think you can reason with someone who has no compunction about breaking into your home, possibly bent on pillage, rape, AND murder, I have a message for you, and please do take it to heart:

Okay, If You Just Want To Feeeeeeel Safer . . .

My mother in-law is in town to help with the housework while my wife tends to our newborn son. The first few days she either didn't say anything, or, more likely, didn't notice, that I was wearing a full-size pistol on my hip around the house. About the 4th day, she did say something and the next day I heard from my wife that I was "obsessed" about guns. It makes her mother uncoooomfortable to see me armed in my own home. And something less polite than a request to make the icky thing go away. So I put the holster up higher under my shirt (belt vs. pocket mounting) for the rest of the night and took to wearing the pocket pistol in a pocket instead, and her mother can continue being blissfully ignorant of the additional safety she enjoys under the watch of an armed host. I asked my wife and she said it were likely that her mother would be fine with me open-carrying if I were a policeman returned home from a day on patrol. Well, it's certain that I've more firearms training and practice, and am a much better shot than your average policeman but that's not an argument that would make headway with the mother in-law.

She's not much for the English, otherwise I'd 'splain it to her. As it is, I am just going to have to get an MTAC and keep the full power pistol under wraps, so to speak.

As for the obsession I never knew I had, I think part of it is that, when I am doing math homework online, I sometimes have to take a break before my head asplode. Since I'm doing homework when everybody else is in bed, as often as not that break will involve (instead of playing with kids or something) checking the gunbloggers or reading about what's new in the world of arms and armament. This is sometimes noticed. Also, since I want always to be armed (remember the great objective?), I think that's another sign.

No mention will be going the other way about how I am also obsessed with wearing a seat belt and locking the doors and drinking water, nor of how the womenfolks are obsessed about having the TV set turned on.

Fortunately, the MTAC should be an easy sell with She Who Keeps The Books, and her mother is only staying for a couple weeks, total.

And That Would Be The Wrong Answer Also

or, Why I Was Screaming Cussing In My Car On The Way To Work.

from the Turkish Press:

So the Navy has a cargo vessel under contract with an armed Naval patrol onboard. In the Suez Canal. Several small craft approach and all but one turn away at the urging of verbal commands, warning flares, and warning shots fired. And one continues. The sailors (USN sailors) open fire on the vessel. An Egyptian Citizen is KIA.

And the Bushies expressed regret over the shooting.

And I said to my radio, in rather emphatic tones, that this was not the proper response. That, in fact what Bush should have said is:

"If you keep coming on our at our ship during a shooting war (warship or no) and there have been recent acts of piracy in that part of the world, and we told you go away, shot warning flares and warning BULLETS at you, and you see a bunch of guys coming out on decks with EBRs and MGs . . . if under those conditions you continue to approach,

THAT'S WHAT YOU ******* GET YOU *******!!"

I guess we are playing both sides of the fence here, though. To the arab mind, what matters is action. You approach our boat and ignore warnings, that's a shootin'. To the squishy american leftist mind, intent matters. We regret having to waste bullets on you terrorists this shooting and our condolences to the family. "oh, that's okaaay, they didn't meeeean to kiiiil anybodyyy"

That is all.

Global Warming Is Real

or,

So, You Still Believe In The Tooth Fairy (And Anthropogenic Global Warming)?

For those who are not following this matter closely, please take a moment to catch up on what the ARGO project is all about, here (UCSD) and here (UW).

Okay, everybody up to speed? Great.

Now, check out what ARGO has to tell us about the rapid warming of the global ocean waters:


Image taken from
the National Oceanographic Partnership Program website

okay, so what?

So, here is hard evidence of a short-term oceanic global cooling trend and you never heard about it until just now.

If there had been hard evidence from such a reliable source as ARGO that the oceans were heating, Al Gore would be all over his Internets crowing about it and you would see it all over the nightly news. Above the fold on the New York Times. Global warming theories contraindicated? Well, maybe we'll just spike that one.

This of course leaves it to the pundits to tell each other what it means, and to suffer ad hominem attacks by way of response in various internet arguments.

Are you ready to panic about anthropogenic globalwarming yet?

Maybe you should wait until you hear that NASA had a little oopsy and revised global temperatures downward recently, doing rather a lot of damage to folks who rely on the hocky stick graph.

(by the way, they should be relying on it less, since the guy who made it used a program that guaranteed he'd get one no matter what)
(Which was easier when he didn't include data that prevented any hockey-stick action)

You like all those fancy graphs? Go here for a primer
And your head could explode when you see all these fancy proxy graphs

BUT BUT the scientists say that the earth will heat! The computer models says so!

Hold on there.

The models are not exactly the be-all-end-all of reliability.

Folks, Global warming is REAL. We can't go from an ice age and glaciers all over the place to having farms where the glaciers were, without global warming.

I won't mention that the Flood probably did a lot of the work attributed to glaciers, if you don't say the warming since the planet was icy, was all caused by man

The sun, it heats us.

Duh?

Let Me Introduce You To My Little Friend

This is the first of hopefully many gun and gunsmithing related entries on this site.

The issue under consideration is the sight picture on my daily pocket carry pistol, a Kel-Tek P-3AT. This weapon is a wonder of technology, weighing, loaded, what a loaded magazine for my Glock might weigh. It fits in the inside pocket of my light wool suit coat and doesn't pull the coat down. It is also less than an inch thick, so it doesn't print through the fine material. I slip it into a blue jeans pocket and it prints as "something in a guy's pocket with stuff in all his other pockets" and you'd be hard-pressed to tell I'm packing a half-dozen marginally effective hollowpoint solutions to the most severe of interpersonal problems.

The front and rear sights on a P-3AT are intentionally shallow, not extending even as far down as the top of the slide, to prevent snagging during a draw. The problem: they also prevent acquiring a sight picture for aimed fire. There is a slight dovetail to the rear sight as it came from the factory, but it isn't much help if you are focusing on the front sight (which bears a matching slight dovetailed profile). In addition to being small, the sights are blued just like the rest of the slide. The effect when aiming a stock P-3AT is making sure the top of the slide is round all the way across. The front blade is wide enough to fill the rear slot, and this makes it that much more difficult to aim, without much of a gap on either side when completing the sight picture.

A longish time ago, someone gave me a Bryco/Jennings Model 59 9mm that he didn't trust. It had the typical 20-50% failure rate and an horrible trigger and bad ergonomics. I said I'd improve it or cut it in half and recycle the steel. Several hours of metalwork and polishing later, it had a failure rate of 2% last time I took it out. One FTF due to an ammunition problem and one FTE due to the weapon. That's ok for a plinking gun anyhow. Then, of course, the cast "metal" firing pin broke. And the steel replacement from Numrich was enough out of tolerance to kill the firing pin spring. So that's sitting until I can get a proper pin turned out.

Anyhow, one of the improvements on the Bryco was that I painted the sights. The front is orange and the rear is light green. I had heard that this was a dramatic improvement for any handgun. I figured, it wouldn't cost me anything if I didn't like the result. The result was amazing and is on its way to being applied to all of my handguns' sights. The orange/green contrast is miles better than the black/black shape-only contrast during shooting if there is enough ambient light to show the colors of the sights. If you haven't tried it, you should.

Back to the P-3AT. I got this from a brother at my church who literally couldn't keep it on paper at 7 yards, nevermind on target, due to his inability to see the sights. I had it grouping about 3" at 5yds and told him I'd take it. MadOgre, Uncle and others have mentioned that this is NOT a pleasant gun to shoot, but that is not the point.

For ergonomics, I found it important enough enough to actually do the work to remove some of the flash at the joints on the plastic frame. I also knocked down the excessively sharp checkering on the grip after it took a chunk out of my hand with the sharp points on the checkering during shooting. The ergonomics thus slightly improved, I set out to improve the sights as much as possible without spending any hard-earned cash.

So, I ended up shaving the side flanges of the front sight straight down to the frame so the sight is sticking up all by itself, then applied a bit of orange to the sight to add contrast and a bit of blacking (M-NU for Marines' boot lace eyes) to the raw metal by the sights where the metal was removed. On the rear sight, I dug the channel down that last millimeter or so to the top of the slide and blacked the bare metal. I also added the green paint to complete the contrasting sight picture.

It went from "is this on target?" to HEY there's the FRONT SIGHT and it's bracketed in the REAR SIGHT! I have yet to take it out shooting after this work was done, but Draw-and-aim drills are much improved.


(click for larger photo)

Tools used were a pair of small files and a dremel. Highly recommended optional equipment is a roll of masking tape for the slide and the teeth of the file you are not currently using. When using the edge of the file, tape the flats, and tape the edges when using the flats, to preserve the metal you want to leave. If you are going to undertake to do this yourself, beware to put some masking tape on top of the slide also, to prevent the fine scratches mine now has, imparted by the file's tip before I taped the slide. The tape on the slide also serves as a guide to tell you when you are getting close to the slide. The tape starts to be abraded away as the file gets closer to the base of the sight. As the image of the bare front sight shows, be gentle and go easy if you decide to use a dremel to remove large amounts of metal. Oops. I also rounded the nose ever so little, removing what little sharpness that corner had.

Nice.

If you are willing to risk your weapon, do it yourself or have somebody hand do it for you; it will be worth it. If you're in central Texas, drop me a line if you want somebody to do it for you who already has. ;)

So, You Say Oil Comes From Dinosaurs?

. . . and that we are running out of it?

From WorldNetDaily, In 5 minutes I find more evidence that not only does oil NOT come from dead stuff, we have more of it than we will ever need.

After recent oil strikes that double our US territory proven reserves

we find it is not required and shouldn't be hard to replicate similar finds of large quantities of oil!

Soon to be released for anyone to do it: bacteria modified from the cow-fart-methane producing kind turn waste biomass into fuels. To be producing gasoline and diesel in the US in a couple of years if possible.

A new discovery about the Lost City vents under the ocean is increasing evidence for the abiotic origin of "fossil fuels"

More on abiotic hydrocarbon fuels

But somehow, you are unconvinced. Okay, we'll still welcome you to the SUV party when you join it.

Now here is the religious aside that makes you think I am a kook:

This is further proof of creationism from the Biblical and Young Earth perspectives. IF the dinosaurs didn't live gozillions of years ago, then there is no way for the oil to take gozillions of years to form.

I suppose you also didn't know that the oil is sometimes found under high pressure (think: Spindletop) that would normally have crumbled the surrounding rock and bled off, given millions of years. If it was only there for a (geologically) short period, then the rocks wouldn't have cracked and let the pressure out.

Huh. How do you like that?

And That Was The WRONG Answer Also

So some lackey in the prison system made a mistake on the menu for some PRISONERS during a made-up holy month of a made-up religion. Stupid fools, they thought the peaceful members of the peaceful religion of peace could eat normal human food while in prison. Somehow it is worse that it happened during a month that is supposed to have something to do with fasting anyhow.

What, you didn't hear? It was in the Daily Mail!

Alrighty, anyway, instead of saying "suck it" like some red-blooded Saxons would have done. Instead of saying "okay, tomorrow the menu won't have ham old chap" like an Englishman would have done, and especially instead of saying "okay, I took the ham off the sandwich, now it's good enough for YOU" like a red blooded American prison chef would have done,

UK has apologized. And having apologized, they are facing a multi-million dollar

HUMAN RIGHTS LAWSUIT

over a stupid frikken prison menu. But, as the song says, there's no England anymore.

Next they will be saying that the taxpayer provided prison cable television system is violating their huuuuuman rights because they had to change the channel because the commercial showed a woman without a burka on. The hussy even showed her ANKLES for the black rock's sake! She should be STONED!

Hey, right back at'cha pal.

How about, if you don't like it, you lump it, or we'll give you a lump on your head.

Coming soon to a United Kingdom near you: sh'aria!
Unless they manage to pull their heads out and see where they're all headed.

"hey, where are we all going, and how did we get into this basket?"

Boo.

Everywhere I've lived, there is something that stinks about it.

In Houston, it's like walking out the front door and into an oven set to self-clean, with a pan of water inside.

In El Paso, it's like walking out the front door into an oven set to self-clean, but without the water this time. Plus in the winter sometimes the roads are shut because of snow.

In San Diego, the weather is perfect but the people make up for it. Also waking up with the whole house shaking is NOT cool.

In Washington State, the landscape is beautiful but the sun comes out for about 5 minutes a YEAR.

In Chicago, it alternates between the Houston and Washington extremes, with crime to boot.

In Austin, The landscape is right, the weather is right, and I feel like I have a butcher's knife buried in my forehead.

If it's not one thing, it's another. I am pretty sure there is no place outside of Heaven where everything is perfect.

Till I get there, there's Alavert, Sudafed, Dayhist, Benadryl, et cet era.

Being allergic to stuff in the air SUCKS!

Through the mouth though, until the medicine kicks in. Then it's just through the wallet.

Congratulations to Us, Thanks to Jesus!

...and a hearty slap on the back to the lawyers and accounts payable department at the hospital.

Our third Bundle o' Joy started giving momma a hard time during Wednesday night church services and by Thursday morning we had another son. They sent him off with us wrapped in a diaper, long-sleeved shirt, and (count 'em) two blankets to go to the mother/baby ward where our room was a good 80 degrees. Then he was feeding at momma's breast for 40 minutes.

Dadgum if he didn't go and get overheated.

100.9 rectally ain't no joke in a newborn, but it was down over a half degree in less than half an hour. We didn't think too much of it when they took t-bili and CBC samples. Our first son was a very much more yellow baby and the same hospital told us to leave him by sunny windows as they sent us home. And our kids, when they get hot, we undress them and cool the room and problem solved. Mind you, this was at 36 hours postpartum. We were literally about to go home in a few hours.

Fast forward a day and the baby is under blue lights and the CBC came back clean at 24 hours. Fast forward another day and the on-call pediatrician is saying she wants yet another overnight observation period. We point out the timing of the CBC draw and it gets revised to 7PM Sunday, instead of maybe 10AM Monday. Whoopsy, I got my math wrong she says. Yeah, easy for your wallet to say.

Anyhow, thanks to the grace of God and no real surprise to us, little M.K. is home and doing just fine, thank you.

I won't go into how I missed a homework deadline and possibly a multi-thousand-dollar-profitable car sale because being in hospital is as close to off the grid as a person in a city can be.

Oh well.

Spitzer Resigns

Eliot Spitzer has resigned, effective monday. Good.

Patterson is the replacement.

This will be the first "black" governor of New York.

Of course, the people of New York are racist because they have not elected a black governor prior to now.

/sarcasm

That is all.

My Mother In-Law the CRIMINAL!!!!

So my Mother in-law is in town to help my wife when our baby is born any ol' day now. She brought some baby clothes with her. One of them had an anti-theft tag still stuck on it. The clerk said to ignore the alarm, that the system was busted and everybody was setting off the alarm on their way out. I think the clerk was lazy or had a busted remover. Or a friend helping them jack clothes, you never know.

ANYHOW this little 2 piece red and white short-suit thingy was held together with a "don't steal this or NINJAS will KILL you" tag. You know, the beige kind, rectangular with a little 4-sided pyramid on it. I did a little googling and got good information about how to remove an ink tag with ball bearing retainers, but this isn't that type. This is the type with a leaf spring to hold the pin at a notch. Apparently, the release is by squeezing the pyramid just so.

I used a dremel and cut the pyramid off. Then a pointy object to pry the leaves of the spring apart to loosen the grip on the pin. Apart it came. I cut the rest open and it was about as primitive as could be. No ink in this one, just an electromagnetic resonator that probably says "hey" when the door alarm says "hey".

No freezing involved (doesn't work, the ink won't freeze anyhow) because I cut it off and didn't have to worry about ink. This one didn't have ink in it anyway.
No lighter involved, although that might have worked to get the pyramid off. It would just have made the spring warm.
No ink involved. I felt cheated, sort of like Mel when she got a ferocious lick hound of a pit-bull.

Oh well, at least the tag is off.

P.S. if you want to say something about being a thief or helping would-be thieves, shove it. They already know how to do it or are about to be arrested anyhow. And my wife's mom is just a victim here; victim of a store clerk without a clue or a care about the store's bottom line.

It's a joke. Get it?

For the People of the Gun out there: 7.62x39

So, How About That Moral Crusader, eh?

So Eliot Spitzer, the formerly morally super-righteous crusader against all things with even a whiff of "I think it's not right" associated with them, is a whoremonger. Huh. So they guy who went after the founder of Home Depot for making an amount of money that was approved by the exchange board, got caught putting money into a different type of silk purse. So a politician is using dirty whores.

So Eliot, who's "unsavory," "deceptive" and "tainted" now?

Who'd have seen that coming? Maybe anybody who was paying attention?
"The reliability of Mr. Spitzer's judgment, . . . should be an issue of prime concern when those votes are cast. But he also has a troubling method of making loud legal threats, strong-arming witnesses, and intimidating boards and companies into destructive concessions. . . Coercing settlements through fear, as anyone can see, is far different from delivering justice."

Another sad example of a public figure going to the dark side. In front of the whole world, he presents this as an acceptable behavior by having engaged in it himself. Thanks for upholding the moral standards there, moral crusader! Yeah he apologized. Right. If it was wrong enough to apologize for, why was he doing it?

Jerk.

As a side note, if I did this, you wouldn't see my wife standing beside me at a press conference, you would see her in handcuffs. Having stabbed me to death with a kitchen knife while I slept.

Where do these chicks come from? Why the hell would you stand up there with him? I guess mathematics ain't the only thing they don't teach kids in govermint skools anymore.

Unless of course she already KNEW about it, and just didn't want to be the one hanging in the basket. Or whatever.

That's Not Quite What I Would Have Done...

... or, More News From The Place Where England Used To Be

Okay, so 10% of Londonners have hurt themselves. Not climbing ladders or operating table saws or using dynamite. No, they are walking into lampposts.

Seriously. Click the link, I'll wait.

Back already? Good.

How about this: if 10% of your populace is too stupid to figure out that they are walking into large, solid, inanimate objects, make them foot the bill for it instead of having NHS pay for the emergency room visit. Oh wait, that's not socialistic enough is it? Hm. Maybe, suggest that they don't devote 98% of their concentration to their cell phone LOOKING DOWN (instead of even looking up, come on LAZY at least pick your arm up so it hits the post first!) while the other 2% is devoted to walking. Nope, once again, that suggests that people can do something for themselves and we can't have that in the land where banning of pointy kitchen knives is coming under increasingly serious consideration. Oh boy don't get me started on that.

No, folks, the solution is to PAD THE POLES that people are walking straight into! Duh! Of course! WHY didn't I think of it first? Next thing, we're going to have to widen the sidewalks. You know, when someone hits the pole at an angle, they might go careering off into traffic and we couldn't have that could we?

25% of the population thinks there should be lines on the sidewalk to show people looking straight down which way to walk. Surely, this would only lead to people running into the backs of others, who have run into the backs of those who have run into the poles. Contrary to what Ralph Nader might think, padding is not the solution to rapid deceleration events.

Look up, people, for crying out loud. I think the populace going about their blissful (ahem) ways in Condition White may have something to do with the dramatic increase in crime recently, although not as much as the ban on guns and self-defense in general.

What, you didn't click through to Fox's story? Then you missed a winner of a photograph.

Jimmy Carter Sucks.

In 1977 U.S. President Jimuh Carter banned the recycling of commercial nuclear reactor fuel. India had nipped some from a neighbor and made a Bomb with it, and he didn't want that to happen to US reactor fuel. So he made it against the law to recycle the stuff. By the law of unintended consequences, he put containment pools in a hundred or so places in the country, holding deadly radioactive waste under water.

Ok, fine. So what?

So nobody steals radioactive waste in the country that is (arguably) one of the most anal about storage and security of it. Come on, now.

In france, something like 80% of their energy comes from nuclear power plants. Do they have these deadly dangerous containment pools? Not so much. In france they

recycle it.

something like 95% of spent fuel rods are material that can be reprocessed and put right back into a nuclear reactor. The rest is mostly isotopes of lead, cesium and strontium. Cesium and strontium have half-lives of less than 40 years, each. They are reduced to mostly harmless in relatively short order. The uranium and plutonium are what needs to be locked away for thousands and thousands of years. You know, that same uranium and plutonium which is able to be reprocessed into useful reactor fuel? Yeah, that stuff. You end up with a choice: recycle it and protect the citizenry from a little bit of crazy dangerous stuff for a few hundred years, OR don't recycle and protect the citizenry for longer than we have had recorded human civilization on this planet. Hmm.

Does it make the choice any harder when I tell you that France stores all of their Cesium and Strontium waste in Le Havre. . . in a SINGLE FRIKKEN ROOM?

Barack Hussein Obama is against Yucca Mountain. So is Hillary Rodham Clinton. So am I. Because this is about the stupidest idea EVAR! Could you imagine what would happen if somebody in government proposed that we take all the used aluminum cans in the country and bury them underground in the middle of nowhere instead of recycling them? Do you think environmentalists would go for it?

Oh, you can hear it already, nuclear fuel is dangerous! Three Mile Island! Chernobyl! Mutated fish in the streams!

HOG

WASH

!

Anybody that says nuclear energy is dangerous is either a) stupid b) not paying attention c) too lazy to do 5 minutes of research online d) lieing or e) somebody with commercial interests in keeping the status quo. Allow me to make a controversial statement:

Nuclear energy is safe, environmentally friendly and nonpolluting. It is a natural process brought under control and NOT a threat to the people or environment of the U.S.A., and we should be doing more of it.

I could write a book about this topic, but it's already been done and the idiots and jerks in government don't seem to care, so I won't waste the effort. If your interest is piqued, please visit this website for more information.

Next, We'll Buy Our Bullets From China.

So Boeing lost the bid, subject to appeal and political posturing.

An European company is going to be getting gobs of US taxpayers' cash ($100B-ish, total, probably) to build the next generation of mid-air refeuling tankers for the USAF. Some folks say it doesn't matter because they'll be assembled here. They'll be "made in USA of foreign and domestic components", as it were. Sort of like the Toyotas rolling out of San Antonio.

The next logical step, of course, is to have them assembled there and flown here. It's commercially advantageous as well, because you don't have to fly them to European and Middle Eastern purchasers from the USA. You know, why don't we just outsource our entire military manufacturing infrastructure to China, because it would surely be low risk and way cheaper. Political prisoner slave labor is way cheaper than US American Union labor after all.

Reductio ad absurdum? Unfortunately, not to some strict internationalist capitalist types.

We need to be able to make our own military hardware. What happens if we are at war with the companies making our war machines? We have been at war with Germany before, and some of the parts for this plane are from there (for example). If we STOP making stuff here, then NEED to make stuff here, we won't be READY to make stuff here when we NEED to.

Can you say defeat through attrition? I knew you could.

I heard a caller to a radio show who couldn't understand why it were a bad idea to make electronics critical to US national security in China. He just couldn't get the idea thru his thick head that China is only our friend until they are an enemy. Also it seemed hard to grasp that an enemy wouldn't necessarily sell us things required to kill them, no matter how much we were willing to pay. (no mention of the fact that we probably would be borrowing the money from them in the first place).

You're not like that, are you? You do see, don't you, that we need to be able to make our own hardware which is critical to defending our country, in case we end up enemies with the other States which make the hardware?

or did you also go to government school?

I Bet You Don't Have THESE In Your Office

A co-worker asked what these were as I was getting my coffee. One was sitting on the table where I left it after I showed it to a newbie here at work. The other four were in a drawer in the break room.

We have some office space that is currently available for lease. The building we are in now was vacant for 4 years and nobody much cared about it. The local SWAT got permission from the previous owner to do some door-to-door room clearing excercises in our office space. They left a few dozen of these laying about.

Those are empty 9mm casings from Simunitions. paintballs for real guns that have been fitted with special barrels. You use your service weapons with special barrels that can't chamber real bullets. This used to be* the best idea in law enforcement training. You shoot somebody by accident and they don't get dead.

How spiffy is that? I bet you never went room to room in your workplace picking up spent shell casings!




*By the way, simunitions took a major turn for the stupid by introducing a round at the last SHOT show that will fit a Simunitions-only gun (you know, one that CAN'T kill people with regular Simunitions) that provides a LETHAL level of force. They are a different color but the markings on the box are almost identical. And you can Oopsie kill your brothers with them.

So, in Order to Promote a Recession

I heard it on the way home from voting last night and went to search for an article about it this morning, and found this blog entry instead. They missed a point but we'll get to it.

OK, so Bernanke wants to write down the principle on loans, to "help" the "distressed" homebuyers who owe more than their house is worth. You know, when family members do this, a legitimate counselor would call that "enabling" a "self-destructive" behaviour.

You take out a bad loan and don't care
You buy a house for more than it's worth (by financing "stuff" into the mortgage") and don't care
You all of a sudden get gobsmacked by reality and you want the investors to lose principle because all of a sudden you care

Hold on there.

Why should somebody who lent you captial in good faith not be repaid at least the capital that you borrowed? Ok, negotiate on the interest rate with the loan servicing entity. Fine.

But did you know that the loan was sold as an investment to somebody? You are actually stealing money from the investor if you "negotiate" a lower principle after you sign on to the final papers at closing. The bank servicing your loan will eat their own shorts as well.

Sure, blame the banks and investors for going for bad investments. Fine. Read the post I linked to for the other reasons this is stupid, and what it will lead to.

Not everybody gets to own a house folks. It's a privelege that should be reserved for those individuals who have made sound financial decisions in their lives to that point.

On a side note, until the socialists got into the system, it was*. A decade ago, I was wondering how I would save the 25% mortgage down payment that USED to be required for a loan that was a good investment for the lender. I was, mind you, very pleased to get into my house for $500 or so in closing costs. I also didn't get my family in over our heads. You know, it's the craziest thing I did. A mortgage broker qualified us for $170,000. A banker (Lawrence with WaMu) who used to be a broker and hates them now because they are all sleazy approved our loan for a $123k house. Go figure. Then we DIDN'T get $50k worth of junk to fill it with. Huh. We must be bad americans.

Saturday Night Live did a sketch about a financial expert who was explaining how not to be in debt. He was explaining to a rube that if you don't have money, you don't spend it. EVEN if you really REALLY want something.

It used to be a joke.




*Because inner city dwellers in the low rent district were making poor financial decisions, they had a hard time getting loans. They were mostly "minorities". This of course is racist. Also not fair. SO racist pressure groups got congress to pass laws requiring lenders to write loans that were known to be horribly risky investments. And then, go figure, people in bad financial shape got themselves into worse financial shape. Because it wasn't *fair* and "they" did something about it. Bah.

So I Voted for Hunter After All . . .

. . . because the primary system is so broken that the electorate can vote for someone who has already dropped out. I pushed the "cast ballot" button with my middle finger.

I had been hearing all day that there was high turnout at the Texas primary polling places. I got to the elementary school where our precinct votes and the parking lot was about as full as it was the 2nd time Bush got elected. I went in and the line was halfway down the hall, which is relatively crowded for this precinct, especially in a primary.

A fella came out to the side of the line and said, this table is for Democrats, that table is for Republicans.

Nobody moves.

He says, so if you are voting Republican, you don't have to wait in the Democrats' line.

Oh, ok. That'll be me, then, and (looking around) well, that'll just be me. Based on the completely unscientific poll I took in 3 seconds, about 85% of the voters yesterday in Texas were Democrats. As I was walking up to the ballot machine, I noted that 3 of 6 machines were in use. Usually, you have to wait to get on a machine to vote, even when it's not crowded.

As I was filling out my preferences for the election, I heard a very patient volunteer explaining that if you hadn't registered to vote in this precinct, you would not be able to.... I left before the explanation was complete. That poor volunteer was still explaining when I walked out happily wearing my I Voted sticker on top of my boonie hat.

Man, that must have been a long, long day, sitting behind the "D" side of the table.

Scary, to contemplate that those people who were voting for "change" or "socialism" or whatever they call it, knowing zippo about the candidate, are voting on the future of the free world this November. IF they remember to vote.

Vote for me.

At least they will have found out by then that they're all bums. Maybe they won't be so hopeful for change when the skeletons are out of the closet.

Didn't See That Coming.

Turns out, Barack Hussein Obama lied about his campaign meeting with Canada over the NAFTA gaffe.

And he has some deep ties with a shady financing guy. "A boneheaded move."

Really?

You mean, a completely unknown, unvetted career politician from a big, corrupt, northern city isn't all sunshine and light? Wow.

shocking.

SHOCKing.

I'm SHOCKED.

Not.

Barack is a Muslim!

No matter how many times Obabma says he is a Christian and despite the fact that he regularly attends a (black racist) Christian church, he can't be a Christian just because he says so.

That's what the "arab street" says. Funny how the religion of peace won't let you choose your own religion. The report I heard this morning says that "they" are saying that, since his grampappy an pappy too 're mooslim, he don't git to say whut he is.

Morons. Obviously, they never quite got that religion is a personal choice. If you want to go to Hell, it's up to you. Obama has obviously made the choice for Jesus & Heaven.

Why do I keep finding myself defending somebody I really, really, really want to see defeated?

Anyhow, this works out well for the US if Barack Hussein Obama wins. Here, he is a sworn Christian. In Europe, he's a hard-core leftist. In the Middle East, he's a Black Muslim. Everything to everybody, HEY!

ugh.

Vote for me.