Not Mine

The Anchoress notes that federal buildings must be warm for Michelle Obama to go in a sleeveless vintage Norman Norelli number without a hint of goosebumps. Unlike you know, every one else who has turned down their heat to fight rising energy prices and higher seasonal heating bills.

I've been working for the government for over eight years now. At no time in my service has the HVAC ever worked right. My building was built as temporary lab space for World War II and the Army has been using it in one way or another ever since. The HVAC has been fixed 3 times since I started working there, but it is still broken. This week highs outside were in the 30s and the AC was on inside. For over a week. To be fair, if they managed to get the heat working it would probably be far too warm to be comfortable.

This is the story on most of the legacy buildings on most US military bases. Heat is central steam heat. The central plant has two settings, on and off. The setting is changed twice a year whether you need it or not. All the steam lines leak so the heat is never dispersed properly. Your building is either far too hot or way too cold. Because of this everyone has both an electric space heater and a fan at their desk. Every few years a contractor comes in and promises to work miracles for a reasonable fee, but then it breaks again in a year or two.

The right side of the blogosphere has this narrative going on that the Government functionaries are living in the lap of luxury while Rome burns. It's BS. Aging infrastructure is not just an issue with the interstate highway system.

RNC Politics

Rumor has it that Michael Steel is finally stepping down as RNC chair. Huzzah! Now Norm Coleman says he wants the job.

Hey I have an idea. How about we pick an RNC chair who actually has a history of winning elections. Steele was a joke in his native Maryland, mostly because Black Republicans are blatantly Uncle Tommed in the state. Coleman lost to Al Franken in a close race. Isn't there a decent Republican governor facing term limits somewhere?

Regular Maintenance

I was practicing my draw in the basement with the airsoft 1911 when I noticed that the thumbsnap on my holster was tending to disengage the airsoft's manual safety. Not so good, but I've never noticed it happening with the real thing. A quick walk to the safe and... huh the darn electronic lock is dead.

Pry off the access plate, find the key, open her up and well there's your problem. One of the AAs powering the lock leaked. Pull them out, clean it up, and it works fine with fresh batteries. Glad that didn't happen when it mattered. Need to start storing the emergency safe keys closer to the safes in case this ever occurs when it does.

Oh and my real 1911 has a much more positive safety detent than the airsoft so accidental disengages don't seem to be a problem. I may have to adjust the holster thumbsnap anyway to be double plus sure.

Obama on Mythbusters

The President is appearing on tomorrow's Mythbusters to commission Adam and Jamie to look into the myth of Archimedes mirror. For those not in the know, it's a device which was supposedly used to focus the power of the sun to set attacking Roman ships afire during the Siege of Syracuse.

The Mythbusters have addressed this one at least twice in the past. So it's been done multiple times before, they've had minor success, but never found it really workable, and now that Obama shows up the results are supposed to be different? A fine metaphor for modern liberalism indeed.

UPDATE: Great minds think alike, but IMAO has clips.

Hallelujah!

Tamara and Sebastian have already posted this, but I wanted to wait until the Christmas season was actually here.



Plus it's Handel's Messiah so it creates all sorts of wonderful tension between high artistes and the faithful. I'm surprised you didn't see a bunch of liberals sit down during that clip just to show the Christians what for.

Happy Thanksgiving!

And in honor of the holiday, I give you Breda's wonderful idea of brining a turkey in an empty refrigerator vegetable bin. Like most things of the internet it is a wonderful idea that is several days too late to be of use to you. But file it away for Christmas.

Not So Peak Oil

As I mentioned several years ago, the theory that underpins peak oil analysis is not especially sound. The output from a given deposit is bell-shaped. This is a sound empirical rule. You can aggregate all known deposits into a large bell shape. True enough. But this theory is only valid for known existing deposits. It doesn't take into account technology growth that allows for the exploitation of new fields or new sources of petroleum. You know, as is happening now.

Kid Needs a Haircut

Amy and I share Jalopnik's disdain for the annoying kid in skinny jeans and a Christopher Atkins haircut that Toyota is using as their spokesman in at least one current advertisement.

What is really sad is that while Toyota pisses all over the old Buicks in the commercial, they've basically become Buick.

It's a Casserole

This revelation about deep-dish pizza and others at Snowflakes in Hell and Clayton Cramer.

Wisdom for the Ages

Clayton Cramer's post of excerpts from Andrew Jackson's fairwell address contain some amazing stuff. Among the topics he discusses are taxes, duties, the expanding role of federal government, and corrupt politicians or businessmen profit from these.

Math for Everyone

Joanne Jacobs has a discussion about how much math is enough for students. She suggests that frankly, most people don't need everything they're taught even through high school. I think she mostly correct.

When it comes to practical skills for the general populace, the skills list is something like addition/subtraction, division/multiplication, ratios/percentages, and exponents. Any sort of budgeting will require these skills. Any sort of financial planning will require percentages, ratios, and exponents to calculate interest. Anything geometrical will likely require trigonometry sooner or later. Understanding simple concepts like basic computer modeling requires basic algebra, probability, and statistics is very useful for figuring out what people are talking about on the evening news.

I have a Bachelors and a Masters in Mechanical Engineering. I know a fair amount of higher math. About the only thing I use on a regular basis are prob/stat, trig, and linear algebra. I haven't done calculus or differential equations in years. Why? Because in most fields the problem has either been solved and turned into a formula or it is unsolvable in closed form and will require some form of discrete simulation. For that matter a lot of "analysis" is simply reading tables for the proper part sizes.

Future Contestants for the Newlydead Game?

Turns out Bruce Campbell is an ordained minister and will be performing a wedding along with a large renewal ceremony at ZombCon. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised at the minister part. If you were Bruce Campbell, wouldn't you want to be able to manufacture holy water on demand?

Are Those Things Loaded?

Alright, I do understand the interest in the bra holster. I am a guy. I like guns. I like boobs. I understand the attraction of combining the two for male gunnies. Even the female gunnies can use it to give purpose to all those worthless empire-waisted tops that make them look pregnant.

But why I can understand why it received a lot of blogger buzz, I don't understand everything. How do you get gun into the thing without sweeping something important? One of the reasons the universal nylon belt holster is anathema is because you have to sweep a hand to reholster. Breasts might just be flesh wounds, but a bullet in a vital organ in your chest or abdomen would really suck.

Ages of English

When I was in middle school, we did a unit on Chaucer. We were given the original Middle English text and had to translate it into some semblance of the modern tongue. At one point my teacher read the Prologue to Canterbury Tales. It sounded cool but is barely intelligible.

What surprises me about this clip of Shakespeare in the appropriate Elizabethan dialect was how intelligible it is. It's definitely not Olivier's English though.

Petting the Kitty

Matthew Inman's instructions on petting the kitty is great. The part about belly rubs is especially true:

Bashing Meghan McCain

While I don't doubt that her book is completely daft, some of Leon Wolf's scathing review is also startlingly ill-researched. For instance:

I defy Meghan McCain to identify a conservative candidate who acted or behaved in this way towards the party after a primary loss.

Peg Luksik in the PA governor's race in 1994. Both Ridge and Single were total centrists and after losing to Ridge in the primary, she ran as a Constitution Party candidate. For that matter current Tea Party darling Christine O'Donnell ran a write-in campaign in 2006 after coming third in the Senate primary to both Jan Ting and Mike Protack. And these were just two I could think of off the top of my head, they can't be the only ones.

Insofar as I can even tell what that sentence means, I am pretty sure it indicates that Meghan McCain does not know what white noise is, or that it has nothing to do with oversaturation.

McCain's statement is that "these days, the name Ronald Reagan – as well as his legacy – has become oversaturated, just white noise." Yes her metaphor is a bit mixed here. But her point is that devotion to Reagan is pure political rhetoric and formality. It's is everywhere and in everything, therefore it is devoid of meaning. Even liberal Democrats do it. Meghan even does it in an example Wolf cites a few paragraphs later.

But if Wolfs excerpts are accurate, I can't dispute that Meghan McCain isn't especially smart, has a weak understanding of politics, and an even weaker understanding of proper sentence construction.

9/11

Nine years ago I retired to my hotel room to practice my presentation for the conference I was attending at Virginia Tech. It was on some variant of Resin Transfer Molding I think. I turned on the TV to take a break and found out the world had changed. I went downstairs and everyone was just standing in the lobby watching the news.

Suffice it to say I didn't practice after that and my presentation sucked. No one particularly cared though. I think the biggest collective tragedy in my lifetime probably takes the cake for worst intro act ever. Public speaking got a lot easier after that.

Oh and I'm with most of the gunblogosphere, why the hell is there still a huge hole in Lower Manhattan? The best tribute we could give those people is putting up something on that site.

Delaware Primaries

I've been receiving multiple robocalls per day from the O'Donnell and Castle campaigns for the last week. We're really sick of them and they are not convincing anyone in my family to vote for a particular candidate. I'm already voting for Castle. O'Donnell doesn't have anything to recommend her other than conservatism. Conservatism won't win her the general election. On the other hand my politically neutral wife is pissed off enough that she probably won't vote in the primary. If the Republicans keep it up, she might vote Democrat to spite them.

It has me wondering if the Delaware Republicans even know how to campaign properly. Two years ago, my long-incumbent state representative Vince Lofink lost the election to Democrat Earl Jaques. This is largely because Jaques and his wife did their legwork. They went door to door. He hit every HOA meeting in the district. People knew who he was and voted for him. Two years later and Earl has already knocked on my door and will almost certainly be at my HOA meeting. The Republican candidate? Still haven't met him. I expect Jaques to win re-election quite handily unless things change after the primaries.

Campaigning requires real legwork. Robocalls are fake legwork. This is why people are annoyed.

Quick Changes

I thought this video of people swapping engines on a HMMWV was pretty cool the first time I saw it:

Then I saw this video of 6 Canadian guys field stripping a '52 Jeep:

Via Jalopnik.

ChahzCake?

What gun for Zombie Golden Girls?

Miss Universe

The wife and I caught the end of the Miss Universe Pageant this year. Unfortunately we missed the swimsuit competition. Somehow I also missed the retiring Miss Universe, who hails from Venezuela, subtly snub Dictator Hugo Chavez as she gave up her crown. Good for her. And if you don't understand why, read more.

No Capes!

Wonder Woman has new clothes. This is nothing new. Artists are always fooling around with her costume in little ways. Much like Batman, the devil is in the details. Her divided skirts turned into star-spangled spanks. Shoes became sandals which became boots. Then those lost their heels. Her bracelets enlarge and contract. The shape of various pieces of gold trim shifts. But the basic look of the classic costume is still easily identifiable.

John C. Wright(one image NSFW) correctly points out that this new major makeover makes her look like a high school mallrat. I'm wondering when the bracelets and tiara will show up at Claire's. But hey at least it's not as bad as the black biker shorts from her gritty 90s period. And she kept her powers so Gloria Steinem should stay happy.

Making a Graceful Exit

Though we live in Newark, Amy and I go to church in Wilmington. For a while we've been thinking about joining a small group, but our problem was that my church's couples groups are all in Wilmington. After my commute to Aberdeen, we had no desire to trek up to Wilmington once a week. When a small group finally started up closer to home in January, we decided to give it a try. After seven months, we've given it a heck of a try and we're sick of trying.

I wish I could say that the other couples in the group were horrible people. But they aren't, they're very nice folks. But we've come to realize that they weren't our friends when the group started and aren't going to become our friends anytime soon. We have things in common, but not enough. Very nice just isn't enough and we find it a chore.

So how do we break up with them? I don't want to lie to them, but I also don't want to tell them that we find them tiresome.

The Saiga 12

My brother bought one quite a while back and I've shot it a few times at the range. It's reliable, but I don't love it especially as a sporting arm. Oleg Volk did a photoshoot with one a while back. I can understand the folding stock and pistol grip. The 20 round drum must weight a ton, but ok. The dark earth refinish kind of looks nice, I guess.

Honestly I can take or leave all of these improvements. What is a must for a Saigo? Better sights. The stock sight radius is pitiful and the sights are really small. Even the bead on the end of my 590 puts them to shame. Oleg's gun doesn't seem to have these.

Ghastly Truths

From a really old on of IMAO's random thoughts:

Why do liberals need federal money for abortion? Can’t they just start a “Stop the Babies!” charity? “Right now there are babies waiting to be born and ruin people’s lives. We can stop that. With your help.” See, you can voluntarily spend you money on others. It’s called charity. I’m not sure who came up with it.

That would be a really funny idea if I hadn't heard of someone who actually did it. They didn't start a charity of course, they held a "Get Maggie an Abortion" party instead. People brought their kids.

Easy Mark

I also seem to be the type or person that con-artists pick as a likely mark. But because Delaware is pretty small state, people tend to work the same areas over and over. Back when Amy was taking the train in a lot, I used to get hit up by the same well-dressed twentysomething at the Wilmington Train Station. He didn't remember me, but I sure remembered him. He doesn't take it too well when you inform him that he gave you the same sob story last month. Especially if you say it loud enough that the whole train station can hear. Other people have tried to work me in the Newcastle Walmart parking lot as well. They tend to hoof it towards their cars when you tell them you've heard it before from them.

The weird thing about all of this is that regular people didn't tend to bother me on the street. Even as a scrawny college student people ignored me or got out of my way. Perhaps I just don't look angry or purposeful enough anymore?

This Just In

Derange Gunman Opens Fire On Shooting Range. Or in other news someone involved in an open-carry shooting is revealed to have "additional artillery" of 6 guns and 1300 rounds of ammo in his home. Sadly the second story is not from the Onion.

For Use with a Detroit Tigers Cap

Jalopnik noticed a 1981 Ferrari GTSi for about $12k on eBay. Why so cheap? Well the body and interior are in good shape, but under the rear bonnet is... the 2.8 liter V6 and it's manual transmission from a Pontiac Fiero. It's like every kit car in reverse.

Now the commenters over at Jalopnik are split. I'm in the little bit of awesome camp. The bodywork and interior are in great shape. The stock Ferrari tires are oddly sized and therefore ridiculously expensive, so the owner changed hubs to something widely available. The original US spec Ferrari engine is both ridiculously maintenance intensive and woefully underpowered because of it's 80s era smog controls. Was the Fiero transplant the best way to address this? No. But a change to something more powerful and more reliable would be very interesting. Something high-revving would be appropriate. Several people have suggested the Yamaha V6 from the SHO. I would think a number of 3ish liter Honda V6s might work as well.

And I love the 308 GTSi. Maybe it's the years of watching Magnum P.I. as a kid. Just looking at the pictures makes me want to buy a Tigers cap and a Hawaiian shirt. When I think about Ferraris, I think of the US Spec 308 GTS. Unlike the rest of the world, I actually enjoy what the US spec bumpers do to the cars lines. If I had a garage, I'd think about bidding. Since I don't (and this car has '80s era rust proofing) I guess I'll have to pass. And keep my eye out.

Fun with Acetylene

Even though a coworker recently bought a FourTwo, I think I'd still rather have this chopped and welded, superdeformed VW Golf.

No-Fly 2nd Amendment Abridgement

Fifteen months ago I addressed a Rahm Emanuel clip from before the 2008 election that suggested using the no-fly terrorist watch list as a basis for denying gun ownership to a large number of individuals.  The issues with this proposal are:

• Gun ownership is a constitutionally enumerated and protected right which ought not be abridged without due process.  The no-fly list ain't due process.
• The no-fly list is a joke.  It is a list of names and lacks truly unique identifiers.  This means that the false positive rate is ridiculous (just ask my wife's uncle).  It can also be easily foiled by such simple linguistic tricks as alternate name spellings.
• Buying a gun from a dealer requires a background check.  Anyone on the no-fly list ought to be flagged for further review anyway.

Spearheaded by NYC Mayor Bloomberg, the left has picked up on this concept again after the Times Square non-bombing and is running with it. If you'd like to read more, here are some links in order of occurrence:

• The NYT gets behind Bloomberg's proposal with an Op-Ed.
• SayUncle notices that apply this standard of review to speech would never be acceptable to the Times. Also notes that the Times bomber was removed from the watch list.
• Pajamas Media wades in on the side of the Angels.
• The NSSF responds to NYT editorial.  Also here.
• Bill Clinton gets behind Bloomberg.
• The Atlanta Journal Constitution calls compares opposition watch-list proposal to witch burners.  Well hey at least I'm not a Nazi yet. The inlaws would probably find that embarrassing.
• Bloomberg and Clinton videos.

Death of Blogger

It seems that Michael Spencer, the Internet Monk, passed away a couple of days ago. I knew he had cancer, but I didn't realize his case was this severe. From diagnosis to his passing was only 4 months.

Michael wasn't the only God Blogger fighting cancer. David Wayne, the Jollyblogger, has been fighting colon cancer for almost 18 months. He reflects on Michael from the point of view of someone else fighting the disease.

Completing the Census

I must say that the advertising for this year's Census has been either inept (snapshot of America) or offensive (get your piece of the pie). But we still filled ours out and sent it in this week. Unless you're a reality show family, this decade's form is thankfully quite brief. It sticks to the standard name, sex, race statistics that have been present on the form since 1790.

One question I was surprised wasn't on the form was whether each inhabitant was a US citizen or not. It would seem to me that you would want representation to be based on the number of citizens in an area, not merely the number of inhabitants. But I don't think this has ever been the case, going back to the 3/5ths compromise the founders themselves created.

Offshore Drilling!

Obama seems ready to allow drilling off of new portions of the US coastline. This is a good thing. Of course the specifics of the proposal seem to indicate that it will be saddled with extensive environmental roadblocks and require local state approvals. Which means that at this point it is all talk.

A Divider Not A Uniter

I spent most of today running around doing errands. I spent a fair bit of it waiting for various things and people. This allowed me to sit and observe or as we say in my household "people watch."

For instance while in Walmart I watched two African-American men arguing quite loudly about the relative merits of Obamacare. One was for it, citing the need for easier access to medical care for the poor. The other was against it because he knew that as responsible adults they were going to have to pay for it. And in his opinion he was already paying enough taxes for lazy good-for-nothings without picking up the tab for their medical care as well.

Once again I learned not to assume. And once again I am amazing with how divisive some policies can be even within demographic groups that are amazingly one-sided in their political support.

Fortune Cookie Wisdom

An economist wrote my wife's cookie from tonight's dinner:

The value lies not within any particular thing, but in the desire placed on that thing.

Or in other words, something is only worth what someone will pay for it. This is one of the foundational principles of free market economics.

The Worth of a One-Liner

Comics jokes from IMAO that really tickled my funnybone this week:

If Jim from the Office is going to play Captain America, then Dwight should be the Red Skull.

Wolverine’s self-healing ability was evolved in response to Canada’s government run health care.

An Engineer Does Good

Starting in 1947 and working into 1948, automotive engineer Norman Timbs built his dream car out of steel, aluminum, and spare parts. The result was the '48 Timbs special. It's a steel space frame with an aluminum body, independent front and rear suspensions, and no doors. The mid mounted Buick V8 pumps power to the rear wheels. It also has a full spare. I'd say that they don't make them like this anymore, but frankly they never really did.

Not Fitting the Narrative

Let it not be said that bloggers can't do this too. Mainstream Baptist is heavily invested in the principle Separation of Church and State and lead a post with the title "Supreme Court Affirms 10 Commandments Decision" this week. The problem? They didn't.

The Supreme Court denied cert. That's legalese for refusing to hear the case. The Supreme Court does this to the vast majority of cases that petition them for appeals because they just don't have the time to hear everything. Denying cert allows the lower court ruling to stand, but does not imply that the Supreme Court agrees or "affirms" it.

Funny how I posted as much in his comments, but that one never came through his review process...

Training for the Zombie Apocalypse

Cheaper Than Dirt's current e-postal match is zombie themed and emphasizes headshots. Looks like fun and I may print those targets out for my next trip to the range. Of course I have to question the idea of not shooting the humans. They're in the middle of zombie mob, they're almost certainly infected. HT: SayUncle

Awesome Trivia

The four spikes at the end of the stegosaurus's tail are call a "thagomizer." This is not some sort of obscure technical term derived from latin or greek. It is a reference to a Far Side cartoon Gary Larson drew in 1982. Thanks to Irregular Webcomic for another cool piece of trivia.

History Threatens to Repeat Itself

Why didn't we get HillaryCare in 1994? According to Robert Reich, it was because Fed Chairman Greenspan let the administration know that he wouldn't go along with it. Fast forward 16 years and Bush appointee Ben Bernanke is saying the same thing to the Obama administration.

J&G Sales Offers Argentines

My standard sidearm is a 9mm hipower made by FN. When I bought it FN was blowing them out through CDNN for $400. Since then the price for a hipower has skyrocketed to around $800. In retrospect I should have bought two. Since then several of the manufacturers of hipower clones, like Hungarian firm FEG, have also gone out of business. You can't get a cheap clone anymore either. The good news is that J&G is now offering Argentine M90 hipowers for around $330.

These aren't as slick as FN made guns and they don't have the modern extended manual safeties or firing pin safety. I think that makes them around a MKII in FN nomenclature. But they are made under license to FN and parts should still interchange (unlike say the Inglis slide and frame kits from Numrich). That's good news if you want to drop in Cylinder and Slide parts kits.

I may still pick one up as a potential build gun.

Tracers Work Both Ways

As two recent photo sets from Oleg Volk demonstrate, the same goes for green laser sights.

Frank Lautenberg

Pundits are speculating that he may be the next Democrat to announce their retirement because of his recent health issues. Lautenberg is 86 and recently injured himself in a fall after which physicians discovered a bleeding ulcer. I still doubt he'll retire, not because it would be a bad idea, but because he's already retired in 2000. When Lautenberg was tapped to take over for the disgraced Bob Torricelli in 2002, he publicly expressed deep regret for ever retiring and did so again in 2008.

The MiddleMan Episode 13

The ABC Family show The Middleman was cancelled after 12 episodes. The cast did a table read of the unfilmed 13th episode at San Diego ComicCon 2009. I finally got around to tracking down the YouTube footage of it. Quite excellent. There is also a comic book version of the episode as well, but I'm not sure if it is currently in print as Amazon isn't carrying it.

Zombie Dice

Howard Tayler is playing a very twisted dice game. I may have to go looking for this the next time I'm near by Days of Knights or Between Books.

Streetside Engineering

I have an idea I'd like to try out. I current have large piles of snow in front of my house from the recent winter unpleasantness. Because of the surface area to mass ratio, these six foot tall piles are going to take forever to melt. I'd like to speed that up using smarts.

My first thought was to sprinkle them liberally with rock salt. The problem is they're big enough that putting enough salt in place might be troublesome. My second thought is that the biggest piles are on my lawn and any salt will end up on or under my yard. I'd rather not salt my own fields as Rome did to Carthage.

My second thought is to stab some aluminum strips into the heart of the larger piles. Aluminum is an excellent heat conductor and is available in a number of forms at the local hardware store. If I can find some cheap strips (preferably black), I can essentially conduct heat into the heart of the pile. I could put them in in the morning and then pull them when I got home so they wouldn't cool the piles during the night. Not sure if they'd work, but it might be neat to try.

Thoughts from my fellow nerds?

Unexpectedly!

So at what point do we fire the people in charge of predicting job loses and gains?

The Massachusetts Senate Race

This just in... Teddy Kennedy has reportedly voted for Coakley to replace him in the Senate. Twice.

I don't know whether Brown will win this one. Polling says it's close. Several people have pointed out that the margin of victory will unlikely surpass the margin for potential fraud. I think it is great that he's making a race of it though. I also have a wonderful feeling of schadenfreude that this whole situation would be a non-issue if the Massachusetts legislature hadn't been so scared of a Republican Governor appointing a Republican Senator in 2004.

The really interesting thing to me is the Democratic reaction. They seem to be doubling down on the stupid. Hey these policies are so bad we're even having trouble in Massachusetts! Lets do them even harder! I kind of expect this from their party leadership, most of whom are sitting in secure seats. But the rank and file? Not so much, especially the Blue Dogs in the House who are quite likely going to be thrown out on their ear in 10 months.

Orthogonal

The Volokh Conspiracy points out that the Supreme Court likes it's big words. (http://volokh.com/2010/01/11/orthogonal-ooh/) What perpendicular is to 2 dimensional space, orthogonal is to 3 or higher dimensional space.

Sarah Palin

Some new poll of Republican insiders has Sarah Palin running dead last in a proposed 2012 primary field. Which is fine because after shorting her term as Governor of Alaska, I don't think she should run. But Mitt Romney leads the field. You know, the guy who promised Michigan voters whatever he wanted to hear in the 2008 primaries. The guy who passed a horrible failure of a healthcare reform package in his state. He's no a conservative, he's another GOP stands-for-nothing.

If the GOP was smart they wouldn't be asking about whether Palin was going to run in 2012. They would be firing Michael Steele and making her the head of the party in 2010.

Elder Gods Take to the Slopes

This Cthulhu ski mask (http://www.cthulhulives.org/store/store.lasso?1=product&2=33196) is an idea who's time has come. Be the first huge nerd to wear it on your local slopes.

I Don't Get Vertical Foregrips

My understanding of rifle technique is pretty weak, but it largely breaks down to "whenever possible use your muscles as little as possible." This is because your skeleton doesn't expand or contract, but your muscles are always moving whether you like it or not. Therefore you want to support and aim the gun using rigid skeletal members, not by shoving it about using your muscles which are far more variable. This yields better accuracy.

Enter the vertical foregrip which appears to be designed almost solely to allow you to muscle the gun around. I've tried it and except for being a convenient place to hide a bipod, I find that I'll never get proper skeletal support using one. My accuracy drops into the toilet accordingly.

Now I can understand why some people like it. If I had a select fire weapon, the gun is going to be bouncing around anyway. I'm going to have to apply muscle to it to hold it on target so I might as well affix a convenient lever arm to help me out. But like almost all civilians, I don't have a select-fire weapon. That guy isn't me. Accordingly the vertical foregrip looks to me like something civilian shooters adopted from the military without thinking it through.

Now I'm more than willing to admit my shortcomings in this area. Can someone that shoots a rifle/carbine much more than I do help me out?

Climategate!

From the Timesonline via Instapundit:

SCIENTISTS at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based. It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years.

The issue is not a long-term temperature increase over the last 150 years. 150 years ago was the end of the Little Ice Age, so no one really disputes that temperatures have increased since then. The real issue that has been deliberately obfuscated is (1) how warm the Medieval Warm Period was and (2) whether the divergence of temperature behavior from historical trends over the last 50 years is the result of how the historical data has been subjected to a moving average while recent data has not.

Groan

Six months after putting General McChrystal in charge, the news this morning was that President Obama has finally made a decision about Afghanistan. No idea what that decision was as the White House will not divulge its actual content for another week. Is the man such a lightweight that merely having meetings and deciding something is national news?

What's next? This just in, after intense discussions with the highly trained White House chef corps, the President has opted for Cheddar instead of Swiss on his turkey club. The effects of this change on the Presidential Gastronomy should be known early next week.

Expensive Deer Hunting

And a deductable later...

This Week's Gunblogger Groupthink Is...

The 5.7x28mm round used by the Fort Hood shooter is no more powerful than a .22 rimfire magnum. It's crap. Why? The 40 grain 5.7 is blazing down range at 1750 fps from a pistol. The 40 grain rimfire mag is moving at more like 1200-1300 fps from the same barrel length. The 5.7 has 80% more muzzle energy than the .22 mag. That's a lot people. Now maybe they'll both through and through with similar terminal performance, but you can't just dismiss that level of difference.

Is the 5.7x28 round a copkiller? No. There are no instances of it being used to actually kill cops. For that matter the civilian legal ammo isn't even particularly dangerous to people in common police body armor. At least no more dangerous than 7.62 Tokarev.

New Look

Ever since Blogrolling went down and then came back with crappy popups, I've been looking to rework my layout. I've been running this one for long enough on the test blog (and using the test blog for my regular blogsurfing) that it's time to put it on here. I don't love it, but I've decided it is a 90% solution. Unfortunately that means the demise of haloscan comments for the time being.

Loving Midlength

I think a discussion of AR-15 gas system lengths deserves it's own post and this is it. The big issue here is barrel length and port pressure needed to cycle the gun. As the gas port move closer to the gun's chamber (and away from the muzzle), the port pressure goes up and the gun cycles harder. This is good in that it is more likely to cycle, but bad in that too hard will break things.

Rifle length systems are about 12 inches long. As they are the longest, they are also typically the gentlest of the gas systems. But if the barrel is too short, then they won't cycle properly because the gas port pressure will drop too low after the bullet leaves the barrel. Because of this they are typically used on guns with barrels 20 inches or longer like the M16.

Carbine length systems are about 7 inches long. There are shorter lengths (like the pistols), but for most people this is as short they want to go. These cycle the action quite hard. Hard enough that Colt had to make changes from the M4 to the M16 to beef up some parts, alter the feed ramps, and use a heavier buffer to slow the bolt down. These are typically used on guns in the 14.5 to 16 inch range like the M4 carbine. However civilians can't have barrel lengths below 16 inches without a special tax stamp, so most people with carbine length gas systems have 16" barrels or 14.7" inch barrels with longer pinned flash hiders to meet the 16" legal requirement.

Midlength systems are in the middle and are about 9 inches long. These shoot softer than carbine, but harder than rifle. It's a happy medium and works very well for 16 inch guns. Since I have a 16 inch gun, this is what I bought. The disadvantage is that this is a purely civilian length gas system and has less support than the rifle and carbine lengths in the aftermarket. Until recently only one company made a free float tube for it. About the only accessory my midlength can use that a carbine can't is a standard military bayonet.

And for the record, I think the 14 inch barrels that are pinned to 16 inches are silly. The 5.56 round need all the barrel it can get to tumble and fragment for proper lethality. I also think the stepped barrels on 16" guns are silly. Military carbines have that feature so you can mount M203 grenade launchers on them. Civilians can't own those either.

Shiver Me Timbers

I heard an interesting rumor on the internet. (And with a source like the internet, you know it must be true.) Rumor has it that the US Coast Guard has started reissuing boarding cutlasses for some drug interdiction searches. Evidently a sailor making a standard drug search was attacked and forced to defend himself with a fire axe. You have to wonder what his sidearm was though.

Being Too Niche a Market

I own an AR-15. This is not uncommon. It uses the 9 inch midlength gas system. I prefer that length for a 16 inch barrel, unfortunately very few AR parts makers tool for it. Lots of them only do rifle and carbine length. If I wanted to free float my barrel, I could go to Rock River for a tube or YHM for rails or cut down a rifle length part or spend a lot of money. I even asked several parts shops at small arms conventions I attended in May whether they were planning on supporting midlength. Several hemmed and hawed, but surprisingly it was the guy at the UTG/CAA booth that felt my pain.

UTG now has an aluminum midlength free-float rail. Not sure I want UTG parts on my gun, but I don't think I mind them putting some downward pressure on the market. More importantly Hogue is now making midlength free float tubes for less than $50. Now that's something I might pick up and put on my gun.

Ammo Sales

Looks the like the ammo rush is really over and the suppliers are starting to meet inventory in earnest. While shopping with Amy yesterday, I picked up 200 rounds of 55gr .223 at Dicks. Not only did they have it on the shelf, but it was on sale for $8/20 rounds. That should be my range needs for a few trips at least.

Boom Headshot!

Seasonal hostage situation resolved.

I Concur

Sebastion points out that covering your car in NRA bumperstickers isn't a good idea. Guns are one of the major targets of property crime. Criminals want them and so there will always be a black market for firearms. Criminals especially like to know where you store them, because they don't want to rob an armed man or woman, but they love to rob unoccupied houses or vehicles.

When you put an NRA, pro-2nd, or pro-carry sticker on your car, what you're saying to criminals is "this car might contain guns, rob me when nobody's around." This is also true for anything on the outside of your home.

In a slightly related concept, you're not really concealed carrying if you're wearing overtly pro-gun gear. Some of the esoteric logos might be fine, but anything else calls attention to yourself and makes people take a second look. Not a good idea.

Steam Punk Rock

Note to self: While Jeph Jacques was kidding about the Society for Creative Rock Anachronism, there are actually steampunk bands like Abney Park and Vernian Process. The hard part is going to be finding out if their music is any good without spending money on it.

Snerk

Habitat for Humanity New Castle County has announced their 2009 fundraising Christmas tree ornament: Blue Ball Farm. You may now giggle like an adolescent. But not for too long.

Sometimes Complaints Show More about the Complainer

From this article criticizing the M4:

"My weapon was overheating," McKaig said, according to Cubbison's report. "I had shot about 12 magazines by this point already and it had only been about a half hour or so into the fight. I couldn't charge my weapon and put another round in because it was too hot, so I got mad and threw my weapon down."

360 rounds in 30 minutes through your rifle and your gun became unreliable? Wow I would have never guessed that if you overheat a machine, it becomes unreliable or breaks. Ditto the other soldier who ran 600 rounds through his M249. If you want to avoid overheating, you can change out the barrels on machine guns for a reason.

More telling for me is the opener of the piece:

In the chaos of an early morning assault on a remote U.S. outpost in eastern Afghanistan, Staff Sgt. Erich Phillips' M4 carbine quit firing as militant forces surrounded the base. The machine gun he grabbed after tossing the rifle aside didn't work either.

If someone is trying multiple types of weapons and none of them work, that isn't a criticism of the weapon. If none of the guns work, the only systematic element they all have in common is the soldiers tasked with maintaining them. And there is no magic rifle design that won't fail without proper maintenance.

This isn't to say that everything is hunky dory with US small arms. The SAW in particular is not a very good gun, something the newer lightweight versions of the weapon only make worse. But the M4 is, by all accounts, a decent weapon.

Hitting the Usual Suspects

Amybear went to a bridal shower today so I was left to my own devices. I was planning on making a trip to Ommelanden, but just as I was getting dressed it started to rain. The doppler map of the area showed that it was going to last a while, so instead I made a survey of the local gun shops.

The result? Miller's has a lightly used Sig P6 for under $400. It was a reasonable piece at a reasonable price. Patriot had a used Heritage Rough Rider with both .22lr and .22 rimfire magnum cylinders. I have a hard time spending big money on a .22 and that seemed like a nice little gun. The also had a Pietta 1858 Navy model converted to .38sp. Great gun except that the bore of a .36 cap and ball is larger than a modern .38 so you can't feed it any old ammo off the shelf.

Patriot is also stocking EAA's Windicator model of .38 and .357 double action revolvers. Good trigger, very nice grips, and all steel so I'm not too concerned about them. They're a lot of gun for under $300 and seem well worth the price.

Twilight

I just finished reading the Twilight books. Pretty good in spots, but not without their faults. The most annoying thing is how emo Bella Swan is in books two and three. She's the first person narrator for 90% of the novels so you can't really get away from her either.

Toys You Can't Buy Anymore

Roman Polanski

He's a pedophile. Stop defending him. While he was taking naked pictures of a thirteen year-old model, he got her drunk with champagne and quaaludes, and then he raped her in every orifice. Around that time he also had a romantic relationship with fifteen year-old Nastassja Kinski. Polanski was in his forties during this time.

Stop justifying it. The excellence of Chinatown or the Pianist or Rosemary's Baby doesn't change anything. His pregnant wife being murdered by the Manson family doesn't excuse it either.

On a related note: Mumia did it. He's a murderer not a damn martyr. Kindly stop trying to free him.

Young Adult Employment Stinks

Instapundit points out that the worst job market right now is the 18 to 24 year-old non-students.

My question: does this have anything to do with the skyrocketing price of unskilled labor thanks to recent minimum wage hikes? Congress enacted a minimum wage increase that took it from $5.15 to $7.25 over the last 3 years. Meanwhile the job market has gone in the toilet. Who gets paid the minimum wage? Kids living with their parents. What a surprise 52% of them are out of work.

The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy

So Michael Bloomberg's Mayor's Against Illegal Guns is an ideological front for the Brady Campaign? That's amazing, that's astounding, that's... well not really surprising at all. I wonder if the Joyce Foundation pays any of MAIG's bills for them. That would complete the anti-gun circle of life.

Big Screen Goes Bust

The 42" Philips we picked up about 16 months ago died a couple of weeks back while we were visiting Amy's parents. It's going to cost us $700 to fix. Seven hundred minus... carry the one... ah right that equals time to buy a new TV.

This time around we're going to go with a 40" Samsung, either the 40B530 or the 40B550. I'm leaning towards the 550 just because it has a few extras ports and supports firmware upgrades via USB. We'll probably go with Best Buy because we ended up having Geek Squad look at the Philips when it broke. The 4 year extended service contract through Best Buy costs less than a home visit fee from the repairman without it.

But I have to say that I really hate buying TVs. It seems like none of the stores have decent feeds playing on their TV walls. Best Buy's tape loop is all herky jerky so you can never tell what is going on or accurately pair two TVs. Walmart's feed was so fuzzy I'd have thought it was standard def if the pictures weren't widescreen. What I want is still images with good color depth, slow pans that let me pick up on pixelation, and finally quick motion that repeats at least 3 or 4 times in succession so you can accurately compare motion blur on two different TVs.

UPDATE: We hit Sears and Boscov's before picking up the 40B550 at Best Buy. The feed sears had was awful, but it wasn't exactly their fault. They were showing one of the high def ESPN channels which, unfortunately for them, was currently showing a pro basketball slam dunk competition from the mid '80s. This did not make for good high def viewing. Boscov's was showing a different ESPN channel that actually worked very well. Slow shots of brightly colored uniforms, the occasional quick break for repetitive motion, and wide pans over the venue all made for good comparisons. Unfortunately they didn't carry the TVs we were looking for and didn't have the same repair apparatus to stand behind what they were selling.

Trivial Tidbit

Today's Dangerous Book for Boys calendar trivia item: Lewis Carroll invented the portmanteau "chortle" for his poem Jackerwocky as a combination of chuckle and snort. He also coined the term "portmanteau" for words of this type in Through the Looking Glass.

Teen Birth Rates

A long time ago I did a paper on teen pregnancy rates. One of the things I discovered was that in the 1950s teen pregnancy was huge. Just as huge as it was in the early '90s (which at the time was the most recent data). The rub? In the '50s those teen mothers were 19 and married instead of 16 and not.

I'm betting similar phenomenon is happening in the latest study of teen pregnancy rates in conservative and liberal areas Instapundit has brought up. In particular even if the age of the teenage moms is similar, the effect of abortion between the two is probably going to be very different.

Now They're Community Organizers International

Citizen journalists have demonstrated that ACORN is widely corrupt. So what does ACORN do? Reform itself? Nope. Make blanket statements and then change their name so nobody knows that COI is really ACORN in a different hat.

Will It Kill a Zombie?

Important experimental work to prevent the zombie apocalypse:

A Fresh Eye on WWII

The Russians have some sort of internet archive storing military memoirs from the Great Patriotic War. Some are even translated into English. Good stuff. The aforelinked tanker drove a US supplied Sherman throughout the war. He liked it a lot better than the British tanks and even the T-34, but hated the Tommyguns that were issued with them.

Via Tam.

ACORN

The Senate has voted to defund ACORN by 83-7. Call your Senators and thank them, unless you live in VT or IL. Suggest they vote to defend a lot of federal bullshit spending.

Mayors Against Illegal Guns

While it sounds relatively harmless, Mayors Against Illegal Guns is an anti-gun group founded by NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Because it sounds like group against obvious bad thing, there is evidence that some of the current members don't really know or understand what agenda is being driven. Recent efforts by the blogosphere, pro-gun groups, and the NRA have been making them aware. Several mayors, especially from conservative districts, have left the group.

The mayors of Dover, Newark, and Wilmington are all members. I recently received an NRA flier about Vance Funk. Which would be great if I actually lived within the Newark city limits, but I don't. Perhaps I'll send the letter anyway and hope that he doesn't notice.

Recipes

Amy is paging through a Betty Crocker Microwave Cookbook. One recipe suggests microwaving a pork shoulder in several stages that total over 40 minutes. Look, if you're cooking something in microwave for the better part of an hour, you picked the wrong appliance.

Disney Buys Marvel

For $30 and 0.745 shares of Disney per Marvel share. Speculation abounds about what effects this will have on the Marvel Universe. I'm guessing it really won't have much of an effect on the comics, but will probably change how Marvel Studios and Marvel's merchanising system will work.

The real question is: now that Howard the Duck and Donald Duck are under the same corporate banner, are they still going to make Howard wear pants?

The Reset Button

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 57% would vote to replace the entire Congress and start all over again.

Amen to that sentiment assessed by Rasmussen.

I think there should be an official "vote the bums out" mechanism for Congress. One that doesn't involve pitchforks, torches, and rifles. It could go something like this: when invoked by popular vote, all sitting members of congress at the time of the referendum would be forbidden to run for re-election. The House would turn over upon the next election. The Senate would turn over completely in 3 Congressional election cycles. Anyone effected would be barred from federal office for at least 6 to 10 years. They cannot run or be appointed to elected federal office. They would also be forbidden from being appointed to any unelected office that requires congressional approval. It would essentially be a 6-10 year ostracism from federal office. I think we need one of those.

Via Alphecca.

Ted's Dead Baby, Ted's Dead

Ted Kennedy has died. Expect conflicting eulogies that portray him as the last in a line of true American aristocrats or as a foul-smelling drunkard. I'm not sure how Massachusetts intends to handle replacing him in the Senate, but we can expect another Democrat. Kennedy wanted his current wife to hold his seat. Unfortunately whomever his replacement is, they will probably be in good enough health to actually show up and help break any filibuster attempts by the Republicans.

Looking Forward to Rosh Hashanah

It seems that the Whitehouse is Jewish community organizing for the high holy days this year. The marching orders have gone out and this year's sermons are to be on the moral urgency of adopting universal health care. Great.

Amy and I go down to her parents' house for services during one of the holy days every year. When we can swing it, it's Rosh Hashanah instead of Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur involves fasting which Amy hates and I mildly dislike. But this is important to her parents so we go and I like Amy's parents. Their synagogue and rabbi? Not so much.

Amy's family's head rabbi gave a sermon on the high holy days in 2004 which I can summarize as "George Bush is evil - Vote Kerry." I find her sermons unenlightening generally. This isn't a Christian/Jew thing. I mean the sermon she preached on matzoh balls missed me culturally, but that isn't her fault. It's mostly a liberal theology thing for me. When any kind of religious instructor preaches a sermon like "Abraham would have been morally right to tell God to go to hell instead of offering up Isaac," I just can't grasp where they are coming from theologically. Actually I can, but I have absolutely no respect for it.

I have no doubt that this year's sermon will focus on the moral imperative that we fold, spindle, and mutilate the Commerce Clause even further to justify more federally run health care. It's for the children. Or not because they already have S-CHIP. The elderly? Medicare. The disabled? Early Medicaid. Hmm... Lazy people who consistently vote Democrat? Is there a program for them yet? Well there soon will be.

Cheap Shooting

I like cowboy guns. I'd love to pick up a .45 colt single action revolver with a .45 acp conversion cylinder one of these days. I don't reload, so the .45 acp conversion is almost mandatory as .45 colt is cost prohibitive.

Another option are these .22 lr chamber inserts for .45 colt revolvers (or similar ones for .45 acp). I had initially dismissed them because I couldn't understand how they would be accurate. Without a barrel to stabilize them, the .22lr bullet will just bounce down a .45 caliber barrel and wind up flying any which way. Turns out a portion of the insert is rifled so it acts as barrel and chamber in one. The actual pistol barrel would act like a giant flash hider. I'm still not sure I'd buy a set, but they no longer seem like a complete waste of money.

Back Together Again

I finally finished fitting the arched mainspring housing for my 1911 yesterday. I did a cold reblue last night to clean up the shiny spots on the housing. Everything went back together smoothly this morning. Everything works, or as near as I can tell without taking it to the range. I'd rather not have learned how to detail strip the receiver of a 1911 the hard way though.

I'd still like to change the sights, but after taking over a month to get the gun back into working condition, I'm in no hurry to take it out of action again.

As You Get Older

I had an interesting conversation with some coworkers while coming back from lunch a few days ago. We all noticed that while our parents are not technically illiterate, they don't necessarily grasp the latest technologies. Most of our parents had a lot of trouble with e-mail for instance. We wondered what technology we wouldn't be able to grasp when our as yet unborn children get to be our ages.

• Jeez dad, why do you keep using these old mp3 players? Don't you know everything's on audio crystals now?


• I know. My dad is still listening to music with his ears. I keep telling him he can get it piped straight into his audio center in higher fidelity now. Especially with his hearing.


• Well he probably refuses to mindjack onto the connected global consciousness anyway.


• Yeah, my parents will only get on using a hardline. I keep telling them that the info cloud is subspace accessible now, but the idea of instantaneous high bandwidth connectivity inside their heads freaks them out. They still make me talk to them with words! It takes me forever to tell them anything! Like whole minutes even!

We know it's going to happen, we just don't know when or what with.

Banana Bread

French toast was created as a very tasty way to get rid of stale bread. I've mentioned that banana bread is the fruit equivalent. It is where the overripe bananas wind up at my house. We recently discovered that bananas for bread freeze very well too. They retain their flavor and while the ice crystals make bananas really mushy, that's an advantage when you're going to recycle them into bread.

We've been trying different recipes lately. I started with one Amy's mother gave us. It uses bisquick and sour cream. I was very tasty, but I don't generally keep either of those ingredients around the house. Plus the sour cream gives Amy trouble. Then Amy suggested a healthy recipe from Hungry Girl. It didn't rise well and sat like a sweet banana brick at the bottom of my load pan. It wasn't bad and we still ate it, but we're not trying that one again. We tried this one from Cooks.com this week:

3/4 c. sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. salt
2 c. flour
1 tsp. baking soda
3 ripe bananas
Bread pan

In medium size bowl mix first three ingredients. Add flour and baking soda, mix well. Add bananas crushed with fork. Mix well. Grease bread pan and put mixture in pan. Bake 1 hour in 325 degree oven.

We use pam instead of grease and eggbeaters instead of eggs, but the recipe still worked very well. Its simple and tasty and isn't giving my wife stomach problems. I think I'll stick with it.

The Blackberry Ambiguity

A coworker asked if me whether I liked blackberries. I replied no, thinking that she meant the ever-present smart-phone that the Army issues to middle management and up. One of the things that keeps me from working too hard here is the prospect of being issued my own cyberleash.

Nope. Turns out she has bushes in her back yard. Her berries are quite yummy with a nice tart juiciness. My parents had Blackberries in the backyard when I was little and I remember enjoying them a lot. I'd plant a bush of my own, but whenever I think about picking them it sends me into Age of Empires flashbacks.

American Chopper Meets Antiques Roadshow

Amy and I caught Pawn Stars last night on the History Channel. It's a reality show set at the Gold and Silver Pawn Shop in Las Vegas. The post title says it all. Amy liked seeing people bringing in their antiques and I liked the interplay between the family members that kept the show interesting. I wouldn't mind catching it again.

Tiny Terror

My Eee 1005 arrived on Monday and I've been slowly whipping it into shape. On Monday I charged it and installed a real web browser. Tuesday took me to the Army website to download our anti-virus and security suite. On Wednesday, I installed my Army copy of MS Office and worked on getting my browser bookmarks sorted. I'll probably just apply all of Office&'s patches tonight and transfer more files over from my desktop.

I really like this netbook a lot. It's smaller and lighter than my churchgoing bible. The screen is clear and bright, even before the BIOS upgrade gave me a larger range of adjustment. The keyboard still works. The touchpad is good although multitouch commands were easy to accidentally activate. The battery life is immense, especially since Asus lets you play with the clock speed from the system tray. I hooked it up to charge last night more out of guilty than necessity. Installing software from CD/DVD requires an intermediate step because the netbook doesn't have an optical drive. I could buy an external USB unit of course, but my ipod works perfectly for sneaker-netting things over. What they say about the glossy finish picking up fingerprints is true as well.. So far so good though.

Solar Irradiance and Climate Change

The New York Times has an article on the dearth of sun spots this year which also mentions the improbability of their relationship to the cool summer we're having:

The idea that solar cycles are related to climate is hard to fit with the actual change in energy output from the sun. From solar maximum to solar minimum, the Sun's energy output drops a minuscule 0.1 percent.

Most people reading this probably haven't had college and graduate level thermodynamics or heat transfer. Allow me to explain the fundamentals. You do not do heat transfer or thermo in Fahrenheit or Celsius. You perform the calculations in Rankine or Kelvin respectively. These are just the former scales adjusted to zero at absolute zero. With convection and conduction, you can cheat because the temperature terms are linear and so the conversion cancels itself out. With radiative heating you can't take that shortcut because radiation is proportional to the temperature difference to the fourth power.

Why does this matter? It matters because room temperature on earth is around 300 K or 530 R. A 0.1% change in irradiance would produce a temperature shift of ~0.3 C or ~0.5 F. Global warming is credited with temperature shifts anywhere from there up to about a degree Celsius. While small, a simple back of the envelope calculation should show that that change in irradiance is nowhere near negligible in relation to the phenomenon being studied.

Update: Fixed the formatting left over from mailing it in. Did it on the new toy. Liking it so far, especially now that I have Firefox installed.

40th Anniversary of the Moon Landing

In celebration, I give you Buzz Aldrin punching Bart Sibrel in the face:



Sibrel is one of the most prominent moon landing deniers. At the time Buzz was 72 and Sibrel was not. Go Buzz.

Getting Your Manga Fix

I've been reading a lot of manga online lately. I initially got caught up on Naruto at OneManga after my wife started talking about their iPhone manga app. It's a good site and most of the content seems to be fan translations, which is nice because I have no problem reading something on the internet that I can't get in the US. Spectrum Nexus and Manga Fox are similar but at least some of their content seems to be direct scans of US translations. Not sure if they're fan subs or not. Spectrum Nexus also has some flash vids of unlicensed anime like Blade of the Immortal.

New Toys

Being the spender in the family, I've had an itch to buy something extravagant for a while now.

I looked at some swords. The French 1829 artillery saber is a beautiful weapon. The US patterned the 1840 artillery saber (not the NCO sword of the same year) after it. Unfortunately the only company making a replica is Deepeeka, so even at $75 it probably isn't a bargain. The alternative is something like the Musashi Bamboo Katana which is a bargain. It's so nice I actually gave my brother one its sister swords as a Christmas present.

I also looked at guns. A bunch of the online parts shops have gotten .45 acp cylinders in stock for the Uberti-made single action revolvers. That's important because .45 colt costs a fortune to shoot unless you reload. CDNN is selling the Beretta Stampede for a song. The Stampede is also made by Uberti but has a modern transfer bar safety so it's harder to shoot yourself with it. I like not shooting myself. But even after a Virginian in cowboy gear actually broke up a convenience story robbery with a Peacemaker over the weekend, I just can't justify spending hundreds of dollars for a gun I probably won't shoot that much. Especially since I'd have to buy a cowboy hat and a proper holster rig once I bought it.

Instead I spent my money on a netbook: the Asus 1005HA-P. I tried the cheapest version of this model at Best Buy and was shocked that I could actually touch type on the keyboard. It's a great little machine, but the Best Buy version is pretty badly neutered. I bought the top end version on Amazon along with additional memory. Now when work sends me on travel, which it has been threatening to do regularly lately, I'll have a computer to take with me. It should come in handy.

Something About Maria

Amy loves BBC America. Right now we're watching "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?" a reality show trying to cast the lead in the Sound of Music. Sometimes it's unintentionally funny. For instance they regularly comment on one contestant's Romanian accent. They mention that she was really good as Evita, but that was something of an accent part. Where do they think Maria von Trapp is from? She certainly wasn't born in Surrey like Julie Andrews.

This Just In...

Michael Jackson is still dead. Should he turn out to be undead, please act accordingly.

The Rule of Law in Honduras

Michael Wade at QandO discusses the current situation in Honduras with citations from the Honduran Constitution to back up the governments actions. The constitution has very strong protections on presidential term limits. Trying to remove them results in immediate loss of office. Lobbying for removal by private citizens results in loss of civil liberties. In short, people stating that his is some sort of extra-legal coup on the part of the Honduran military, courts, and congress don't have a leg to stand on.