The Great Equalizer

Or as the rest of us refer to them: stoplights. One of my coworkers lives down the street from me. We talked about carpooling once, but I think we both enjoy the driving a bit too much. Or it may be that I drive like someone from Delaware and he drives like someone from New Jersey or Massachusetts. He rocketed past me on Elkton Rd this morning. I didn't him again until the first stoplight after we both got off the highway. All his speed got him two whole car lengths.

Once we were off the highway it was stoplight to stoplight. He'd race ahead and I'd catch up on the red. The funny thing is that we pulled into the parking lot together and I was out of my car first. I actually got to work ahead of him.

Anyway time to get to work. Or at least some catchup blogging.

Wedding Pictures

If you're curious about what is going with our wedding, Amybear is filling everyone in over at our wedding blog. She has included pictures of almost everything except her dress. You'll have to wait until after the wedding to see the dress because I'm not allowed to see it beforehand either.

UPDATE: Fixed the link.

Firearms Hotrodding

I've had a real urge to do some firearms modifications lately. Part of this is my general urge to take things apart and put them back together. Part of it is because members of the UD football team are breaking into apartments a mile from my place.

Anyway, I have this desire to do some gun work. First step is bobbing the hammer on my 1911. My RIA has what is known as a GI setup. This is a long spur hammer and a short grip safety. The GI setup tends to have a problem called hammer bite. A little bit of the web of your thumb can get pinched. The fix is to either put on a "beavertail" safety and officers hammer or to cut an eighth of an inch of the GI spur. I'm going with the latter because I'm cheap. My dremel will work for the cutting, but I need to pick up some masking tape and a bottle gun blueing to refinish afterwards.

I also want to build myself an AR-15. Unfortunately I have discovered that getting someone to order you a lower receiver can be tough. This isn't because lowers are dangerous or anything. It is because once you have a lower, the gun shop may not get any more of your money. You see the lower is the firearm in the legal sense, everything else you can just mailorder and not pay your gunshop's 10-20% markup. I don't think they like that possibility.

Lastly I want a cowboy pistol. Amy thinks I'm nuts about this by the way. She thinks it is perfectly normal for me to own a longsword and knit chain maille, but cowboys are weird.

I've narrowed down my choices to the Remington New Model army clones. The Remington a percussion revolver that can be modified to shoot cartridges with a little work. The work entails grinding out the recoil shield and popping in a conversion cylinder. Right now I'm just deciding who to buy the parts from since rumor has it that the R&D may be bringing out a new conversion soon.

The DeHavilland Mosquito

One of the least known, but most impressive aircraft of WWII was the Mosquito. The Mozzy was a two engined aircraft used throughout the war, mostly by the British. It was designed to be a bomber, but the Mosquito was built around the principle of being fast and light instead of slow, heavy, and well-armed like most of the bombers of WWII. It was powered by two Rolls-Royce Merlin engines and the plane's airframe was made mostly of wood.

The Mozzy was more often equipped as a night fighter or reconnaisance aircraft than a bomber. The RAF bomber command didn't think it could do normal bombing because it lacked gunner positions. Occasionally the Mozzy was used for precision bombing, special ops missions, and pathfinding for the heavies. Pathfinding meant the Mozzies would use their speed and superior accuracy to mark targets for the bigger slower Lancasters.

All this is a shame, because two Mosquitoes could carry the same bomb load as a Lancaster, but were cheaper, and required fewer crewmen. We now know that their precision means that they would also be more effective with their ordnance.

Oddly enough it was the Germans who saw the Mozzy's worth. At one point they remarked that British ingenuity had meant that their best bomber could be build by any carpenter or piano maker in his own garage.

Abortion Politics

Dale Franks is discussing a novel aspect of abortion:

As the law stands now, there is an absolute inequity in the way men and women are treated. Currently, the woman is the sole person who can choose to exercise the option of abortion. As a result, the man's financial entailment for child support rests entirely upon the decision the woman makes.

The woman decides whether or not to abort. But as a result of that decision, the future father (who has no substantive input after conception) may incur large financial responsibilities.

Now I'm pro-life, so we know what my solution to this problem is: Both of you should have kept your pants on. But this whole thing makes for a great demonstration of how far our legal system and government lags behind addressing important concerns. This has almost certainly been a problem since after Roe v. Wade, yet it is still unresolved over thirty years later.

Getting Married

Scott Adams covers the tremendous costs involved in today's post.

I feel some inner need to keep the budget under control without appearing cheap. My current strategy is to frame all wedding decisions in terms of how many African villagers could be saved from starvation with the equivalent amount of money. For example:

Fiancee: “Do you think we should have a big cake or a little one?”

Scott: “Well, the difference in price seems to be…about twelve Rwandans. It’s up to you, honey.”

Fortunately as the groom, my job is to pay for the honeymoon and then to have Amybear spend my dinero for the rest of my life. Most of the actual one time wedding costs are on her parents. Amy's an only child and they make good money so this isn't too much of a problem.

The parts I am intimately involved with planning are getting a little annoying though. My frustration is building as I have been forced to skip Saturday shooting sessions. Instead of blowing off steam, I've been adding to it. Ah well, soon it will all be over.

If anyone would like to help with some wedding decisions, one of the mundane details we're doing right now is compiling a playlist for the DJ. If you have suggestions for general music or first dance songs, the comments are always open. Please no songs with lead vocals from Star Trek castmembers. The Black Eyed Peas might not be a great idea either.

70 Years of Spitfires

Kim Du Toit notes that the 70th anniversary of the first flight of the British Supermarine Spitfire was a few days ago on March 4th. They're perhaps the most beautiful and graceful airplanes ever. They're also very loud as this work-unsafe clip can attest.

UPDATE: I did some basic math and eyeballing. The wingspan of a spitfire is about 37 feet. Which means that Spitfire was flying at about 12 to 15 feet. Given the size of the propeller and the theoretic height of the television host, I calculate that he probably had to change those nice white pants after shooting the clip.

UPDATE2: Ok here's a Battle of Britian joke:

In the early aerial battles of WWII, a Swedish immigrant to Great Britain was working his way to becoming a flying ace. His battles were often ferocious, as he took on multiple bandits in free-wheeling dogfights. Interviewed by a reporter, he described his latest battle against the Huns.

“I sees one of the Fokkers bearing down on me from above, but I turns into him and shoots the Fokker down. Then his wingman gets on my tail, but I turns the tables on him, and I shoots that Fokker down too!”

The reporter interjects, “The Germans were flying Fokkers?”

“Nah,” he replies. “Der Fokkers vas flying Messerschmidts!”

Surviving Tech Support

It used to be that doing tech support on the other end was the hard part. Now calling them is a huge pain, especially when your friendly neighborhood support representative "Chuck" speaks English about as well as my neighbor's Jack Russell. But there is hope. Well perhaps not hope, but guidance.

Dogs and Coats

Twenty Major has this to say:

There is a reason dogs have fur. It is to keep them warm when they are outside. The same goes for cats, bears and Italians. Their fur keeps the cold out.

The rest of his diatribe against all things terrier is equally amusing. Being Irish he uses some colorful aphorisms that might not be appropriate on this side of the Pond.

UPDATE: I mean look at how sad this shepherd is. It's almost as if it knows it was being used to dress its fellow canines up like clowns.

Bombardier Beetle

Ron Patrick has placed a GE turboshaft engine into a VW Beetle.

Ron Patrick wanted to prove that his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford wasn’t just a piece of useless paper framed on the wall, so he put his book smarts to use by combining a GE Model T58-8F helicopter turboshaft jet engine and a VW New Beetle. Patrick claims his one-way ticket to the Darwin Awards is street legal since he left the stock drivetrain intact. We’re not so sure about that since at any time he could flip a switch and torch the Tercel behind him with 1,350 flame-throwing horsepower.

I'd like to see him turn it on if for no other reason than the engines intake is located in the beetles cabin. I'm wonderin whether it will rip his arm off or simply use up all the available oxygen and suffucate him.

Truth about the UN

Mark Steyn is railing against the UN. I don't agree with everything he has to say. I believe that multinational organizations are still necessary. But his criticism of the UN for rampant and deeply systemic corruption is totally accurate.

A Gun Control Primer

Jim March is a man worthy of anyone's respect. He has crusaded for both firearms law reform and has received national notice when he looking into possible electronic voter fraud. And yet most people here have probably never heard of him.

Jim has what is essentially an opinion piece up at The High Road. I agree with almost all of it. If you want to learn how gun control works and more importantly why it doesn't, then read it.

Where Have All the Men Gone?

That is the question John is asking about the Church. The discussion over at his site is quite good and worthy of a look. My take?

When I was working at a department store in college, I talked with an unchurched coworker who asked me about why clergy are required to be male. We talked and I basically said that (1) it's in the Bible and (2) every other part of the church is dominated by women. While service projects and church government may have heavy male influence, most of the day to day activity of the church (like all the children's activities) occupies a more traditionally feminine role. She thought about it and said that this was very true, that quite often male clergy were figureheads over an organization populated mostly by women. I think with many denominations going to female clergy, men are going to feel very very left out in many of the nation's churches because we won't be represented at all in the organizational structure.

The other issue which hasn't been mentioned is divorce. The divorce rate in America is relatively constant across Christian religious lines and is currently sitting at around 50%. Child custody is overwhelmingly given to women, not men. So men are essentially being left out of the picture in 50% of the nation's families. American religion is about the family. I think this is bound to have serious repercussions on how men are involved with the church.

LoReMo

The Low Resistance Mobility vehicle is kind of a neat idea. But only kind of. The good part is that only weighs about 1000 lbs for a 2+2 coupe. The bad news is that in order to get the incredible 150+ mpg, the things engine is so small (20 horsepower) it takes a week to reach sixty miles per hour. Ok, not a week but 20 seconds. But you can cruise on the highway forever if you ever manage to get up to cruising speed.

That kind of minimal acceleration is downright dangerous. Do you realize how big a gap this thing will need just to turn a corner or merge onto the highway? Every once in a while I see Toyota Prius drivers being jerks and I shudder. The Prius doesn't turn and doesn't accelerate. How do you into intend to get yourself out of the trouble you're making? Of course they don't expect to get themselves out of trouble, they just expect everyone else to accommodate them. The same goes to aggressive SUV and minivan drivers. They don't go and they don't turn and unlike the hybrids, you can't even see around them.

Frankly, if you're going to be an ass then be an ass in a sports car. It is the ass's natural automotive environment after all. Then you have some power and some handling. If you drive aggressively, at least you have the car to back it up.

Crunchy Cons

I don't get it. Yes, Whole Foods sells good stuff. Yes, materialism is bad. But crunchy cons? Nope. Jonah Goldberg has a great critique. My favorite passage is this:

But, in my own defense, I don't think this is because I have failed to turn my face to the warm beam of God's enlightenment, radiantly glowing forth from inside the cellophane oyster shell of a Whole Foods couscous platter. I think my failure is more prosaic than that.

That's just a nice bit of writing.

Europa S

Lotus is bringing out a Grand Touring car to balance out the Elise and Exige. I would love to own this car. It is light weight (2200 lbs.) so even the small 2.0 turbocharged four-cylinder gives it great acceleration. Gas mileage would still be reasonable, especially if they geared the six speed manual transmission properly.

It will retail at about $58k, which is a bit much but not unaffordable. But it won't be coming out in the US, the gas tank is probably in the wrong place or some crap like that. Thank Ralph Nader.

Polymer Magic

You can get reinforced plastics very sharp. So sharp you might be able to use them as knives even. And said knives are cheap too.

Yellow Journalism

Recent headlines had me wondering if Ralph Peters's story wasn't the case:

The reporting out of Baghdad continues to be hysterical and dishonest. There is no civil war in the streets. None. Period.

Terrorism, yes. Civil war, no. Clear enough?

When you see headlines that say Civil War Imminent in Iraq, like I did in my email this morning, you really have to ask yourself what criteria they are using to judge whether a civil war is imminent. Imminent means about to occur. Now to me, being "about to occur" isn't one of those things you can really call accurately beforehand. It is a thing best judged by historians looking back after long years of hindsight. Liberals were predicting that WWIII was imminent through the entire Reagan presidency. Turns out all Reagan was doing was scaring the pants off the Ruskies. They had no intention of acting first.

You can't reliably predict the start of a war before it happens. Why? Because the start of a war is often a specific event. Like Pearl Harbor or invading Poland or 9/11 or the death of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. It happens and you think "Shit! We're at war!" That's what I thought when I saw the Towers burn and fall. Sometimes, like the Cuban Missile Crisis, that event never happens at all. And we in the general public don't know when the match will be put to the powderkeg. The best we can predict is when the powderkeg is in the same room as the matches.

Right now the press annoys me. They're like the jerk in the loud sports car who pulls up next to you at a stoplight. You can see him roll forward every time he thinks the light is about to change. Go green now! No... Ok Now! No. Now! Now! Now! Until finally it changes and he gets his perfect launch off the line. Or from where ever he is in front of the line by then. He was eventually right, but only through pure persistance. Sometimes he's exactly wrong and I beat him off the line in my little four-banger. Then I laugh and laugh and laugh. That guy is the media and they've been reporting the war that way since it began. How many months or years of Quagmire! did we have to sit through?

And of course the press doesn't report facts anymore. Civil War Imminent is not a fact. It is a guess. It is their own slanted analysis. Perhaps they should stick to analysis people can actually agree on like "tensions in Iraq are high right now Bob." But that won't sell papers. I have a friend who only considers C-Span to be "TV news." Everything else is an opinion channel. There is wisdom in that.

Internet TV

One wonderful thing about the internet is that using YouTube and Google Video, you can watch TV from all over the world. I use both of these to see Top Gear and now Michael has exposed me ot the BBC nerd comedy The IT Crowd. I watched a few episodes over my lunch break, very funny.

Islamist Totalitarianism

Geek with .45 is conversing on "Manifesto: Together facing the new totalitarianism". Geek has this to say (with some paragraphs changed):

They plead to the same dark forces they decry "for the universality of freedom of expression, so that a critical spirit may be exercised on all continents, against all abuses and all dogmas."

That's not how it works.

You do not plead for freedom of speech and expression, especially from those who believe that killing and arson is a reasonable response to cartoonery.

You assert that the condition of freedom exists, and then you act accordingly.

You stand up on a soapbox, and you speak. You speak, and you stand prepared to use whatever force is necessary to keep speaking. You speak, until the only way for them to silence you is to try to kill you. And if somebody tries to kill you, you try to kill them right back.

And beyond that, you stand by. You stand by your fellow man when he ascends the soapbox to speak, even if you don't agree with what he says. You stand prepared to use whatever force is necessary that he can keep speaking. You stand by him as he keeps speaking, until the only way they can silence him is to try to kill him. And if somebody tries to kill your fellow man for speaking his conscience, you do your fellow man a favor, and you try to kill them right back.

At the end of the day, as Col. Cooper observed, "an unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not defeated by fleeing from it".

I pray that speech will be all that is necessary. But in my heart I fear that stronger and dirtier means may be required.