Desert Shooting

Took the family shooting up by Sugarloaf today.  Not too busy, only had to go past about 8 occupied shooting spots.

Best thing about desert shooting, folks who don't police their brass.  Picked up almost 200 pieces of brand new .45 acp brass off the ground.  Lots of 9mm as well, haven't counted it yet, but I'm gueesing at least 300.

I think the kids might have had as much fun "brass-hunting, as they did shooting.

You want to have a Conversation?

So the so-called progressives want to have a conversation do they?  All right;  Let's have a conversation.  Let's talk about how every single mass shooting in the past decade except for one happened in a "gun free" victim disarmament zone.  The sole exception was the Safeway Parking lot shooting in Tucson where Laughner was actually stopped by a concealed carry holder who tackled the shooter for fear of hitting innocent bystanders.

Let's have a conversation about how in Israel the terrorists blow up school busses full of schoolchildren because mass shootings are too damn difficult because the teachers shoot back.  Let's have a conversation about how the "gun free schools act" has done nothing but create shooting galleries of live targets for any and every whack-job out there.

Let's talk about the fact that in every mass shooting that is answered by deadly force, the average body count is 9 times lower than when the shooter is unopposed.  Oh, and let's talk about how the police and the government you adore so much have absolutely no duty to protect you or anyone else.

Let's finally admit to ourselves that no matter how good it sounds in theory, Gun Control simply does not work, and have a conversation about real solutions. 

Real solutions like repealing the Gun Free Schools Act.  Real solutions like arming the 10's of thousands of teachers in this country who are military veterans.  Real solutions like training children how to resist an armed attacker and bringing firearms marksmanship classes back into the schoolroom.  Real solutions like insisting that business owners who post no firearms signs be held civilly accountable for doing so.

And while we are at it, let's also have a conversation about how at the end of the day, there will always be evil, and evil has never been stopped by a sign, or a prohibition, or a law.  Evil is only stopped by good men willing to use force to do so.

You want to talk?  Lets talk...

Pro Choice - On everything

Being a libertarian means being Pro-Choice.  Not necessarily on abortion, but rather on everything.

Pro Choice on being allowed to join a worker's union.
Pro Choice on being allowed to NOT join a worker's union.
Pro Choice on being allowed to worship the religion of your choice.
Pro Choice on being free not to worship any religion at all.
Pro Choice on whether to own a firearm (or not)
Pro Choice on... well just about everything.

I am waiting with baited breath to see how the far left is going to explain how "Pro Choice" means that the government has to pay for all the abortions one demands, but somehow does not mean giving people the choice to NOT join what is essentially a political organization under penalty of being fired.

Oh, and when they try to make a "free riders" argument, I am simply going to point an laugh since they never seem to care about free riders in ANY other situation.

Hey there Obama

So this morning I realized that "Obama" has the same number of sylables as "Delilah"

Yeah...

Hey There Obama"

 Lyrics (c) Mark Horning 10/12/2012

Hey there Obama, do you like bureaucrat City?

There's 12 million unemployed, Barrack, your party's sitting pretty

Here's a clue... Carter wasn't half as bad as you

I swear it's true

Hey there Obama, don't you worry about the budget

Fifteen trillion's a big number, that's the debt held by the public

That you made... Listen to my voice, you can't evade

Folks are afraid

Oh, it's what you do to me, With, this bad economy

On, no more prosperity, Oh, it's the economy

That matters to me

Hey there Obama,  times are hard, you can't avoid

But believe me, sir, it's hard to pay the bills while unemployed

Well times are rough... And your agenda makes things tough,

We've had enough

Hey there Obama, Bush left messes, fair to say

But big bailout spending made things worse, you did it anyway.

Don't your recall... That our economy is in free fall?

I've made my call.

Oh it's the economy, Oh, no more prosperity

Not your foreign policy,  No it's the economy

            12 million jobless seems bizarre. 

            They've lost their homes and lost their cars

            I really do not like that other guy...

            I'd like to pick you once again, 

            but hope is not a fiscal plan

            We let you have a chance and have a try,

            Obama I can promise you, that by the time you get through

            The States will never ever be the same

            And you're to blame

Hey there Obama, Change and Hope disillusioned me

Four more years of this and when you're done , the dollar would be history

Yes it's true.   You know that it's all because of you

We will vote however we need to.

Hey there Obama, we'll miss you

Farewell to you

Oh it's the economy, Oh Sinking in the sea

Oh just flotsam and debris, Oh it's the economy

That matters to me.

It's the economy.

**

Edited because I missed a slant rhyme the first time. 

Free Advice for Rahm

Chicago Teachers make on average $76,000 not counting benefits.  That's more than most college professors make, 3 times what our state legislators make, and well within the upper 30th percentile of houshold incomes.  (top 10% if you have two teachers in a household)

They work 6 hr days, get three months off, and they are striking because a pay increase of 16% over 4 years isn't good enough for them.  So much for teachers being underpaid.

Here is my advice:  Emulate Calvin Coolidge, Emulate Ronald Reagan, fire every last one of the ungrateful wretches.  If you need someone to teach while hiring replacements have the Governor call up the Guard.  Any officer in the Guard has a bachelors degree and can probably teach better than these slugs anyway.

Voir dire as leading ecconomic indicator

Jury Duty:  Spent the day down at the Maricopa County Superior court.  It was an interesting experience.

The court complex itself is several tall buildings linked by skybridges, and some of the buildings are clearly, much older than others.  The entry building is very modern, and the Jury assembly area looks almost exactly like an Airport Gate Area at any of your newer more modern airports with large screen televisions, free WiFi, Juror check-in kiosks etc.  The only difference I could tell was there was no jet noise, the TV's run Home and Garden network instead of Fox/CNN, and they didn't make us take off our shoes going through security.

Parking is a lot like the airport too, there is a Juror parking garage several blocks away and a shuttle bus that runs every 15 minutes.

Around 10am my group got called.  This was a group of 60 people randomly selected as candidates for a criminal trial, in this case, the State was alleging armed robbery.

The first part of any Jury selection is where the jurors try to come p with any excuse why they should not have to be there.  Remember friends, the joke that "you have the right to a trial by 12 of your peers who are too stupid to not be able to get out of jury duty" is a lot closer to reality than it ought to be.

This trial would have been for approximately 3-4 days, depending on how long deliberations took, including the selection day.  So lets be clear that this would be for an additional 2-3 days.

A lot of people claimed economic hardship to get out of their responsibility.  Several of those folk worked on commission or piecework, and while I'm convinced several people were just making excuses I could tell that several of them would probably feel the pinch of being out of work for 2-3 days.  Let's consider that.  If being out of work for a couple days is a real hardship, so is needing a new tire (or any minor repair) on your car. 

One lady was practically in tears because she was afraid she would be fired from her new job for attending jury duty.  Seriously. Now obviously sacking someone for doing their civic duty is seriously illegal, but how do you prove that? (although I'm guessing a jury of 12 people who couldn't get out of jury duty wouldn't be that sympathetic to the defendant in such a case)

We also had a couple of teachers who were whining about not wanting to miss class during the first week of school. Hint ladies, that's annoying, it's not a hardship, you have a Union and you get paid either way. Hell, I DON'T have a union and I get paid either way.

So after all of that, the judge dismissed 28 of the 60 potential jurors. Most of the folks who were left were retired, unemployed, or college students.

That's economically telling, and that's the real take-away here.  Even folks who do have jobs in this economy are running scared.  They don't want to take any risks with their earnings (not even 2-3 days worth) even though I do think most of them understand why it's important to serve. 

Fear drives economic decision making far more than hope.  And the amount of fear I saw in 60 random people about their economic future is a very telling, and very bad, sign for the economy.

QotD - Thomas Sowel edition - again

Those who cry out that the government should "do something" never even ask for data on what has actually happened when the government did something...

Thomas Sowel,


Yeah.

President vs. President

You know, I've been trying to decide what to say about Mr. Obama's inflamatory and frankly downright insulting statements the other day:

If you've got a business -- you didn't build that.  Somebody else made that happen.
Barack Obama - July 13th 2012

I have at last found the proper rejoinder:

I would like to have a crusade today, and I would like to lead that crusade with your help. And it would be one to take government off the backs of the great people of this country and turn you loose again to do those things that I know you can do so well, because you did them and made this country great.
 Ronald Reagan - Oct 28 1980 


Yeah.  Ladies and Gentlemen, that was the President...

RIP US Constitution

The US Constitution died today, she will be missed.  The constitution was killed by Chief Justice Roberts in the most bizarre reasoning imaginable.  Roberts basically said that the congress can do anything they like as long as they call it a tax.

So, that whole part of the constitution that says that Congress specifically can NOT pass an unapportioned tax? According to Roberts, that does not exist.

This is possibly the worst SCOTUS decision since Wickard.

Denny's Add

Yes, they are pandering.  However, it's yet more evidence that we are winning the argument...

QoTd: Me

Overheard at work today: "If I wanted to be a #$%^'in Architect, I wouldn't have spent all those hours studding Quantum Mechanics.  Then again, in Quantum Mechanics, at least there is a finite chance that you can fit two 6-foot benches into a 10 foot space"  - Me

We have a 1-million dollar construction project going on at work, and only last week did management decide to ask the engineers to make certain that everything actually fit, and that the facilities (power, air, water, etc) was set up right for the equipment.  Yeah, good plan there guys.  We have equipment that draws 80 amps set for 20-amp breakers, missing N2 lines, missing C02 lines, missing network drops etc.  I think there might be walls that are in the wrong place...

So once again I get to fix it, otherwise it won't get fixed...

Fahrenheit 73

Ray Bradbury passed away in his home last night, he was 91.

Ray was always more of a "soft" SF or Fantasy writer.  His only real science fiction novel was Fahrenheit 451.  The first Ray Bradbury book I read was The Martian Chronicles which was actually an assignment in Jr. High.   The Martian Chronicles is one of those books that appeals to literary folks but never really appealed to me.  I always got the impression that it was a group of short stories masquerading as a novel.

I only met Ray him once, when I was in high school.  He gave a guest lecture at the local community college which I attended, and signed books afterward.  I recall that he was very gracious. I still have the copy of Fahrenheit 451 he signed.  

I think perhaps this quote sums up his philosophy best. "I didn't write Fahrenheit 451 to predict the future, I wrote it to prevent the future."

He will be missed.

Constitutional Crisis Jackpot

So I have been playing with the interactive electoral college map at 270towin.com and have found a couple very plausible scenarios when each of the major candidates gets 269 electors.

Lets start by saying that only 5 states are really "in play". NH, OH, IA, CO, NV.  We already showed that that there will be a tie if OH and NH go democrat and the rest go republican.

One gets a single point Romney win by giving OH and NH to the Republicans and the rest of the Dems.  However if the Democrats get one of Nebraska's electors (which happened last time) it's back to a tie.

The Constitution is clear, if the electors are undecided the House of Representatives picks the president.  Somehow I think there might be riots if that happened.

Play with the map.  What are your plausible scenarios for Constitutional Crisis Jackpot?

QoTD Thomas Sowell Edition

From the inestimable Thomas Sowell:

Among the biggest lies of the welfare states on both sides of the Atlantic is the notion that the government can supply the people with things they want but cannot afford. Since the government gets its resources from the people, if the people as a whole cannot afford something, neither can the government.

Read the whole thing HERE.

Oil

Went by the Car wash place to get the oil changed in my wife's Expedition.  It usually just a few more bucks than an oil only and you get a reasonably nice car wash plus they wipe down and vacuum out the inside.  They use Valvoline which is quality, if not top end oil.

I pull in and see brand new "Pennzoil" signs, and Pennzoil caps on the employees.

Me: "So when did you switch to Pennzoil"
Employee:" About a month ago"
Me: "You have anything else?"
Employee:"Nope, just Pennzoil"

Me: "I won't put that stuff in my vehicles"  and I drove off.

I've seen what that crap does to engines in my auto-shop class way back when.  I wouldn't put it in my car if it was free.

So I'm changing my own damn oil again.  I really am too-old for crawling under a Ford.  At least this one is 4-wheel drive.  I'll have to find a new place or buy some ramps when it's time to do the Mustang.

Lawdog QoTd

Somehow I missed this a couple days ago,  from the LawDog:

Why is it that Bill Clinton having illicit sex is "Something between consenting adults and no one else's business", but Secret Service agents having legal extra-marital -- last I checked prostitution is quasi-legal in Columbia -- sex is a scandal and everyone's business?

Maybe if the Secret Service agents had lied about it to a Grand Jury, would it have been okay then? 

Heh.

It's Going to Be Portman

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Romney is going to pick Rob Portman for his VP pick.  Why?  Because without Ohio Romney can't win.

Let's say that the Mormon vote is enough to get Mitt both Colorado AND Nevada, and that both Virginias also break his way.  That gives a 2-way tie at 269 each.  Last time, Nebraska split giving one electroial vote to Obama, so if that happens again, Obama wins by a single vote.

Mitt desperately needs to win Ohio and it's 18 electors.  Ohio means he can loose NV or CO. Iowa tends to lean democratic as well.  Even if Mitt does pick up Ohio he MUST get either one of the aforementioned three (IA, CO, NV) or he STILL looses by 1-2 votes.

So, unless the Romney camp has some internal polling that says they can win Ohio on their own, Portman is the guy.    If the Romney camp think that they have Ohio sewn up then look for Brian Sandoval (Gov. New Mexico).

Lies of Omision

The big media will always spin things the way they want to, this is why you should always take everything they say with at least a grain, if not a pound, of salt.

WRT the Zimmerman/Martin shooting, these are the facts:

1) The pictures the media has been showing of Trayvon Martin are from when he was 14. Trayvon Martin was a 6'3" 180# football player.

2) Eyewitnesses report that Martin was on top of Zimmerman beating on him with Zimmerman calling for help. The police report confirms that Zimmerman was bleeding from his face and the back of his head. There were also grass stains on his back, corroborating the eyewitness testimony.

3)The firearm used was a Kel-Tec PF-9. The PF-9 is a very small deep concealment, last resort firearm, not the type of gun one would generally ever intentionally start a gunfight with. Only one shot was fired, and the magazine was found full. (Either the gun failed to extract possibly due to limp-wristing while on the ground, or Martin's hand was on the firearm preventing it from cycling)

At this point we do not know for certain whether the facebook photos of Trayvon Martin claiming to be a gang member are the same Trayvon Martin or not, so I won't post it until we get confirmation.

Now, is Zimmerman a mall-ninja wanabe? Oh yeah. Did he put himself in an untenable situation? No doubt. Was this a bad shoot? Right now we don't have enough facts to know, but if a 6'3" guy had me on the ground and was beating on me, I'd probably shoot him too, regardless of whether he was white, black, or purple.

Computer rebuilding

Spent yesterday afternoon trying to get a virus of the kids computer. Malwarebytes found it and claimed to kill it. Made an AVG boot disk; AVG found it and claimed to kill it.

Still there though. After 6 hrs of screwing with it I reformatted the hard drive and reinstalled windows. Fresh version of malwarebyes, fresh copy of AVG etc.

Now all I have to do is the really hard part, figuring out the video drivers. I'm guessing it's got Intel graphics since it's a dual core Intel chip. We'll see.

Easiest would be to just get a cheap card from Newegg and be done with it.

MEC Jr

The MEC Jr. showed up yesterday. I stopped by Sportsmans Warehouse and picked up a 3/4 oz shot bar this afternoon.

Spent an hour tweaking adjustments and crushing hulls. Finally figure out that the press was assembled wrong. Only reason I figured out it was wrong is because I have another one in 12 ga.

Only took another 3-4 shells before I got it dialed in just right. Using a number 17 bushing I was able to load a box of the following:

Remington Hull
Winchester 209 Primer
11.8 grains of International
3/4 oz of 7 1/2 shot using a CB1075-20 (same as the CB1034-20) wad

Using the CB wad is a bit tricky, it has a molded in bump in the bottom to take up the volume equivalent of 1/8 oz of shot, but it can get stuck on the ram. If this happens, you can use an Allen wrench to poke the wad down all the way before dropping the shot.

Shooting

Ended up driving up to Sugarloaf yesterday and tried the new rounds.

Not bad. Daughter the Elder was able to shoot them ok. The Mossberg patterns high which is not that surprising. I'll likely dial the load down another .5 grains once the MEC shows up.

Oh, and 11-year old girls really like AR-15's. (especially with collapsible stocks)

Load-All Junk

My 20 gauge Lee Load-All II press broke in half last night. It's never been a good press, but one would expect reasonably light duty out of it.

Now the Load-All isn't that great a press to begin with, the crimp isn't adjustable for example, so you have to take 3 times the normal time in component selection to get everything just the right height to crimp properly. Also it had an annoying tendency to crush cases instead of properly roll crimping.

The base of this press is a molded piece of plastic and the part that held the upright rod simply broke off.

I was loading some light 20 gauge loads:
. . 12.0 grains of International
. . Claybuster 1075-20 Wad (3/4 oz wad)
. . Winchester primers (Remington primers appear to be an extinct species around here)
. . Remington Hulls.

Even though the Load All was factory set up for 20 Gauge, the smallest shot bushing is 7/8 oz, so I had to hand weigh the charges.

Also the smallest shot bushing was about 20% to large to drop 12 grains of International so I ended up dispensing with my Lee Perfect Powder measure.

That meant that the only thing I was using the press for was seating the wad and starting and setting the crimp. Oh, and the wad seating rod isn't adjustable either, so I had to finish seating each wad with a ball-point pen.

Time to buy a Mec Jr. If anyone want's to give me a good deal on one let me know. Otherwise it will be e-bay to the rescue.

The Mossberg 510 "mini"

Mossberg has a new youth shotgun out. New being about 6 months ago. It's called the 510 "mini". Made in the USA, and modeled on the old standby model 500. You can get one in either 20 ga or .410. The .410 is obviously easier on the shoulder, but not on the wallet, nor ones confidence.

In Mossberg's nomenclature, a 500 is a standard size shotgun, a 505 is a scaled down youth shotgun. Thus one would expect the 510 to be even smaller yet, and it is. Here is a pic of the 20 gauge next to my 18 1/4" barreled home defense 12 ga.


Yeah, it's that small.

Mossberg did it right, and it comes stock with a set of 3 chokes, and it should use standard 20-gauge Mossberg/Winchester/Accu-chokes like all US built Mossbergs. It also comes with a stock spacer to add an inch to the length of pull later if one wants.

The factory plug is actually long enough that it plugs the entire magazine, so you can use it as a single shot if you want. The plug is just a normal wooden dowel, so you can cut it to length to make the magazine hold 2 (for hunting migratory birds) or to just one if you want the gun to only hold two for shooting clays.

Now the bad news: at just over 5 lbs, it kicks like an angry dyspeptic mule. This is with standard "target" loads. Since the 510 is built on a normal 20 ga frame it is actually chambered for 3" magnums as well. (thanks, but no thanks)

Size wise, it fits my 9-year old daughter perfectly, but I WILL have to handload to make it comfortable to shoot. Anyone have any extra light 20 ga recipes?

Obama and the Contraception bruhaha

Let's be clear here: Requiring Catholic Charities to pay for contraception/abortion is just as unconstitutional as forcing a Buddhist food kitchen to serve beef soup.

That is all.

Newt wins SC

Looks like Newt has overwhelmingly won in South Carolina, to the point that he has captured all 19 delegates. That means that Newt and Mitt are tied in delegates at 19 each.

We might have a small bit of a race after all. Florida will be a real test. Romney has the money to saturate the FL airwaves with negative adds. That's bad. On the other hand it took him 4 million in attack adds to come in second in Iowa. That's Good.

I suspect that Jan 31 is going to be a long night.

Perry out

Perry is out and has endorsed Newt. Not exactly a ringing endorsement, but every percentage point counts.

Rick Perry reads this Blog

So, apparently Rick Perry has been going around calling Mitt Romney a Vulture Capitalist due to the way Bain capitol did leveraged buyouts of companies, stripped the carcass off all useful assets, and then left the bones.

Hey Rick, way ahead of you there, but at least you could give me proper credit.

Link of the Day

From Forbes, why Maximizing Shareholder "value" is the dumbest idea in the world:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/11/28/maximizing-shareholder-value-the-dumbest-idea-in-the-world/

Vulture Capitalism

All right, here is a free catch phrase for my left wing friends: Vulture Capitalism

Venture capitalism is a process where investors pool their money and buy into smaller companies. Buy investing in a small company the investors are taking a larger risk than by investing in the larger market, thus venture, as in "nothing ventured nothing gained".

On average, over many such investments, the venture capitalist should expect to do better than the market as a whole, otherwise why take the risk?

What Mitt Romney and the Bain Group did in many cases was the traditional definition of venture capitol, though in many cases the companies invested in were fairly large, not the traditional start-up.

What they also did, quite a bit actually, was to buy up companies, and then dismember them for the assets. That is, they bought them not because they thought they could make money through the business, but they could make a profit by parting out the company, getting rid of the employees, selling off the land, buildings, fixtures and anything of value.

I call this dismembering of the carcass Vulture Capitalism. Even if it is necessary for the smooth running of a capitolist economy, it's the rather unseemly destruction of Jobs that leaves a rather bad taste for most Americans. Americans understand that businesses go under, and that businesses fail, they don't really understand or like it when businesses are closed on purpose in order to make money for outside investors.

So there you go my liberal friends: Mitt Romney, Vulture Capitalist.