Monthly Archives: March 2012

Boomershoot prep in the mud

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This morning I loaded up my Ford Escape with 400 pounds of Potassium Chlorate, boxes of ammo, Cafepress shirts, mugs, and miscellaneous other stuff and drove out to Boomershoot Mecca. I knew the ground would be wet and soft and I knew I might not be able to make it all the way out there but worse case I could leave the stuff at my brother’s place a mile or so away until the ground dried up. The last 150 yards were the only part of concern and I stopped to check it out before attempting to traverse it. I walked about 20 yards into the field and it was surprisingly firm in the track we had packed in the ground on our previous trips last fall and winter. I decided I could make it. I made it across the field and still had a fair amount of velocity when I tried to make a left turn up the hill onto the grass and weeds of the scab patch where the shipping container is. That was an error. I probably should have kept going straight and got onto the firmer ground ahead of me. I immediately lost all velocity and spun down into the mud.

The hybrid drive train is extremely anemic in reverse. It wouldn’t even spin the tires when I tried to back up. Attempts to go forward didn’t accomplish much either. I did manage to slide sidewise a bit into the softer mud of the field.

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The sun was out and things were drying up so I figured I would have a better chance of getting out if I waited a few hours. My brother Doug showed up a little later. He was clearing out the drain tiles in the nearby fields. He came over to see what I was doing. He said the forecast was for 90% chance of rain after 11:00 AM. That made it an imperative to get the vehicle out almost immediately. He didn’t think the tractors would be able to get in any better than a pickup and another pickup out there probably would mean another stuck vehicle.

I already had everything else out of the vehicle and he helped me get the Potassium Chlorate out and the rest of the way up the hill and into the shipping container.

We both had shovels and starting digging the mud out from behind the tires. After we had three or four feet of soft mud removed from all the tires he pushed on the front and I drove. I flipped the back end around and up the hill to get close to a straight shot at the “road” back out of the field. The drive out threw a lot of mud in the air but I made it back to the road without problems.

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The Internet provider guy showed up shortly thereafter and he took a look at Teakean Butte from the shipping container and said it shouldn’t be a problem. He would schedule someone to come out and install the service in a week or 10 days. I was annoyed. I understood they were going to install the equipment today. I could have sent them a picture of Teakean Butte from the shipping container if that is all they were going to do. Now one of my brothers will have to come out again and open up the shipping container for them to install the equipment. Nearly every contact I have had with these people has been unsatisfactory.

I had lunch with my parents and brothers. Dad made a really nice lentil soup.

Doug and I both went back out in the afternoon and I did some cleanup and arranging of things and he rerouted some cables and oiled the squeaking (almost crunchy) things on the doors. Other than getting stuck it was a pretty productive day.

Quote of the day—Judge Malcolm J. Howard

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It cannot be overlooked that the statutes strip peaceable, law abiding citizens of the right to arm themselves in defense of hearth and home, striking at the very core of the Second Amendment. As such, these laws, much like those involved in Heller, are at the “far end of the spectrum of infringement on protected Second Amendment rights.”

Judge Malcolm J. Howard
Senior United States district judge for the Eastern District of North Carolina
March 29, 2012
MICHAEL BATEMAN, VIRGIL GREEN, FORREST MINGES, JR., GRNC/FFE, INC., and SECOND AMENDMENT FOUNDATION, INC.,
Plaintiffs,
v. BEVERLY PERDUE & REUBEN F.
YOUNG, Defendants.
[This was a ban on the possession of firearms outside the home during a natural disaster or other emergency..

A few years ago the Brady Campaign was claiming a complete ban on firearms was constitutional. Their brief in the Heller case specifically claimed “the Second Amendment guarantees no right to possess firearms unless in connection with service in a state-regulated militia.”

They retreated to a position of advocating severe restrictions carrying guns outside the home. A position they strongly advocated as recently as a couple weeks ago, “Maryland and other states with more restrictive laws have chosen not to make Florida’s mistake. Their choices should be respected by the courts. Nothing in Heller, or in the Constitution, suggests otherwise.”

Now it has now been ruled this infringes upon the very core of the Second Amendment. It was at the far end of infringement.

Also this week the New York Combined Ballistic Identification System was scrapped, “the state has spent $32 million on CoBIS since the creation of the program in January of 2001, and not one crime has been solved with this technology.”

It’s getting difficult to keep up with all the wins we are making.

The options available for the Brady Campaign to have relevance have become extremely narrow and virtually no one listens to them in the small domain they might be able to eke out an existence in.

I think it is Tequila time again for the Brady Campaign and their supporters—if they can afford it.—Joe]

More on Heavy Boots

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Or is it Moron Heavy Boots?  Ry brought up the “Heavy Boots” phenomenon a while back, but I hadn’t heard of it until he explained it to me and I Googled it.  I was disappointed, but the story didn’t surprise me.  I’ve talked to a lot of people about a lot of things, having been in the service business and in consumer credit, for over 30 years.  Richard P. Feynman wrote about similar experiences he’d had in his teaching career.  It’s sad to realize how many people lack that little bit of curiosity that would lead them quickly to understand some of the basics of their world.

At the music store, I put up a poster-sized photo of the full Earth taken from space.  You’ve all seen it, and some of you will already know when it was taken, based on the history of the mission.  I looked at it a lot, just as a beautiful image that says something about the ingenuity of Man, before I realized that it told us a few other things.  So now I have some questions.  This is my Heavy Boots experiment but it’s on a bit higher level.  These questions are for those who have no idea when the picture was was taken without analyzing the image itself.  Forget the history and the mission, and so on.  It’s a simple question for those who know the basics of our solar system and of Earth’s place in it;
About what time of year was this photo taken?  How can you tell?  Also; About what time of day was it taken?  How do you know?

Here’s another one.  Looking at this image of the moon, assuming you’re facing East.  What time is it?  Why?

One of my older brothers liked to mess with people when we were younger.  When one of his young sisters-in-law asked him what those bumps between the lanes on the freeway were for, he told them they were part of a project for the blind– so blind drivers could tell when they were crossing lanes.  “Really?” came the reply.  He pulled off a lot of that sort of thing, trying to see just how fantastic a story he could tell and still get someone to believe him.  I suppose his behavior could be referred to as a search for Progressive voters.  If you’re ignorant enough, you’ll believe anything if it’s presented just right.  Our coercively-funded schools have that part covered.  They actively discourage learning.

Leno had a bit on his show last night wherein he placed a magician behind the counter at a convenience store.  There were some plastic Easter eggs in a counter display, labeled “Insta-Chick” or some such.  The egg contained a little foam “chick” that would expand in water.  The magician, introducing the new and rare product to the customers “placed one in a cup”, then “poured water over it” and a live chick came out instantly.  People believed it, even after he said they were “engineered in China” such that you could let them dry out again and reanimate them later, and you didn’t need to feed them.  More “Heavy Boots”.  “Vote for me— I’ll give you free health care” or etc. is along the same lines.

I try not to be discouraged.  There are a lot of people who don’t fall for this stuff.  They can tell from looking at a photo of our planet what time it was taken, know that mass exhibits gravity, know that we can’t all get free lunch forever and there’s no such thing as a perpetual motion machine.

Underestimating the difficulty

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ATK just won a contract to supply up to 450 million rounds of .40 S&W hollow point ammo to the Department of Homeland Security.

I first heard about this on the Glenn Beck radio show this morning. As Beck said, “That must mean they think that 150 million of us will need to be shot twice.”

If the plan were to shoot nearly everyone in this country they are seriously underestimating the difficulty if they think they will only need 450 million rounds. Hence I have to conclude they don’t have such a plan or if they do it demonstrates a catastrophic failure of their victim selection process.

No oregano growing out of MY forehead

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Robb Allen sent me an email asking if the name of my wife is Barbara Scott (it is) with a link to this article:

For months, her friends and daughter kept asking where Barbara Scott’s husband was. At first, she said he was back home in Oklahoma, but on Tuesday police reportedly dug up the truth in the backyard of their Tampa Bay home.

The man … was buried in the garden of the couple’s Lake Alfred home beneath the oregano, basil and banana peppers, MyFoxTampaBay.com reported.

My Barbara Scott has not had good luck with growing plants so it is unlikely she would do this to me.

Quote of the day—Mahatma Gandhi

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In this age of the rule of brute force, it is almost impossible for anyone to believe that anyone else could possibly reject the law of the final supremacy of brute force.

Mahatma Gandhi
August 11, 1920
The Doctrine of the sword
[But he did successfully reject brute force. By nearly every measure he won his political objectives.

He changed the course of history not only by winning critically important battles but by teaching the world the methods by which non-violent methods can achieve revolutionary political ends. This is something those advocating violence in the Martin/Zimmerman case would do well to learn and remember.—Joe]

One question on the Martin/Zimmerman case

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There is only one question I want answered at this point. There might be more questions once I get the answer but I suspect I’ll know all I need to know with that one answer. I would like to think that answer would enough for everyone else as well but for the people chanting for Zimmerman’s arrest and those putting up “dead or alive” rewards for Zimmerman little things like facts probably won’t make much of a difference.

I strongly suspect Zimmerman is innocent of a crime. I need one more fact to convince me it was a lawful use of deadly force or that we cannot know the answer.

It is possible that Zimmerman instigated the confrontation in such a way that Martin attacked him. Taunting or “picking a fight” with Martin would have Zimmerman sharing a significant amount of responsibility in the death of Martin. But I have heard zero reports of a beginning to the confrontation in this manner. Hence I am of the opinion it did not happen this way or that as long as Zimmerman does not change his story we will never know about it.

I realize the police can’t always be trusted that concern is usually associated with the facts in regard to police conduct, the conduct of those with significant political power, or the conduct of groups being discriminated against. In the case of Zimmerman I don’t think there is any particular reason to believe the police are “fact challenged”. I realize witnesses can be mistaken and/or have a bias. If possible I would like to be able to reach a conclusion based entirely upon physical evidence that is difficult to convincingly fake in a timely manner without getting caught. Hence the particular facts that I think are most relevant are:

  • The grass stain on the back of Zimmerman’s shirt
  • Zimmerman was bleeding from the nose, had a swollen lip and had bloody cuts to the back of his head—presumably with matching blood on the sidewalk
  • There have been no reports (correct me if I am wrong on this) that Martin had physical injuries beyond a single gunshot wound to the chest

The one question I have that will probably settle the issue for me is when the authorities said, “Zimmerman then shot Martin once in the chest at very close range”; What was that range? I’ve probably spent more time and money than most on learning about such things and if the investigators know what they are doing, and I have no reason to believe they don’t, then they should be able to determine that range quite accurately. If the range was under 12 inches they can probably determine the range to within a fraction of an inch. And of course the angle can be determine quite closely as well.

If the range is determined to be within six inches and the bullet path matches Zimmerman’s story then I have to conclude the two were in a fight at contact distance and Zimmerman was losing badly. If I were on a jury I would insist that Zimmerman was in reasonable fear of imminent permanent physical injury or death and was justified in using deadly force to protect himself.

End of story for me.

Quote of the day—Christopher Pearson

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Remember:
Birth control is not cleaning your guns…on the couch… in your underwear… every time she brings a boy over. It’s doing it on his couch.

Christopher Pearson
March 26, 2012
Via the gun email list at work.
[While this parenting technique has its merits it’s also probably a pretty good way to get your daughter pissed at you.

Not that I have any experience in that regard. But I will say that being about a foot taller than your daughter’s date, wearing all black, armed, wearing a Boomershoot coat and silently following about eight feet behind them for 50 yards as they leave the movie theater in the mall and out into the parking lot before they notice leaves an impression too.—Joe]

30 Cal Gal and Shelley Rae to attend Boomershoot 2012

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We are going to have some other (I already mentioned the bloggers I knew about) high profile shooters at Boomershoot 2012.

I knew this was in the works and finally saw the entry come in this morning making it far more certain. But I didn’t want to say anything until I saw this from 30 Cal Gal:

Shelley Rae and I are a 2 woman team sponsored by ESS Eyepro. They are paying us to go shoot things that explode!

In somewhat related news I have three pair of the ESS glasses that I have been using for a few weeks. I really need to make a blog post about them (I like them!). And ESS will be donating several pair to the raffle to raise money for Project Valour-IT of Soldiers Angels at the Boomershoot Dinner Saturday night.

There are still lots of High Intensity openings left and 10 long range positions available for Boomershoot 2012. Sign up here.

It will be a blast!

High Praise for Windows 8

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From John at work. We are both working on Windows 8. Occasionally we will complain about some problem or another we have run into with the prerelease bits we are dealing working with.

This morning he sent out some email:

I don’t know what all the Windows 8 bashing is about the new UI is clearly superior: 

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Obviously he is correct. As Greg (at work) pointed out, “This is a much more pleasing shade of blue.”

What a ride

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I suspect even with a civilization with our level of technology and capacity for building durable shelter that nearly everyone would be dead in a few days should something like this happened. But man, what a ride if you could manage it:

Planets in tight orbits around stars that get ejected from our galaxy may actually themselves be tossed out of the Milky Way at blisteringly fast speeds of up to 30 million miles per hour, or a fraction of the speed of light, a new study finds.

Climbing the Clock Tower stairs with my rifles

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Today I brought a couple rifles back to the Seattle area for cleaning and preparation for Boomershoot. I call my place “The Clock Tower”.

As I was climbing the stairs with my cased rifles and openly carried pistol on my hip I wondered what the response would be if someone in this liberal enclave saw me as I was lugging the precision rifles up the stairs. Should I hurry inside to reduce the time they have to figure out the contents of the cases? Should I stop and chat with them and invite them to the range or maybe even Boomershoot?

In either case will the friendly neighborhood SWAT team pay me a visit early tomorrow morning?

Somehow I doubt people lugging books or political signs up the stairs worry about the quite the same things I do. As long as people carrying books or guns into their home worry about the police breaking down their doors in the early morning hours we have more work to do.

Quote of the day—Tom Diaz

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Lethality is the nicotine of the gun industry. Even more than the tobacco companies, firearm manufacturers have been shielded from public scrutiny and exempt from health and safety laws that govern other products.

Tom Diaz
January 20, 1999
[“Shielded from public scrutiny and exempt from health and safety laws? Do the rights protected by the First Amendment have a Federal Agency devoted to the regulation of them? Do you need to pass a background check before you can purchase a book on religion?

Are you required take a class and get a license before you are allowed to vote? But what is more dangerous? A few million people carrying handguns in public or a Joseph Stalin implementing his progressive political views? Diaz is not only has his facts wrong he doesn’t even have a clue about the dangers facing humanity.—Joe]