Author Archives: Joe

Dr. Joe’s Cure boosts brain power

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The study is small and I’m concerned about which is cause and which is effect but one could conclude that Dr. Joe’s Cure for Everything boosts brain power:

Having lots of sex when you get older boosts brain power, scientists have discovered, with people who have regular sexual relations scoring better on verbal, visual and spatial perception tests.

A team of researchers from the universities of Oxford and Coventry, U.K., carried out a study on 28 men and 45 women aged between 50 and 83. The participants were asked about their sex lives, including how often, on average, they had had intercourse over the last 12 months. Answers included never, monthly and weekly.

They were also asked questions about their general health and lifestyle, and undertook a test that measured their brain function. This test assessed attention, memory, fluency, language and visual and special abilities. For example, for the verbal test they were asked to name as many animals possible in 60 seconds.

The original paper is Frequent Sexual Activity Predicts Specific Cognitive Abilities in Older Adults.

Quote of the day—Chris Collins

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Capitol Police officers were heroes last week — their bravery and quick thinking probably saved the lives of Rep. Scalise and my other colleagues — but self-defense is my responsibility, too.

As Americans in my district and across the country know well, responsible, legal gun owners have every right to protect themselves, and that applies to members of Congress as well. I’ve worked to make sure these core values, preserved in the Constitution, are upheld. For my own protection, and for the protection of those around me, I’m putting these values into practice. Now, more than ever, I truly believe that the best place to be, during a terrible episode like the one in Alexandria, is next to a good guy with a gun.

Chris Collins
June 19, 2017
I’m a member of Congress. I’m going to start carrying a gun.
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

And their point is?

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From The Washington Post:

The gunman who opened fire on a GOP baseball team in Virginia had a local storage locker with more than 200 rounds of ammunition that he visited daily, including less than an hour before he shot more than 60 times at the team during a morning practice June 14.

I sometimes reload 200 rounds in the morning before I go to work. And then I shoot that many or more at the range at lunch time.

This explains why he got so few solid hits. He didn’t practice enough. But they don’t even suggest anything along those lines.

[sarcasm] I wonder what their intended point is? [/sarcasm]

To me this demonstrates their ignorance and/or maliciousness.

Quote of the day—Justice Anthony Kennedy

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A law found to discriminate based on viewpoint is an “egregious form of content discrimination,” which is “presumptively unconstitutional.” … A law that can be directed against speech found offensive to some portion of the public can be turned against minority and dissenting views to the detriment of all. The First Amendment does not entrust that power to the government’s benevolence. Instead, our reliance must be on the substantial safeguards of free and open discussion in a democratic society.

Justice Anthony Kennedy
June 19, 2017
MATAL, INTERIM DIRECTOR, UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE v. TAM
[H/T to Eugene Volokh and Say Uncle.

This should give gun owners protection against having their Second Amendment rights infringed upon because they belong to some extremist group such as the NRA or the Republican party.—Joe]

Maybe it’s not over yet

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Hillary Clinton’s email scandal is back in the news:

The State Department has opened a formal inquiry into whether former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her aides mishandled classified information while she was the nation’s top diplomat, Fox News has learned. Despite being under investigation, Clinton and her staffers still have security clearances to access sensitive government information.

The department’s investigation aims to determine whether Clinton and her closest aides violated government protocols by using her private server to receive, hold and transmit classified and top-secret government documents. The department declined to say when its inquiry began, but it follows the conclusion of the FBI’s probe into the matter, which did not result in any actions being taken against Clinton or any of her aides.

Depending on the outcome of the current State Department inquiry, Clinton and her aides could have their access to sensitive government documents terminated.

Read Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Doomed Campaign. Hillary and Bill thought the email scandal was a literally a joke. They couldn’t believe people actually took the violation of the law seriously. Even their closest aides urging them to take it seriously was just ignored. I think they are so accustom to breaking the law, and getting away with it, that they can’t fathom why it was considered an issue.

They should be in jail (at least, a case might be made that the death penalty might be applicable). But it will be at least a minor vindication if they permanently lose their security clearances.

Overheard at the office

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From yesterday:

Joe: Actually, I always thought it would be more fun to be a girl scout.

Caitlin: Because of the cookies? (She knows about my sweet tooth).

Joe: No. Because of the girls.

Today our building was evacuated for some unknown reason for a few minutes. Via text messages:

Josh: I got coffee, is the building still quarantined?

Joe: Only for you. The rest of us are at our desks.

Brett: Greg decontaminated your workstation. Land mines have been removed. You can come in now.

Quote of the day—Howard Hyde

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The idea that right-leaning citizens, let alone congressmen, should have a right to defend themselves against left-wing antifa thugs, whether on a baseball field, in a mall, in a nightclub, or on a college campus, leaves them cold.

Howard Hyde
June 18, 2017
Gun control for thee, not for me
[One can easily make the case that leftists want gun control because they and their criminal, violent, constituents fear getting shot. Surveys show that criminal prisoners who identify as Democrats outnumber all other political affiliations combined by a factor of more than two to one. Leftist, by their very nature, are the type of people who have few inhibitions about using force against others.

So, it comes as no surprise that Democrats are opposed to people being allowed to carry guns for self defense. They are at risk of, literally, losing voters.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Kevin Imel

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If you are good enough shooter to shoot a perfect double then you are a good enough shooter to put them a little bit apart.

Kevin Imel
USPSA NROI Range Instructor
June 3, 2017
[This was at the range officer class I was taking a couple weeks ago.

“A double” at a USPSA match is two bullet which created a single hole (which may be oblong in shape). “A perfect double” is two bullets which created a hole which is a perfect circle.

A shooter will get credit for two (or more) shots which are distinguishable but not if they are indistinguishable (a perfect double).—Joe]

Quote of the day—Peter Dreier

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Incidents like the Virginia and San Francisco shootings inevitably lead to a debate over gun control. Here again the media, politicians, and advocacy groups play their scripted roles. The media quote Republicans and conservatives repeating their claims that tougher gun-control laws wouldn’t have prevented the Virginia shooting, because the shooter could have obtained the gun illegally. And, they add, gun control undermines our liberties. 

To provide “balance,” the media quote Democrats and gun-control advocates, repeating their claims that this specific shooting, and the epidemic of mass shootings, would be dramatically reduced if we restricted the sale of guns and ammunition, including sales across state lines, because shooters often obtain guns in states with lax laws and bring them to states with tough laws.

Peter Dreier
June 16, 2017
The Virginia Shooting Isn’t About Bernie. It’s About the Right’s Embrace of Guns.
[I’m more and more convinced that, as Michael Savage says, Liberalism Is a Mental Disorder. I haven’t read his book but I took a college class on, and have experienced enough, abnormal psychology to recognize it. In this case it is conclusive because he cannot see that his political beliefs contributed to the bad results. One thing common to all personality disorders is that, in their minds, they didn’t contribute, in any way, to a bad outcome. It is always someone else’s fault.

With that mindset he goes on to describe a delusional world that is nearly unrecognizable to normal people.

This nut job, Dreier, not only gets things wrong, but he gets his “facts”, essentially, backwards. In this case the guns were purchased legally in a state, Illinois, with some of the most strict gun control laws and brought the gun to a state with much more relaxed laws. Although I didn’t quote that portion of the article, he repeatedly claims the gun was an AR-15 (it was actually an SKS). Furthermore, gun sales across state lines are already restricted.

This idiot thinks he knows what his writing about but his story is very nearly wrong in a fractal way. There is no attention given to fundamental principles, he does not address the infringement of specific enumerated rights, his conclusions are wrong, the theme is wrong, the paragraphs are wrong, nearly every sentence is wrong, and some of the words are wrong.

He has crap for brains.—Joe]

New shooter report

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Nearly everyone I work with is a shooter. I have two peers. One was in the army for several years then helped build targets for Boomershoot this year as well as participate. The other has more NFA toys than he is willing to tell me about. My lead is former special forces. My boss is a former cop. His boss, our director, and her husband have helped make the targets for Boomershoot for the last three years as well as participate.

There was one exception. The intern. Caitlin’s last day as an intern will be next week. After a break she will return as a full time employee in August. She did well as an intern but there was a flaw. She hasn’t done any shooting since she was 10 or 12 years old. And it wasn’t that much.

Today, we set out to fix that flaw.

I started her out with some dry fire and she was rock solid. No jerking the trigger, excellent follow-through, and she picked up the mechanics almost instantly.

I put her on a suppressed .22 pistol with slow fire at about eight feet. She was nailing it with about a 1” group. Okay, 12 feet. The group size increased some but still well within the black of the target. Okay, 20 feet. Still in the black.

Okay, let’s try something else.

I removed the suppressor to reduce the inertia and put the target at about eight feet. I had her starting at low ready and then put one shot on each of the four bull’s-eyes. Her splits were probably 1.5 seconds and she was still nailing the targets. She shot magazine after magazine and kept the shots all in the black with the splits decreasing into the sub one second range:

WP_20170616_12_32_49_Pro

Okay.

I got out my powder puff loads for the .40. She couldn’t hold the gun firm enough to get reliable cycling but said the recoil wasn’t a problem so we tried a couple rounds of major power factor. She shot those just fine. No recoil issues. So, I gave her a full magazine.

Start at low ready and put one shot on each target…

Still almost exclusively in the black with the splits again approaching one second:

WP_20170616_12_53_24_Pro

Okay. She’s a keeper for our team.

Quote of the day—John Robb

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It appears that western society is in the process of killing something of equal import in this century.  Something that has been a foundational building block of the psychology of our species for millions of years.  Something that IS causing a vacuum of meaning and deep psychological trauma.

We are killing masculinity.  Maleness in all its forms has been deprecated as an outdated bit of software.  Something to be rewritten for the modern world.

…

We’re rewriting it and we can already see its ill effects.   We can see it in the deep psychological distress it is causing in men and women.  We can see a vacuum of meaning forming all around us.  A void that new social movements are starting to fill from the online tribal nihilism that propelled Trump into the oval office to identity utopians who are being manufactured by the millions in US Universities. 

As it stands right now, we’re likely screwed.  If the last Century is any guide, it’s going to require oceans of blood to resolve this loss…

John Robb
June 2, 2017
“Man is dead, and we have killed him, you and I!”
[Interesting hypothesis.—Joe]

Quote of the day—David Hardy

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[A]bout the nominee for the Secretary of the Army, Mark Green. All I need to know is that he believes an armed citizenry is a check and balance on the government, and that therefore citizens should be allowed to own anything the military has, including ships of war.

David Hardy
June 11, 2017
Army Secretary nominee sounds first rate
[Sounds right to me.—Joe]

Numbers aren’t their thing

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Sometimes we point out anti-gun people and those on the political left not being able to do math or even arithmetic. But, as I have pointed out before, it’s worse than that. It’s numbers they have trouble with:

Terry McAuliffe (D) called for gun control. McAuliffe called for more background checks and ending “gunshow loopholes.” McAuliffe said 93 million people are a victim of gun violence a day.

“This is not what today is about but there are too many guns on the street,” the governor said Wednesday morning. “We lose 93 million Americans a day to gun violence.”
“It’s not just about politicians, we worry about all of our citizens,” he said.

“Why are you bringing it up? People are going to criticize that you are bringing up gun control at this time?” a reporter asked.

“I’m talking about it today. This is a very serious issue,” he replied.

McAuliffe repeated the 93 million number once more before he was corrected by reporters.

“With 93 million people a day it’s just something,” McAuliffe said before reporters jumped in.

Even if you give McAuliffe some serious slack and let him get away with saying he really meant 93 per day then he is including suicides and legal shootings by police and private individuals protecting innocent life. This is deliberate deception on his part.

When someone is anti-gun then numbers, arithmetic, and math, not to mention constitutional law and political philosophy, are a threat to what is really important to them. That is their delusions and their desire to control other people.

When will it stop?

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It happened again. Someone on the political left went on a mass shooting rampage. Almost all mass shooters are from the political left. And although it doesn’t show up in the major news media reports I have seen so far it is clear this was a political act:

“A guy…walked up to us that was asking whether it was Republicans or Democrats out there,” Representative Ron DeSantis told Fox News Wednesday morning. “And it was just a little odd then he walked towards the area where this all happened.”

This is consistent with my prediction of 10 days ago. I expect it will continue to escalate. As long as people let law enforcement deal with those on the left who initiate violence, other than immediate defense of innocent life, the left will continue to lose supporters and political power. In another couple of election cycles the Democrats will be approaching third party status. Then the violence of the left will fade and mostly stop.

Update: The shooter has been identified as James T. Hodgkinson. And, as expected, he was on the political left:

James’ Facebook page is full of posts that are anti-Donald Trump, including one from March 22, which reads, “Trump is a traitor. Trump has destroyed our democracy. It’s time to destroy Trump & Co.”

…

James was a supporter of Bernie Sanders.

But, so far, and as expected, this hasn’t been reported in the major news outlets.

Quote of the day—Toastrider

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Once people start taking responsibility for their own safety, they begin to move away from the progressive lie. Even if they still hold such beliefs, they will find themselves labeled as heretics because personal responsibility is anathema to progressivism.

The good news is that those of us who value autonomy and liberty will welcome them in with open arms.

Toastrider
June 13, 2017
Comment to Pulse: One Year Later
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—How_To_Liberty

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I work at a grocery store, and it’s usually a comfy job. Comfy enough that I was able to sincerely hold on to my Ancap beliefs, until today. Today, a line was crossed that made me see the error of my ways.

They were doing inventory, and they needed us, or more specifically, me alone to push all the items in every shelf in the entire store all the way back, and then dust the shelf off.

At first it didn’t seem all that bad, but then I realized I was the only one doing it, and I would have to spend the rest of my shift on this. After only about five minutes, I felt like I was going crazy.

Push, spray, dust, move down, push, spray dust, move down, push spray, dust, move down, push, spray dust, move slightly to the left, and repeat.

I had to do that at least 30 times to only get one side of one aisle done. Took me at least half an hour to do that, and there were still 20 more aisles left in the store. The repetitive motion, the maddeningly slow progress, and being alone for the entire 8 hour shift (including an hour of overtime) was exhausting in every way imaginable.

By the time I was done, I was infuriated, not just with the fact that I had to do this, but because of how little I got out of it. $9.30 / hour of that insanity? What kind of heartless monster would tell someone in severe poverty doing this kind of work, to just “pull himself up by his bootstraps”? A sociopath, that’s who.

I finally understood what socialists have been talking about all this time.

“If only I were in a socialist country,” I thought, “the shelves would be completely empty and I could have finished this in like, an hour.”

How_To_Liberty
May 23, 2017
I used to be an Ancap, but my job made me turn to socialism.
[Via a tweet by Michael Z Williamson.

I have nothing to add.—Joe]