For some reason search.msn.com ranks my blog post on explosives testing #1 for Joe’s special recipe.  At least google has it as number 17.  I wonder what the searcher thought when they read about testing explosives instead of tasty food.

Say Uncle asks:

So, why do we have the fourth amendment again? I mean, I’m just asking since it seems like we don’t really use it.

The same question could be asked of virtually all the protections against excessive government in the entire constitution.  I recognize the sarcasm and know Say Uncle doesn’t literally mean that but in a sense it is a valid question.  If our government isn’t going to follow the rules then why not just draw up a new set of rules and try to enforce the government from crossing the new restrictions?  I say, “No”.  I take that back.  That should be, “Hell no!”  Even though we are nearly constantly reminded of government excursions into areas they are forbidden we are reminded by the existence of those violated restrictions.  It gives us something to “hang our hats on”, it gives us the moral high ground, it gives us a goal to strive for, and it reminds us why we need to hold onto our guns. 

How is that?  How does it remind us why we need to hold onto our guns?  Because rules aren’t worth the paper they are written on without a means to enforce them.  I’ve gotten into debates on a Universal Biometric ID card and had a lawyer tell me we just needed to put “substantive rules“ in place prevent it’s abuse.  As I told him:

If you believe “substantive rules … will continue to be administered” will assure me the database will not be abused then you haven’t been listening. The “substantive rules” that I would required to be put in place in order to believe the contents of the database would not abused would cause the most enthusiastic Auschwitz guard to cringe at my creativity in punishment methods, violate numerous protections of the Bill of Rights, and probably inspire several additions to it.

Government cannot be trusted to follow the rules–constant reminders of that are a good thing.

Usually I just end up jousting with windmills (and here).  But this time maybe I may have made some progress.  At least I got reasonable responses.  First this story:

Nine out of 10 Richmond-area residents support a proposed law that would close the so-called “gun-show loophole,” a newly released crime-and-safety survey shows. 

The loophole allows unlicensed gun dealers to sell firearms at Virginia gun shows without making background checks of purchasers.

The survey also shows that residents in the region overwhelmingly rank crime as the biggest threat to their quality of life and that most believe the crime rate is tied to the availability of guns.

Voters are also willing to support stricter gun-control legislation and hold elected officials accountable on the issue.

…

You know how the story goes, almost for certain the survey wording was biased, the “gun-show loophole” is just a phrase invented by the freedom haters to further restrict sales of firearms, etc., etc.  Rather than explain all this to the reporter I sent a much simplier email and got a decent reply:

From: Joe Huffman
Sent: Sunday, January 23, 2005 12:44 AM
To: ‘jnolan@timesdispatch.com’
Subject: Re: Closing gun-show loophole backed

Before implementing yet another gun control law people should look at the results of gun control laws world wide.  For example check out the recent report from the National Academy of Sciences (http://www.suntimes.com/output/otherviews/cst-edt-ref08x.html).

Then ask yourself just one question:

Can you demonstrate just one time, one place, throughout all of human history, where restricting the access of handheld weapons to the average person made them safer?

See this for background: https://blog.joehuffman.org/2004/12/14/

-joe-
—-
https://blog.joehuffman.org
http://www.modernballistics.com
http://www.boomershoot.org

From: jnolan@timesdispatch.com
Sent: Monday, January 24, 2005 8:52 AM
To: Joe Huffman
Subject: RE: Closing gun-show loophole backed

Thanks, Joe. I’ll check it out.

Then there was the editorial from someone already on our side:

Each year, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence publishes a “report card” rating each state in the country according to their “gun violence prevention laws.” They must not be very pleased with the direction of this country, as the national average was halfway between a “C” and a “D.” (“A” being the highest grade.) In order to understand the Brady Campaign’s perspective, one must examine the relationships between state legislative environments and the Brady grading system.

…

It’s okay to make baseless claims as long as they support Brady Campaign beliefs. The Brady Campaign revises the truth and capitalizes upon people’s pain and suffering to promote a political goal: banning civilian firearms. They roll out the “for the children” refrain in an attempt to grab moral high ground and portray those who disagree as too self-absorbed with guns to care about the death of innocents, even though statistical fact indicates that it is the Brady Campaign that prefers demagoguery to reality.

I sent him the following email and got a reply:

From: Joe Huffman
Sent: Monday, January 24, 2005 8:29 AM
To: ‘hnemerov@netvista.net’
Subject: Brady grades.

Thanks for writing the nice article.

See also “Brady 2004 Report Card versus crime rates”:

https://blog.joehuffman.org/2005/01/17/

-joe-
—-
https://blog.joehuffman.org
http://www.modernballistics.com
http://www.boomershoot.org

From: Howard Nemerov
Sent: Monday, January 24, 2005 9:25 AM
To: ‘Joe Huffman’
Subject: RE: Brady grades.

That’s pretty much what I found for rates per 100,000 population; not much difference between CCW and non-CCW states. Your spreadsheet is very good. Maybe send a copy to John Lott? The 2004 Brady report card was only slightly different from 2003, so it’s still valid to do what you did. I discussed the slight variations to try to regress the report card to 2003 for a straight comparison. Thanks for reading my paper.

Howard Nemerov

I sent Mr. Lott a link to my blog on the correlation between Brady grades and violent crime.  No response yet, but it was just a few minutes ago so it’s way to early to know if he will have an interest or not.

Due to neighbor complaints (I could sort of understand their concerns when stuff kept falling off the walls) I’m reducing the target volume on the largest targets this year.  I’m gluing part of an egg carton into the bottom of the 8“ target bodies prior to filling them with explosives.

I’ve measured the capacity and now the 8” targets have just about the same capacity as the 6” targets while still offering a larger shooting area.  I can get all the old egg cartons I want at the recycling center but the time involved is almost painful.  Including the cutting, fitting, and gluing it’s taking right at five minutes per target.  Since I plan to have 60 of these size targets that means I’m going to be putting five hours of prep time just for these targets.  Well I guess the consolation is that if I loose money on the event this year it will reduce my loss in terms of $/hour.  Instead of earning -$1.00/hour I’ll earn -$0.98/hour or some such thing.  That’s better–isn’t it?

For some of the background on this read my web pages on Reactive Targets–especially Project Nitro.  The recipe given there is obsolete, but it will still help you understand some of what follows.

The last year the targets just didn’t detonate as well as they should have.  We changed the containers we used for the targets, we ground the NH₄NO₃ much finer that ever before, we used a KitchenAid^R mixer instead of hand mixing, and we put in a small amount of MnO₂ as coloring to help us tell when it was thoroughly mixed.  Too many variables and we discovered the problem just a week before the event.  We suffered through the event and then last fall I bought some books on explosives and detonation mechanisms and have spent a lot of time reading and thinking about what is going on with our mixture.  Some of my hypotheses were shot down after doing a few thought experiments.  Some others died after some field experiments.  My latest hypothesis is that when we grind the NH₄NO₃ it absorbed the liquid fuel (proprietary) and the KClO₃ isn’t able to interact with the fuel as well during the detonation initiation phase.  This might also explain why the mixture becomes more and more difficult to detonate as the targets age–the fuel is absorbed more and more into the NH₄NO₃ and it’s also possible it is evaporating through the container walls.  Fortunately if this hypothesis is correct the fix is easy–add more fuel and perhaps seal the containers better.  For maximum sensitivity the mix has always been very oxygen rich and I have wanted to add more fuel just to get more bang for the unit volume of target.  If adding more fuel works out I’ll be pleased for more than one reason.

Most recently the ratio of NH₄NO₃ to fuel has been 24:1 by volume. This was based upon a density measurement from a long time ago with a different batch of NH₄NO₃ and I decided to measure the density again before doing these tests.  Previously I had measured a specific density of 0.96.  This time I came up with 0.875.  Ouch!  That could be making a difference too.  Time to redo all our sensitivity tests.  Tonight I finely ground four 500 mL batches of NH₄NO₃ and mixed in 20, 30, 45, and 60 mL of fuel in the respective batches.  That gives me ratios of 25:1, 16.7:1, 11.1:1, and 8.3:1.  I was amazed at how little of the fuel shows up in the 25:1 mix.  It’s almost as if it doesn’t exist.  I’m expecting that after letting it “soak” for a couple weeks even the 8.3:1 mix will look pretty “dry”.  After the next IPSC match (February 6^th) I’ll mix in 125 mL of KClO₃ in each mixture and do the sensitivity tests while at the range.  This year I’m going keep tweaking things until we get everything working right again.

http://www.wherefreedomreigns.com/books.html

It sounds sort of like an Unintended Consequences story line.  From the website:

The year is 2018, seven years after the successful end of an American-led world war on terrorism, but the nation is now faced with an even more horrible prospect: a war against an enemy it can not defeat—itself. In the face of the gathering storm clouds of war, Jeremiah Kincaid, 59, the Republican Speaker of the House, struggles to mediate a growing firestorm of public debate over gun control. On the left is Alexander Webster, 49, the Democratic President, who halfway through his final term, decides to make the elimination of guns from America his legacy. On the right is Edward Morrissey, 61, the Republican Governor of Idaho, who bitterly opposes the President’s position.

Exacerbating the situation, militia seize a gun club built on Federal land in the Bitterroot Mountains of Idaho, which the Park Service had closed. After losing patience with Morrissey’s handling of the problem, Webster sends in Army Rangers, and in the ensuing battle many men die. The militia’s handsome leader, Thomas Porter, 34, escapes. He is a multi-billionaire with a past shrouded in mystery. The massacre on the mountain sets in motion a sequence of events that eventually leads to the secession of Idaho from the Union. As the country falls apart around her, Sarah McGill, 34, a rising television network star, finds herself falling in love with two men; a dashing Army officer, Jake Kincaid, 36, the son of the Speaker of the House, and the enigmatic Thomas Porter; and what makes this drama of the human heart all the more poignant is that Jake and Thomas are long-lost brothers.

And volume two:

Driven by emotion rather than logic, President Webster approves an ill-advised plan to kidnap Governor Morrissey using Army Special Forces. However, the attempt fails, which drives the governments of six other western states to secede and form the Continental States of America with Morrissey as its President. Eventually, President Webster is left with no choice but to declare war on the new confederacy. The brutal civil war that ensues lasts for seven days and involves the most ferocious and devastating tank battles in history. By the time it ends, the blood of over one hundred thousand soldiers has been spilled on the savaged soil of the sorrowed nation.

As I obscurely mentioned a few days ago I had freezing rain to drive through on the way to work last Monday.  Here are a few pictures of the van after I arrive in the desert town of Richland Washington.

Then today I was doing some errands around town when my daughter Xenia and I saw smoke coming from across town.  I dropped her off at home and went to get the oil changed in the van.  The smoke was coming from only a few blocks away so I walked over and took a few pictures of the house fire.  It was set deliberately by the fire department for training purposes and to get rid of an old house.

I ran one of the tools I have on the bomb help log files (see also this).  What I find most interesting is the weekly data here.

I updated Boomershoot Blogging just a few minutes ago.  All the referral counts are up to date as well as changing “Dipnut at Isntapundit” status to ‘yes’ on attending.  I received his entry yesterday.  No payment because he has well over 100 referrals to boomershoot.org from his site.  I’m tempted to grep through the log file for each of the IP addresses and see if any of them made it to the entry fee page.  From my quick scan only a very few made it past the opening page.  You have to give him credit though.  His post was quite to the point and got the result he wanted.

So far that makes nine bloggers who will be attending.

As pointed out by Ms. Malkin Stalin is back in favor.  I guess this isn’t too surprising.  As I pointed out a month ago there were large numbers of people celebrating the anniversary of his birth, saying he was “a wise leader”, and claiming “our people will never be able to do without a leader like Stalin.“  Never mind the millions of his own people he murdered.  I don’t really understand it, but then it’s irrational to expect people to be rational.  And it’s a reminder that “eternal vigilance is the price of freedom” (Wendell Phillips, January 28, 1852).

I’ve said it before and I’m sure I’ll keep saying it.  The U.K. needs to be liberated.  The latest story is:

A Conservative Parliamentary candidate has been suspended after he was pictured on the internet with a range of guns, rifles and a hunting knife.

An inquiry is now to be held into why Robert Oulds, the prospective MP for Slough in Berkshire, appeared with the weapons in the camera phone images.

A party spokesman said: “We take this matter extremely seriously.

“We have suspended Mr Oulds from the list of candidates, and as candidate for Slough, with immediate effect.”

The guns and knife were all legal (as if such a law were any more valid than one outlawing political expression).  There were no laws broken.  No one was threatened.  Why do they allow such repressive politicians to continue breathing?

Others have weighed in on this too:

• The Smallest Minority
• Kim du Toit

Of course we have Massachusetts, Illinois, California, and Canada that should be liberated first so we can’t exactly run over to England and help those guys out until we clean out the local tyrants first.

I just had a counter intelligence (CI) guy leave my office.  He viewed my graphs, some of the email I receive, and described it as “a mini gold mine”.  He was pleased I have information going back to 2000, that the site is still up, and I’m willing to work with them (I offerred to give them the portion of the logs where bombs were mentioned)..

He works with web logs on a daily basis and has tools he wrote himself to parse the web logs.  I’m so thrilled.  Finally I can get this information to the proper agencies and don’t have to worry if I have “done enough” to prevent some kid from blowing up his school, or some terrorist wanting to float a barge with a ton of explosives down the Thames.

It’s kind of ironic, the CI guy’s office is directly above mine in this building.  I’ve been in this office for two and a half years and the guy that was the answer to my concerns was so close.

Update: I just got a call from the CI guy.  He has a “customer” for the bomb logs.  I’ll sort through my log files and deliver the bomb related stuff to him next week.

Actually Boomershoot.org is.  Do a google search (without the quotes) for “simple bomb help”.  Same with Yahoo.  Same with Ask Jeeves.

I’m wondering if something like search engine placement is causing some of the flucuations in the number of searches I get rather than some worldwide change in the interest of bomb building.

I received an update from Eugene on the status of the clinic.  This is the earliest it has ever filled up.  He is accepting standby positions however.

I updated the blogger referral numbers just a few minutes ago too.  Most of the numbers are overstated just a bit because I didn’t filter out the search engines web crawlers.  Another known error is that I didn’t include all the referrals from AR15.com (209 unique IP referrals this month) which were all via Ry’s postings.  Since AR15.com isn’t his blog I didn’t credit him with them on the page but I did include some of his lesser known websites that have links to boomershoot.org.  He gets a free Boomershoot coat, free entry, free shirts, and still I am indebted to him.

As I was driving through four hours through the freezing rain to work today (they sent everyone home by the time I got there) I got a call from a Engineering Project Handler, Field Report Department at UL.  He wanted us to send him the heater than had the burned plug.  Since I was rather busy at the time I asked him to send me an email about it.  He did.  The important part of the letter is below:

Hello Mr. Huffman,

I spoke with you on the phone regarding the investigation I am conducting on the subject product.  It would be very helpful for UL to examine the faulty product so that we can try and determine the cause of failure.  Please sent the sample to my attention at the below address.

He also asked we send a copy of the postage receipt so he can reimburse us.  And he said once the investigation is complete he will provide as much detail about the results of the investigation as he can.

With the latest round of entry fees I paid off $400 on the loan and bought a new generator.  The one we used last year and it’s back up both failed.  I wanted this one.  But ended up buying this one. I was so tempted to pay $200 more for 2500 fewer Watts and 70 fewer pounds.

3500 W is more than I will probably use.  I got by on 600 W from ’98 until ’03 but things have a way of expanding to consume the resources available.  A friend is working on a machine to produce the explosives without blenders and Kitchen Aid mixers.  Just dump in the raw materials on one end and then package the output from the other end.  No idea how much power it will consume–assuming it works and is safe.  Plus there are the lights.  I can power lots of lights now…

Verification of this is lacking but it does sound plausible.  I really need to write up a proposal for the lab where I work and try to do a valid research project on airplane security alternatives.  Everyone knows the current system is a total failure.

From Ms. Malkins post:

He and his partner were assigned to a flight (the airline, airport, and destination were not disclosed) in their customary undercover security role. They boarded the airplane early in order to meet the flight attendants, at which time the cleaning crew was still on the airplane — somewhat longer than expected. My patient and his partner sat together in seats near the middle of coach class.

The passengers began to board, and he and his partner noticed a single Middle Eastern man sitting near the front of first class. After a number of passengers had boarded, two Middle Eastern men walked by this man and made eye contact, but said nothing. They sat down together in the front of coach class. Shortly thereafter, two other Middle Eastern men also walked by the man in first class and made eye contact without speaking. They sat near the back of coach class.

Shortly after the flight attendants completed their post-boarding check of the overhead bins, an announcement came from the cockpit: the pilot stated that there had been a security breach, and everyone needed to deboard the plane for a second, more thorough, security screening. The Air Marshall and his partner were confused, as they had not triggered the security alert nor been notified of it prior to the announcement.

After all the passengers had deplaned, the Federal Air Marshalls checked with the flight attendants for more information. During a final check of the overhead bins, a flight attendant had noticed that one of the blankets was slightly unfolded, and he repositioned it in the bin. At this time, a razor blade fell out of the blanket. Concerned, but still believing this might be a straightforward mistake, the flight attendant began to check other overhead bins. Several additional incompletely folded blankets were noted, and hidden in each one was a box cutter: a total of five. It appeared that these had been placed there by the cleaning crew prior to the boarding of the airplane.

After the repeat security screening, the passengers reboarded — all except the five Middle Eastern men, who were nowhere to be found. The flight proceeded to its destination uneventfully.

I got an email from Eugene Econ, the clinic instructor, today.  Details are here.  The most important bit of information is that he only has two slots open.

This is amazing.  The clinic going to be sold out by the third week of January–nearly three and a half months prior to the event.  I’ve expanded the number of shooting positions for the main event so I still have lots of room there but if I hadn’t it would be two thirds full now instead of one third.  In absolute numbers I’m signing people faster than ever before.

I updated the blogger list.  I attribute bloggers for the apparent increase in attendance.  Thanks everyone.

I’m keeping track of all the blogger posts on the status page for Boomershoot 2005.  So far it looks like nine different bloggers will be attending.  This includes Ry and I so it’s not quite as big a deal as you might think.  But I’m still very pleased.  This might be the year that I make a little money and get to pay back the loans I made to cover the building of the explosives magazine.  Kim du Toit in particular has generated a ton of web traffic and numerous entries for both last year and this year.

Thanks everyone.

I’ve had confrontations with the leftists that were so blinded by hate they couldn’t even relate to rational thought.  Which was the reason for subtitling my blog “Ramblings of a red-necked, knuckle-dragging, Neanderthal“.  If you call yourself a bad name they can’t really use the same phrase against you in a way to hurt you.  I was hurt and confused by the attack in my hate mail but reading excerpts of Michelle Maulkin hate mail was so intense it caused me to cry.  I can’t imagine what is going through these peoples minds.

Michelle, if you read this and if you feel you need the instruction I’ll teach you handgun self-defense for free.  Tell me when you have a day available in Seattle or maybe it would work out when I go to D.C. on business a few times a year.  If you want the instruction sooner I can find instructors in your area.  And if it would be of any use to you I would like to offer some lessons on long range rifle shooting and explosives manufacturing as well (Boomershoot 2005 is coming up on May 1).  If nothing else you could write about it just to piss them off some more.

I just did a quick check on the hate mail for the most vicious left wing attacker I know of.  What he calls hate mail would seem like fan mail to Ms. Malkin. 

It’s no wonder they don’t want us to have guns.  If they believe we hate them as much as they hate us then the targets of that hate would be acquiring severe cases of lead poisoning on a regular basis.  They know they couldn’t be trusted with firearms so they must believe we can’t be trusted either.

Here is a sample from Ms. Malkin’s inbox:

Hi Self hating flat nosed Filipino Bitch! As we used to refer to your kind – little brown Fucking Machines. Looks like this little LBFM learned to whore in a different way to make some pesos. How sweet.

***

Surely you are a big put-on. Did some minor Republican operative purchase a mail-order bride and train her to do this?

***

Proverbs 69:69 counsels: “Like a whore who infects those she sleeps with, so doth the ultra-republican faux columnist infect her readers with lies.” While you are looking in the mirror, cursing the Left because you weren’t born blond, think about the above. Amen.

***

Is is such a shame that you look like a Filipino- because your thinking, writing (if you can call that) is a disgrace to any member of the Asian community. Someday, when you are no longer motivated by greed, and when you are closer to your next life stage, you will realized what a horrible sellout you are.

***

You’re a filthy whore.

***

I just hope that I am still around when the karma catches up to those of you that have spread the lies and attacked the innocent. I hope your fate is somewhat similar to the women of the Phillipines when the Japanese invaded. Then Michelle you can drop the “media” from “media whore” when someone asks your occupation.

***

You’re just a Manilla whore shaking your ass and waiting for the Republican fleet to come in, aren’t you? You’ve even got the lip gloss about right. Maybe if you love sailor long time, he bring you home to big American house? I don’t think so. Just like in Manilla, Honey, they’ll pass you around ’til they’ve all shot their load in you, and then they’ll try to scrub off the stench so they can sail off in their crisp, white uniforms to the land of W.A.S.P.

***

Here’s a tip. We know you are lyin’ pond scum and a whore to your profession……and, not a very expensive whore at that. So…………when we get rid of you neocons; how will you ever pay your rent? You’re not good enough to make it as a real writer. fuck you; I hope you get cancer & die a horrible painful death all alone, with your collegues shunning you and the rest of us reading how wrong you are AND WHAT A CRUMMY WRITER YOU ARE.

***

Malkin, you’re a dumb fucking whore. You’re a philipino piece of shit who should be wiping my ass. Go back to the massage parlor. Sucky sucky long time. How dare you thing you have any right to express any opinions in this country. You’re a joke. Go back to nursing school. Whore.

***

Young lady you should be ashamed of yourself. My husband is Filipino and is all I have met have had integrity. However, you have disgraced the Filipino Americans by spreading these awful lies and being a Bush whore. I was going to vote for Bush, but never after these dirty tricks and lies. Just like the old Marcos days’ eh. Disgraceful, you family and your community are desparately ashamed of you. How much are they paying you to sell your soul. You have disgraced us all.

***

oh, mz. malkin, there are more profitable ways to whore yourself than to do it on television for the likes of the neocons. (they are even quicker to dump their whores when they are finished with them…) you would make a discreet fortune on aurora avenue here in seattle, and no one would be the wiser…

***

Say, how does it feel to be a paid prostitute for the republicans? Go get some more collagen injected in your lips, it makes you look more the part.