Quote of the day—Dr. Monica Gandhi

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I think the mRNA vaccine technology is going to have a huge role to play for other pathogens. The mRNA platform allows the human host to generate a protein of the virus or other pathogen to which to raise an immune response, and has been revolutionary for COVID-19. So, after trying so many other vaccine candidates before for HIV without success, this is a very promising platform to hopefully reach this elusive goal.

Dr. Monica Gandhi
December 15, 2021
Scientists are closing in on an HIV vaccine
[I remember when AIDS first hit the news. People didn’t even know if it was a virus. Just like all the different theories about COVID and the vaccines today there were strange things believed by people about AIDS. I remember one guy who claimed there were studies which proved K-Y Jelly caused it. The better known conspiracy theory is that it was a man-made pathogen created to exterminate homosexual men.

Of course it has been conclusively proven that it is a virus, named HIV, and it is believed to have originated in non-human primates in West-central Africa. Back in the early 1980’s I expected, “They will get this figured out in a couple years.” Forty years later yet another “promising vaccine” is in the works. And it will have all, and perhaps more, of the baggage carried by the mRNA COVID vaccines.

Looking at the parallels of the conspiracy theories associated with this pandemic and AIDS, I have to wonder if the resolutions will have a similar time decay constant.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Lyle

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Like Peter Pan and the Lost Boys, they reside in a land of make-believe, and if you don’t play along with them they’ll hate you for challenging their fantasy. It’s hard enough to maintain character in a land of make-believe without people trying to ruin your entire imaginary world by rudely inserting images of reality. You’re a bully, even a destroyer of worlds (of Neverland), in their minds.

They know perfectly well that their world is imaginary but, like normal children playing, they enjoy living in that imaginary world. It’s a beautiful and wonderful place in which they are the heroes. Therefore they consider it cruel of anyone to ruin their game.

The signal, the proof, that they know their world is imaginary is that they get very emotional when you challenge the game. Because they’re putting creative effort into playing make-believe it hurts them to be reminded of reality. The emotion comes from your breaking down that which they’ve carefully and delicately built up in their imaginations. It’s as though they’ve painted a nice picture and they’re standing there enjoying it, and then you come along and mess it all up and kick over the easel. That makes you an ogre. They have to get rid of you or else the game, all of wonderful Neverland, and their place in it, is ruined altogether.

Lyle
Comment to Quote of the day—Rachel Sillcocks
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Priya Mammen

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No matter where you fall on the right to bear arms, there can be no dispute that gun locks, safe storage, and regulated access to weapons are basic tenets that benefit all of us. It took a veto from Gov. Tom Wolf to strike down the concealed-carry bill, which had already passed through the Pennsylvania legislature.

Priya Mammen
December 9, 2021
We need to embrace a public health mantra: ‘none of us, unless all of us’ | Expert Opinion
[I always marvel at how someone can contract themselves in adjacent sentences. In the first sentence she says “there can be no dispute”. In the second sentence she points out the Pennsylvania legislature and governor had a dispute about the public benefit of permitless carry.

What is going on here? Was the first sentence a deliberate lie and she forgot the details of the lie by the time she wrote the next sentence? Or does she regard people who disagree with her on this topic to be sub humans unworthy of having an opinion worth considering?

In any case, it is absolutely amazing!

And in this case she is touted as an “Expert”. How can someone so careless, and transparently so, with the truth lay claim to being an expert?

Furthermore, the by line claims:

Priya E. Mammen is an emergency physician and public health specialist. She is a fellow of the Lindy Institute of Urban Innovation and trustee of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia.

Would you want someone as your physician who lies so easily and/or is incapable of detecting irrational thought patterns in herself?—Joe]

Quote of the day—Maggie Marcarelli @Magmarcarelli

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What is it with men and their guns? Overcompensating for a lack elsewhere I presume.

Maggie Marcarelli @Magmarcarelli
Tweeted on November 24, 2021
[It’s not only another Markley’s Law Monday it’s another science denier!

It would appear Maggie is signaling what she focuses on regarding her interactions with men.

Via a Tweet from In Chains @InChainsInJail.—Joe]

May issue

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I knew California, Hawaii, New Jersey, and New York were nearly impossible to get CCW licenses in. Yeah, CA wasn’t bad if you live in the correct county. And New York would issue you a permit if you paid a lawyer enough money to make the appropriate bribe(s). I had not looked into the process of many of the others.

Not that I have a desire to visit let alone get a Delaware license (I’m covered by my Idaho and Utah licenses anyway) but things are pretty messed up there. It’s a six step process. This includes (highlighting added):

Step 2: Collect References

Delaware’s laws require you to produce five references. They must answer the questions on the Delaware concealed carry reference form. These are the main requirements for a reference to be valid:

  • Cannot be related to you.

  • Cannot live at the same address as you.

  • Must have known the person for at least a year.

  • Reference must reside in the same county.

  • Reference must be at least 18 years old.

It may strengthen your odds of approval if one or more of your references hold a distinguished title. For example, your application may be viewed more favorably if references from an attorney and a senator accompany it. Your references must declare why you want a permit, and they can simply state that you want it to protect yourself or your family. The reference form should state that you are seeking a Delaware concealed carry permit, are of legal age and are of good moral character.

Step 3: Publish Your Intention

Once you have your five references, you need to publish your intent.

…

The published notice of your intent to seek a permit should include your full name.

The notice should appear in a newspaper or publication that has a sizable reach in your zip code. For example, it is better to publish it in the main newspaper in your area than it is to publish it in a free circular that targets a niche audience. We recommend publishing in the News Journal because it is the main newspaper for all three counties,

References should include an attorney and a senator? Publish your intention in a wide coverage publication to get a license?

Wow! SCOTUS needs to slap this law down hard when they rule in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat is a liar

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H/T to Ed Driscoll.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat: Ron DeSantis’ Florida state military plan echoes Trump’s autocratic aspirations (nbcnews.com):

The governor is a leader in GOP efforts to create environments conducive to authoritarianism, from opposing Covid vaccination mandates to critical race theory fearmongering.

I’m reminded of a previous blog post where I said:

How does a government “force a free market”? A free market is one free of government interference! Force is required to have anything other than a free market.

And so it is in this case. That Governor DeSantis is opposing vaccination mandates is evidence that he is not an authoritarian. To claim he is autocratic and/or authoritarian is a lie.

Quote of the day—Rachel Sillcocks

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It’s not about the fact that we are anti-police. It is about the fact that we do not allow weapons in our restaurant. We were uncomfortable, and we asked them to leave. It has nothing to do that they were officers. It has everything to do that they were carrying guns.

Rachel Sillcocks
December 4, 2021
San Francisco restaurant owner explains why police officers denied service
[This is what happens when people have messed up wiring in their brain and think inanimate objects are more indicative of behavior than the people in control of the objects. This is what they think of gun ownership. You magically become good or evil based on the existence or absence of certain types of inanimate objects in your possession. This is undeniable prejudice.

I can understand the impulse for non-discrimination legislation to protect gun owners access to public accommodations. I can also understand the impulse for police officers to be slow to respond.

They have since said they made a mistake and apologized. I’m sure the 1.0 average Yelp score had nothing to do with it.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Scott Adams @ScottAdamsSays

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My biggest worry is that some country will become 100% vaccinated and soon discover that 100% of the people who die from any cause were recently vaccinated.

Scott Adams @ScottAdamsSays
Tweeted on December 7, 2021
[+1.

I have seen the same sort of thing from some anti-vax memes going around. Yes, it’s probably true. But it is very deceptive. I don’t have the time to correct everyone and everything that is wrong on the Internet so I just roll my eyes and move on. I’ll let Darwin take care of them at a more leisurely pace.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Brandon Smith

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My position has always been that the Federal Reserve is not a banking institution on a mission to protect American financial interests. Rather, I believe the Fed is an ideological suicide bomber waiting to blow itself up and deliberately derail or destroy the American economy at the right moment. My position has also long been that the bankers would need a cover event to hide their calculated economic attack, otherwise they would take full blame for the resulting disaster.

Brandon Smith
December 4, 2021
Mainstream Economists Are Struggling To Hide The Incoming Economic Collapse
[There is a lot of good stuff in this article. This claim isn’t part of the good stuff.

If the claim were true then the creators of the Fed have been waiting over 100 years to detonate their bomb, right?

Or, I suppose, it could be the Fed has somewhat recently been taken over by the suicide bombers without a single defection from the conspirators or underlings.

Extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence. I say there is far from sufficient evidence to support this claim.

It could be that past, present, and future actions will be mostly consistent with this hypothesis but have a different true intent. Sort of a like a lie that snowballs as the liar has to lie more and more to cover up the original lie. Then witnesses require silencing to hide the vast number of lies. The original lie wasn’t intended to result in murder, but that is where the slippery slope led. I could believe that sort of thing is what has happened.

Sometimes it’s too tempting to take the easy way out for the short term benefit when the long term consequences are murky. I believe that is far more likely than a “suicide bomber” conspiracy.—Joe]

Shortages create a market for fraud

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The verdict is in:

A verdict was reached in the Jussie Smollett criminal trial Thursday, nearly three years after he told police two Trump-loving bigots beat him up, tied a noose around his neck and doused him in bleach on a blistering night in January 2019.

…

The hate crime Smollett claimed he suffered sparked international outrage, and then disgust, when police said he made the whole thing up.

This isn’t the only fake hate crime in recent years.

This is to be expected. Whenever the market demand is greater than the supply there will be criminals taking advantage of the situation and supplying fake goods.

Warp drive background

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This article came out prior to the announcement of the creation of the first warp bubble. It provides relatively easy to understand background material on the theory of warp drive.

Quote of the day—sacrebleu14 / SA Hinchcliffe @sacrebleu141

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What part do you not understand that Human Rights, including the Right of Self Determination which Self Defense is integral, are not negotiable

sacrebleu14 / SA Hinchcliffe @sacrebleu141
Tweeted on December 4, 2021 in response to this tweet which is this meme:
MarxRKBA
[Yes, sacrebleu14 misunderstood.—Joe]

Job security

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Every day I take a quick glance at my tools I can see evidence of the constant attempts to gain illegal access to my company’s computer networks. Each day there are 10s of thousands of probes from thousands of IP address.

To the best of my knowledge my company doesn’t do this sort of thing but people on my team sometimes talk about it and wonder if we should do it:

Microsoft Seizes 42 Websites Used by China-Based Hacking Group to Carry Out Cyberattacks on US Organizations

So far, the company said its Digital Crimes Unit, through 24 lawsuits—five of which were against nation-state actors—had taken down more than 10,000 malicious websites used by cybercriminals and almost 600 used by nation-state actors, and had blocked the registration of 600,000 more.

It’s very resource intensive to push these things through the legal system. Resources that could be used to harden and/or detect and remediate breaches. There are no easy answers and I don’t fault management for the decisions they have made.

I just know that, for me, as long as there are evil people out there, it means I will have job security.

Rifle recoil table

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Via email from Jordan P. we have this RIFLE RECOIL TABLE. This is just part of the description:

The following chart provides a rifle’s recoil level
based on its recoil score*.

RECOIL SCORE* RECOIL LEVEL
1-2 Low Recoil
3-4 Moderate Recoil
5-10 High Recoil

The following table provides rifle recoil energy,
recoil velocity and recoil score of various rifle cartridges based on respective
projectile weight, projectile velocity, powder charge and rifle
weight.

Very cool!

If I had the time right now I would build and post a web app on Modern Ballistics for you to supply your own parameters and get the results for your exact situations.

Password protected blog post

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Earlier today I received a message from Alan Gura requesting that I not post his protected tweets on other social media. The previous QOTD by him has been password protected until such time as his tweet are not protected.

Don’t ask for the password. I won’t give it out.

Sorry about that.

Update: Everything but Gura contribution to the post is:

Tweeted on November 30, 2021
[He is referring to:

Annastacia Palaszczuk on Twitter: “Check out the before ➡️ after Stage one of our quarantine facility at Wellcamp is on track for completion by the end of the year.

Regional quarantine is a common sense approach to keep Queensland safe – that’s why we’re building this dedicated facility at the airport.

“Common sense.” I’m surprised she didn’t also say, “For the children!”

Yes, Gura’s comment is sarcasm.—Joe]

First warp bubble created

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I wish Eric Engstrom were still alive. He died just over a year ago and planned to live long enough to travel to other solar systems in warp drive capable ships. This plan of his was one part of his recruitment speech when he wanted me to join his startup company Chromium Communications.

Today it was announced some scientists accidently created a Nano sized warp bubble. This the first step in creating a warp drive:

I guess I and other friends of Eric will have to take those trips without him.

Quote of the day—Jed Babbin

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The liberals’ insistence that the law, the trial, and its outcome are tainted by racism is risible. But, to them, it has to be true because they have only two frames of reference, racism, and gun control. The accusation of racism was a major theme in the 2020 election and will be in the future — probably with less success — because that’s one of only two issues that the Democrats and the media care about.

Jed Babbin
November 21, 2021
Rittenhouse, Racism, and Gun Control
Dems don’t have too many cards left to play these days, just their two obsessions.
[The last sentence is overstating things a little bit. They also seem to care about increasing restrictions on carbon emissions, forced vaccinations, forced mask usage, and reduced restrictions on abortions.

But the sentiment of the first part of the quote resonates well with my understanding of the issue.—Joe]

Inflation

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The U.S. isn’t the only place with inflation these days. Turkey is on track to have inflation somewhere between 20% and 40% this year. Other countries are interesting as well. The top 20 are:

Country  Last   Previous 
Venezuela     1,575.0     1,946.0
Sudan        366.0        388.0
Lebanon        174.0        144.0
Syria        139.0        134.0
Suriname          69.5          59.8
Zimbabwe          58.4          54.5
Argentina          52.1          52.5
Iran          35.7          39.2
Ethiopia          33.0          34.2
Angola          26.9          26.6
Turkey          21.3          19.9
Zambia          19.3          21.1
Nigeria          16.0          16.6
Guinea          12.7          13.1
Georgia          12.5          12.8
Kyrgyzstan          12.5          13.5
Sierra Leone          11.6          10.9
Pakistan          11.5             9.2
Ghana          11.0          10.6
Haiti          10.9          12.2

The US. is in 58th place with 6.2%. At least those are the “official” numbers. As the Reason article notes the official numbers and what is really happening don’t necessarily agree.

“Interesting” things happen with high inflation. There are numerous examples of hyper inflation (defined as greater than or equal to 50% per month) for individual countries. You might want to read up on them. But there will be new books required if it goes global.

The consequences of government responses to COVID, such as reduced production and “free money” make inflation worse. With yet another variant/excuse to adversely affect the economy we might get to read some of those new books on inflation in a year or two. Assuming, of course, we can afford the cost of the paper or electricity to charge your Kindle.

Midway USA Birthday Pricing

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A fair amount of my online gun related purchases are from Midway USA. The prices are reasonable, the shipping is quick and the selection is excellent.

They also have something I haven’t seen other places. This is Birthday Pricing:

This fantastic program is available to you once per year to help you celebrate your special day.  Your special promotion code is activated 7 days prior to your date of birth and expires 7 days after, or once it has been used.

It is a nice bonus that I took advantage of this year to purchase a set of steel targets for my new gun range. I had planned to wait until next spring but I was shopping for something else and the alert about Birthday Pricing popped up when I visited the Midway USA site. I thought about it some and then a couple days later decided I probably wasn’t going to get a better price on a complete set of Steel Challenge targets. Last weekend I put them in a dry place for the winter:

20211204_095757