Interesting infographic here on what it’s like to be a porn star.
See also my blog post of my interview of a porn star.
Quote of the day—Richard Feldman
Someone ought to present both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton with the joint “Salesmen Award of the Decade.”
They have collectively achieved what advertisers could only dream about. Their ill-informed, uninformed and intentionally misinformed, anti-gun rhetoric is a caustic shot directly across our bow. If it’s political jihad that they want to wage on this, the most quintessential of all American domestic issues, then it’s political jihad they shall receive.
Richard Feldman
March 23, 2016
Richard Feldman: Obama’s Gun Issue Misfires on Hillary
[In related news:
- Gun sales hit new record ahead of new Obama gun restrictions
- March Sees Record Guns Sales
- Gun Sales Break Record for 11th Straight Month
- Busiest March on Record for FBI Background Checks
Political jihad over guns in November? Only if Hillary isn’t in shackles by then.—Joe]
Hypotheses to test
It’s not a scientific study by any means, but this article from the New York Times could be used to generate a good hypothesis worthy of being tested:
“Our cities are facing a huge problem, maybe the largest since World War II,” Mr. Goldstein said. “How is it that people who were born here in Brussels, in Paris, can call heroes the people who commit violence and terror? That is the real question we’re facing.”
Friends who teach the equivalent of high school seniors in the predominantly Muslim districts of Molenbeek and Schaerbeek told him that “90 percent of their students, 17, 18 years old, called them heroes,” he said.
Mr. Goldstein, 38, grew up in Schaerbeek, the child of Jewish refugees from Nazism. Now a councilman from Schaerbeek, he is also chief of staff for the minister-president of the Brussels Capital Region.
I could see the hypothesis worthy of test being something like:
- Most Muslims in Europe are peaceful and tolerant
- Those who commit terrorism and violence do not represent Islam in Europe
I could also see the politically correct crowd insisting that it is racist and Islamophobic to even test such a hypothesis while simultaneously insisting the quote above is proof Jews are racists.
My take on things is that there is a huge problem in Europe that to a greater or lesser degree extends over the entire globe and there are no good solutions. There are only painful remedies and pragmatic tradeoffs which will challenge our principles to their core.
Quote of the day—Hillary Clinton
That he would place gun manufacturers’ rights and immunity from liability against the parents of the children killed at Sandy Hook is just unimaginable to me.
Hillary Clinton
April 6, 2016
Clinton Hits Sanders on Gun Control, Sharpens Attacks
[Why not the car manufacturer that the killer drove to the school? Or the clothing manufacturer? And I’m shocked she didn’t mention the ammunition manufacturer.
It’s unimaginable to me how someone could believe that the manufacturer of a product should be liable for its deliberate, criminal, misuse. But then I suspect real issue is that Clinton “thinks” in terms of politics rather than factual or logical terms. She knows that her claim will gain her favor with certain voters and that is all that matters to her.
It’s easy for us to think she is talking crazy talk and has crap for brains. But she is a practiced, deceptive, predator who has lived a lifetime benefiting from saying things that are unsupported by facts or logic. She will continue her path of deception and destruction until she is stopped. I prefer she ends up in shackles before she is nominated but I’ll settle for an defeat at the polls in November.—Joe]
Quote of the day—Jan Koum
I think this is politicians, in some ways, using these terrible acts to advance their agendas. If the White House thinks that Twitter can solve their ISIS problem, they’ve got (a lot of problems).
Jan Koum
April 4, 2016
Forget Apple vs. the FBI: WhatsApp Just Switched on Encryption for a Billion People
[Yes. And the same is true of gun control, a lot of banking laws, tax law, and probably 1000 or more other things. WhatsApp is just exploiting a small chink in the armor.
Government back doors to communications violates The Jews in the Attic Test. WhatsApp intent is to keep communication private. This is no small task. I’m certain it is private from your local police force, snoopy neighbors, and most employers. But if a billion people use it that is a very juicy target for nation states. Such a high value target will justify an enormous expenditure of resources to break it. I expect it is only a matter of time before it is broken. But that doesn’t mean that it will stay broken or that gaining access to each conversation isn’t very expensive and cost prohibitive except in extremely important situations.
That said, I have WhatsApp installed on my phone.—Joe]
Quote of the day—Jim Wallace
What we pay as gun owners in Mass. is twice as high as any state in the region. With all the talk about Massachusetts leading the nation, they collect millions of dollars from us and don’t spend a single penny on firearms education. The system is designed to register and watch the good guys, but not designed to watch the bad guys.
Jim Wallace
March 18, 2016
Executive director of the Gun Owners Action League in Massachusetts
Gun Owners Weigh In: The debate over gun control
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
Rounds in the last month
I loaded 1462 rounds in March. All of them were .40 S&W.
Here are the numbers:
223.log: 2027 rounds.
3006.log: 467 rounds.
300WIN.log: 1351 rounds.
40SW.log: 45712 rounds.
9MM.log: 21695 rounds.
Total: 71252 rounds.
The total for the year is 5196. For all of 2015 I reloaded 9531. I’m on track to reload about four times as many in 2016 as I did in 2015. I expect, at a minimum, I will exceed 80,000 rounds for my lifetime total.
Reason #1777 why my girlfriend is awesome
Barb sent me a text message today telling me she needed some help. She figured out where to store an item but it was too heavy and awkward for her to put it in the dead body storage area.
Yes. She discovered one of my pieces of furniture has a spot where you could easily store a dead body and didn’t miss a beat in recognizing it for what it was good for then found an alternative use for it since we don’t currently have any dead bodies without a storage location.
Isn’t that awesome?!
I suggested, and utilized, an alternate location to store the item so the dead body spot will be readily available for future use.
Boomershoot 2016 prep
I spent all day Saturday and Sunday morning at the Boomershoot site. The ground was a little wet in places but with just a couple days of sun it will be in fine shape. The daffodils Barb and transplanted almost three years ago look better than they did last year. Maybe I will transplant a few more sometime this summer. I would love to have the entire front of the shooting line berm covered in daffodils for Boomershoot each year.
I tested three different Wi-Fi antennas (you can see one of them which appears to be poking up out of my car in the picture above). I wasn’t happy with the one I had last year and I have replaced it. It gives coverage over a much greater area and gives faster download/upload rates as well. The only part of the shooting line without coverage with my cell phone are a few positions on the west end of the shooting line. If those people really want coverage I can put something up pretty quickly on the day of the event.
I put the target boxes on the shelves, cleaned off the target assembly tables, swept the floor, filled up the generator with gasoline, started it up (it started on the first pull!), filled up the spare gas cans, filled up the water barrel, and did a final inventory of all the target materials. I started to make some sample targets and found the ethylene glycol dispenser had a serious leak. Better now than we are trying to start full production! Barb picked up a replacement today.
I took the new rubber bands for holding the targets on the stakes to the Boomershoot Taj Mahal and cleaned up the scraps of foam insulation left over from when it was applied last summer.
Before.
After.
On Sunday I made a ghetto ice chest out of a cardboard box and some 1.5” thick foam boards I had laying around:
That is for transportation and temporary storage of the dry ice we use to keep the targets cool between manufacture and use. They degrade and become inactive after a few days at normal temperatures. This process is slowed down at lower temperatures.
I think everything is ready for Boomershoot until the day before the event when we start pounding target stakes.
There is still time to sign up.
They want us dead
Via a tweet from Proud Hunter@Duck_Hunter7 (which also resulted in a Markley’s Law Monday post scheduled for January 16, 2017) we have this tweet from Pupper, Esq. @alltehmunnies:
I hope you’re killed in an armed stand off with law enforcement.
And this tweet from not nev @existentialslut in the same thread:
my dream gun control legislation is all gun owners shoot themselves
Why are progressives so violent?
Oh yeah! Now I remember.
Quote of the day—Bacon @Baconmints
Oh, you’re in a “club” that you have to pay to be a member of. Sounds awesome. Silly, nra cowards. #bokbok #tinycockclub #gunsense
Bacon @Baconmints
Tweeted on December 23, 2014
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!
Via a Tweet from BFD @BigFatDave.—Joe]
Quote of the day—Paul Craig Roberts
An attack on abortion rights, for example, produces a far greater outcry and resistance than the successful attack on habeas corpus and due process. President Obama was able to declare his power to execute citizens by executive branch decision alone without due process and conviction in court, and it produced barely audible protest.
Historically, a government that can, without due process, throw a citizen into a dungeon or summarily execute him is considered to be a tyranny, not a democracy. By any historical definition, the United States today is a tyranny.
Paul Craig Roberts
Does The United States Still Exist?
An address delivered to the Libertarian Party of Florida on March 23, 2016 in Destin, Florida
[Interesting points.
Remember: Why Boomershoot? Insurance against tyranny.—Joe]
Quote of the day—Bruce Schneier
Across the US, states are on the verge of reversing decades-old laws about homosexual relationships and marijuana use. If the old laws could have been perfectly enforced through surveillance, society would never have reached the point where the majority of citizens thought those things were okay. There has to be a period where they are still illegal yet increasingly tolerated, so that people can look around and say, “You know, that wasn’t so bad.” Yes, the process takes decades, but it’s a process that can’t happen without lawbreaking. Frank Zappa said something similar in 1971: “Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.”
The perfect enforcement that comes with ubiquitous government surveillance chills this process. We need imperfect security — systems that free people to try new things, much the way off-the-record brainstorming sessions loosen inhibitions and foster creativity. If we don’t have that, we can’t slowly move from a thing’s being illegal and not okay, to illegal and not sure, to illegal and probably okay, and finally to legal.
This is an important point. Freedoms we now take for granted were often at one time viewed as threatening or even criminal by the past power structure. Those changes might never have happened if the authorities had been able to achieve social control through surveillance.
Bruce Schneier
2015
Pages 97 and 98, Data and Goliath
Via Mass Surveillance Silences Minority Opinions
[This line of thought can be extended to many other victimless crimes still on the books from gun “crimes” to gambling, social nudity, sex toys, and various activities involving consenting adults.
The counter point is that with near perfect surveillance political corruption, murder, terrorism, and other horrible crimes could be significantly reduced. So the question becomes, “How do you balance the tradeoffs?”
It appears to me the greatest threats to society come government (look at the number of murders committed in the 20th Century by governments against their own citizens as opposed to murders committed by citizens on each other). Hence as a “common-sense good first step” I am of the opinion that greatly enhanced surveillance for government employees is a good thing. Implement the most extreme surveillance practical for politicians and others in positions of power. Encrypt it and store it securely. But if they are accused of wrongdoing their data comes out of storage and is reviewed for evidence of criminal activity. The rational could be, “With great power comes great responsibility. With great responsibility comes great oversight.”—Joe]
Australian Compliance
If a politician advocates for the “Australian Model of gun control” be sure to inform everyone of the “Australian Compliance Model of gun control”:
In Australia, part of the supply of banned firearms comes from defiance of the original prohibition. The Sporting Shooters’ Association of Australia estimates compliance with the “buyback” at 19 percent.
Other researchers agree. In a white paper on the results of gun control efforts around the world, Franz Csaszar, a professor of criminology at the University of Vienna, Austria, gives examples of large-scale non-compliance with the ban. He points out, “In Australia it is estimated that only about 20% of all banned self-loading rifles have been given up to the authorities.”
You might also speculate that would be an upper bound for the U.S. and that U.S. gun owners might not be nearly as “polite” about it as the Aussies.
It’s about the money… right
Dan Gross of the Brady Campaign spins his false narrative again:
Make no mistake, this is a disgusting, morally depraved marketing campaign,” Dan Gross, the organization’s president, said in a statement. “The NRA continues to stoop to new lows in the hopes of shoving guns into America’s youngest hands. If nothing else, this approach demonstrates just how desperate the organization has become to sell more guns — it must now advertise deadly weapons to kids by perverting childhood classics with no regard whatsoever for the real life carnage happening every day.
To be frank, it’s pathetic.
No, Mr. Gross, your deliberate lies are pathetic. This isn’t NRA marketing. The NRA doesn’t sell guns. The NRA is a civil rights organization representing private citizens. It does not directly represent manufacturers or sellers of firearms.
But Gross is smart enough to recognize the truth will be ineffective in advancing his agenda. So, he does what he has to do. He lies.
That had to hurt
I’m a strong proponent of women learning how to shoot guns even though they sometimes use them inappropriately:
The wife, 60-year-old Victoria Reid, was arrested Wednesday evening in Rockledge and charged with aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and aggravated assault domestic violence.
An arrest report from the Brevard County Sherriff’s Office indicates that Reid forced her husband of 16 years to sit on a couch at gunpoint as she confronted him about having an affair. Once seated, she threatened to maim him, kill him, and give him PTSD – a condition she also suffers from – in order to punish him for his alleged acts of unfaithfulness.
Her threats indicated that she was planning to shoot her husband in the face or chest, however it seemed she settled on traumatizing her husband rather than flat-out killing him, opting to shoot him in his left knee instead. But once she did, the bullet ended up traveling past his knee, up his leg and to his testicles where it got lodged.
I’m also a strong proponent of not doing things you know will make them extremely angry.
Quote of the day—Glenn Reynolds
I think he’s a “moderate” in the sense that he approves of government invasions that come from the left and the right.
Glenn Reynolds
March 16, 2016
LIBERTARIANS not so happy with Merrick Garland’s record on civil liberties.
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
Boomershoot 2016 Clinic and Field Fire
I received an email today from the Boomershoot Precision Rifle Clinic Instructor. He wanted me to post this guidance about the clinic and Field Fire:
30 March, 2016
Fellow Clinic and Field Fire Shooters!
This is my 18th year running training at Boomershoot and want this year to be as safe and enjoyable as past years.
Most of you have read this many times but for those who are new, please pay heed.
This year the Clinic will be using firing positions 60 and 61 which are mine for Boomershoot so the Field Fire people are free to set up on their reserved firing positions.
Field Fire will start at around 1030 on Friday. On Saturday it will start when I can ensure it is safe to shoot which should be around 0930.
Clinic Shooters need to arrive by 0845 and Field Fire shooters can come and go as they please. Do use the back way into and out of the firing line when we are hot so we can avoid having to cease fire continually.
Field Fire shooters must check in with us and get a wrist band showing they have registered and paid. If you want to shoot Field Fire but haven’t registered, see us and we will get you registered. If you show up and want the Clinic, we may or may not be able to take you but do ask.
We will have a cease fire for an hour starting around 1200.
We use a air horn to start and stop firing. One long blast means cease fire and two short blasts means you can load and shoot.
When you hear a cease fire, put your rifle on safe, unload, and come off the rifle.
In the past, people have seen something to warrant a cease fire and have been good enough to call ‘Cease Fire!’. If you hear someone call a cease fire, do so, put your rifle on safe, unload and come off the rifle. We will figure out what is happening and when it is safe to shoot again, we will blow the air horn twice. No one ever got in trouble for calling a cease fire on their own.
If you want to put out paper for a short range zero, please get me or one of my cadre to inspect its location before you blast. Your bullets must go through the paper and into the side of the hill where the steel targets are placed.
No tracer or incendiary ammo unless you get permission from me. I will have to get permission from Joe.
My steel targets are for .30 caliber and under. If you want to shoot your .338 and .50 cal at steel, you will need to bring your own steel.
Of course, soft lead black powder rounds are fine on any target. Blast away.
Before you go blasting at steel at the top of the hill (700 yards), ensure you have a zero so you don’t shoot over the hill top. In addition to our safety road guard, there are houses and farms down range on the other side of that hill so please, know your zero before shooting at those targets. If you shoot at those targets and your spotter sees no trace or splash, do not add elevation and try again. Go back to a shorter range target and make sure you are hitting it before going back to 700 yards.
At about 1500 each day we will do a cease fire and Joe with his assistants will place two small and one large explosive target along the 375 yard berm specifically for you and where you want them placed. We will bring spray paint so you can mark your targets. When I have ensured everyone is safe, we will shoot our targets. I give 15 minutes for you to shoot YOUR targets. After 15 minutes I will inform the firing line that any target left untouched can be shot by anyone (poaching). After about another 15 minutes I will call a final cease fire and we will walk the line ensuring everyone is completely off their rifles. Once I am convinced the line is safe, Joe and his assistants will put in the targets for the High Intensity shoot.
When you see how many targets are along the 375 yard berm, and that despite being painted, many look like yours. Please play by the rules as best as you can before I allow you to poach.
If you want to remove your rifle from the line; make safe, unload, visual inspection, then put it in your rifle case and remove it from the line.
If you want to maintain your rifle at your car or truck, remove the bolt and maintain your rifle at your car or truck.
If you are new to the Field Fire, you are in the minority. About 90 percent of Field Fire shooters have been to multiple Boomershoots and Field Fires. If unsure about something, ask one of them or one of us.
If you have questions, please feel free to write me at eaecon@comcast.net.
Thank you!
Gene Econ
There are still positions available for Boomershoot 2016. Sign up here.
I can relate
Voting for office is like picking out which gun you wanna get shot with.
I can related to that this year in particular because of our most likely presidential candidates. There have been some bad options in the past but this year is really messed up.
Quote of the day—Michael Faraday
Contrary to opinion, leftism isn’t just about hate. Leftists are more complex than that. From my time as a red diaper leftist, I can tell you that a whole range of emotions are involved. Hate, anger, fear, bitterness, jealousy, envy, rage, greed, pride, smugness and paranoia (not technically an emotion, but it is widespread among leftists).
With such a parade of negative emotions, it is no surprise that so many leftists suffer from chronic depression, often from a young age. Even if they lose the anger, they still retain the attitude: that the government must fix everyone’s problems, regardless of cost and that there is an enormous right-wing conspiracy that is just around the corner.
The victim narrative of the Left is very infectious. You are always the victim and you are always owed something. The wealthy are always evil, while you are always good and wholesome.
Michael Faraday
March 16, 2016
The Mind of the Left From an Insider
[Amazing stuff in this article. Or at least it matches my confirmation bias extremely well.
The part about hate and being a victim really resonates with me. Emotions are how they communicate and expressions of hate are the means of signaling their virtue to other leftists. If they identify as a victim it justifies their hate. They identify with other victims. Those who do not identify as a victim of some sort must be the oppressors. And of course they always require a powerful government to right the wrongs they see inflicted upon them by powerful oppressors. The concept that powerful governments have been, can be, and always will be, oppressive is incomprehensible to them.—Joe]