If Islam is unwilling or unable to rein in its radical adherents, they must not complain when we do so. There will be collateral damage, as regrettable as it may be. With the recent attacks in Europe and the United States, we may not long consider the Islamic problem to be simply one of law enforcement. There may be a backlash, and the peace-loving Muslims may want to consider how that backlash may affect them, should they choose to ignore the problem within their religion.
They might not want to play Cowboys and Muslims. Once the backlash begins, they may not have a chance to influence the outcome.
It’s almost a Markley’s Law, but not quite, so I’m not making it a Markley’s Law Monday post. Besides, I’m not really hurting for material. Markley’s Law Mondays are already scheduled out through the middle of January 2017.
But note, as is typical with these type of people, they don’t even make sense grammatically. And even if you corrected the grammar they still wouldn’t make sense on any of several different levels.—Joe]
So why am I writing about Botox on a sex blog? Because doctors have found that this drug can also be used to treat sexual dysfunctions. For example, studies have shown that Botox is an effective treatment for vaginismus, a condition in which the muscles around the vaginal opening involuntarily contract so tightly that penetration becomes painful or impossible [1]. This isn’t the only sexual difficulty for which Botox might help, though. In fact, new research suggests that it may be a novel treatment for premature ejaculation, too.
Thirty-three male rats were randomly assigned to receive one of three injections in the bulbospongiosus muscle: a half unit of Botox, a full unit of Botox, or a saline (placebo) shot. Two days after exposure, their sexual behaviors were assessed.
Regardless of the type of injection received, all rats could still ejaculate afterwards. However, rats injected with Botox took significantly longer to do so than rats that received placebos.
In the placebo condition, ejaculation took a little over 6.5 minutes on average. For rats receiving a half unit of Botox, this jumped to about 8.5 minutes, whereas for rats that received a full unit, it took almost 10 minutes.
At my age I don’t, and almost certainly won’t ever, have this problem. But still, I’m siding with Justin J. Lehmiller when he says,
… guys would have to be comfortable with someone sticking a needle in their nether regions, and I’m pretty confident that there are a lot of guys who wouldn’t be into a treatment like this.
Oral sex is good for women’s health and makes you feel happier, according to a study which studied the effects of semen’s ‘mood-altering chemicals’.
The State University of New York study – which scientists carried out via survey rather than through practical experiment – compared the sex lives of 293 females to their mental health.
It follows research which shows that seminal fluid contains chemicals that elevates mood, increases affection, induces sleep and also contains at least three anti-depressants. The researchers also claim that women who have regular unprotected sex are less depressed and perform better on cognitive tests.
Semen contains another of chemicals along with spermatozoa, including cortisol, which is known to increase affection, estrone, which elevates mood and oxytocin, which also elevates mood.
It also contains thyrotropin-releasing hormone (another antidepressant), melatonin (a sleep-inducing agent), and even serotonin (perhaps the best-known antidepressant neurotransmitter).
Given these ingredients – and this is just a small sample of the mind-altering ‘drugs’ found in human semen – Researchers Gallup and Burch, along with the psychologist Steven Platek, hypothesised that women having unprotected sex should be less depressed than suitable control participants.
…
Importantly, these chronically condom-less, sexually active women also evidenced fewer depressive symptoms than did those who abstained from sex altogether.
By contrast, sexually active heterosexual women, including self-described ‘promiscuous’ women, who used condoms were just as depressed as those practicing total abstinence.
The research suggests it is not just that women who are having sex are simply happier, but that happiness levels might be related to the quantity of semen within their body.
Hmm… Interesting, but it still doesn’t refute my hypothesis that the women who have sex without condoms are those in good relationships. And it is the relationship that elevates their mood rather than exposure to semen. Another way to test their hypothesis about semen being a mood elevator would be to compare women who abstain from all sex with sexually active lesbians in good relationships.
Both Barb and I like the color blue. But that isn’t the reason I bought a bunch of The Blue Bullets:
I originally bought 250 of them last August because I saw someone else shooting them at a match and I checked out the price and found them to be a good value. I reloaded some and found they were essentially identical in terms of velocity for a given powder charge as other polymer bullets I have been using.
I have reloaded and shot thousands of polymer coated lead bullets. They were always accurate and probably most importantly, with no copper jacket, there is almost nothing coming back at the shooter, range officers, and spectators when shooting them at steel targets in good repair.
Previous to the Blue Bullets my most recent purchase of polymer coated bullets were about 10000 “Master Blaster” bullets I purchased in 2006 or 2007 just as they were going out of business. I have been shooting those in outdoor matches (the indoor ranges won’t let me shoot them) since then. I loaded up the last of those recently and was going to use The Blue Bullets to replace them.
But I got to thinking about it and decided I could use them a little differently. So I purchased a case of bullets from Black Bullets International to replace the Master Blaster bullets for USPSA matches. They are essentially the same price as The Blue Bullets but they are, as you might imagine, black in color like the Master Blaster bullets. All of my Master Blaster bullets are loaded to make major power factor for USPSA matches and I’ll continue to do that with bullets from Black Bullets International.
So what about The Blue Bullets?
I shoot a lot of steel matches. For Steel Challenge matches they don’t specific a minimum power factor (I thought it was 125, but I couldn’t find it online in their rules) for centerfire pistols. For The International Steel Association the rules say a minimum power factor of 120 is required. When I’m shooting USPSA matches I’m shooting ammo with a PF of 175 or more. I could switch to 9mm for steel matches as a lot of other people have done, but I decided to keep using .40 S&W and just make lighter loads. Remember the low recoil loads I was making for new shooters? I’m going to use those research results to give me a low recoil load for shooting steel. And to make it easy to identify which ammo I have in the magazines and ammo boxes I’m going to use The Blue Bullets exclusively for the low recoil loads.
It is well past time to single out the naysayers and myth purveyors, help them with interventions and counseling, and get on with the process of training and arming the staff where our precious youngsters gather on a daily basis. Stop the lunatics from stopping reasonable, common-sense gun-safety laws, like armed teachers.
the only 3D printing systems in the world capable of automatically reinforcing engineering plastics to aluminum levels of performance and beyond, right on your desktop.
Aluminum levels of performance? That probably doesn’t include all parameters and all grades of aluminum but I could imagine it being good enough for a gun barrel accurately shooting hundreds of rounds of low speed, soft lead bullets before needing to be replaced. And if the gun was made correctly replacing the barrel could be quick and easy.
Saturday Barb, Max, and I went to a steel match at the Holmes Harbor Rod & Gun Club on Whidbey Island. Just Max and I were shooting this time. This was the first time Max had ever shot in a match. I suspect Barb will try it sometime, but not yet.
The weather was better than last time but still not exactly warm. The ferry ride was pleasant with a nice view:
The weather was good enough that our friends Elizabeth, William, and Finn also came out to watch. William and Elizabeth have been telling me for months they were going to watch sometime and they finally made it. They live on the island only about a 10 or 15 minute drive from the gun club. It was Barb attending that made the difference. After the end of the match William shot Steve’s rifle on one stage just to see what an open class rifle is like. Then Elizabeth, William, and Finn checked out the rest of the range. The next day Elizabeth texted me:
We had fun yesterday! Actually considering a membership! Lol. Who knew?!?
Thanks again!
Ahhh yes… More people firmly on our side of the gun issue.
Here are Barb and Elizabeth (the quality sucks because it is a frame grab from my video glasses):
I have been having problems with the front sight on my STI DVC again (first time details). The plastic shim lasted several hundred rounds so then I got some “Liquid Metal” built up the base of the sight, sanded it down to where it was a tight fit, then used high strength, high temperature LockTite to hold it in place. That lasted for many months and many thousands of rounds. Then it fell off again last week. I tried just the LockTite. That lasted less than a hundred rounds. I then tried just the liquid metal, building up a layer on either side of the sight. That survived a couple hundred rounds at the practice range on Friday and survived the entirety of the Saturday match. Barb and I met some friends at the indoor range Saturday afternoon and the front sight slid way to the left on the first shot. At least it didn’t fail me while at the match.
Sunday I folded up aluminum foil, put it under the sight, such that it made for a tight fit and put LockTite between all the layers, on the base of the sight and on the sight groove. I haven’t taken it to the range for testing yet but will do that sometime this week. I want this problem permanently solved.
Two of the stages were very challenging and I lost a lot of time with my centerfire pistol on them. I did okay with rimfire despite having three failures to feed during the match.
The following stage is evil. You have to hit the white plate four times then hit the yellow plate once. If you miss the white plate and hit the yellow plate your shots stop counting for hits but they do count for time. Suppose your first shot is a miss on the white plate, hits the yellow plate then you continue to shoot the white plate four times, then the yellow plate for a total time of five seconds. You are scored for four misses with a penalty of three seconds per miss which gives you a time for that string of 5 + 12 => 17 seconds.
I had at least two strings with the centerfire gun and one rimfire gun string with penalties.
The stage below is not exactly easy either. The yellow swingers are for rimfire and the white swingers are for centerfire. The large yellow plate in the center is the stop plate. The two swingers must change side to count as a hit, and must be hit twice. The swingers are small and a centerfire swinger would sometimes change sides from the impact of the other plate changing sides. I lost a lot of time on the centerfire portion of this.
Of course the stages were different but I’m pretty sure my rimfire shooting is getting much better and I think the centerfire is better as long as I take enough time to get hits instead of something approximating “spray and pray”.
We found the argument “that only those arms in existence in the 18th century are protected by the Second Amendment” not merely wrong, but “bordering on the frivolous.” 554 U. S., at 582. Instead, we held that “the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding.” Ibid. (emphasis added).3 It is hard to imagine language speaking more directly to the point. Yet the Supreme Judicial Court did not so much as mention it
…
A State’s most basic responsibility is to keep its people safe. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts was either unable or unwilling to do what was necessary to protect Jaime Caetano, so she was forced to protect herself. To make matters worse, the Commonwealth chose to deploy its prosecutorial resources to prosecute and convict her of a criminal offense for arming herself with a nonlethal weapon that may well have saved her life. The Supreme Judicial Court then affirmed her conviction on the flimsiest of grounds. This Court’s grudging per curiam now sends the case back to that same court. And the consequences for Caetano may prove more tragic still, as her conviction likely bars her from ever bearing arms for selfdefense. … If the fundamental right of self-defense does not protect Caetano, then the safety of all Americans is left to the mercy of state authorities who may be more concerned about disarming the people than about keeping them safe.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES March 21, 2016 JAIME CAETANO v. MASSACHUSETTS [This is a really big ruling for gun rights. It is close in importance as the McDonald and Heller decisions. The decision was unanimous. This helps put those anti-gun nuts who think they are one supreme court justice away from overturning the Heller decision in their place. It slaps down the state supreme court in terms that leave zero doubt as to SCOTUS displeasure. I just hammers the argument that “only muskets are protected”.
This is another nail in the coffin of gun control.—Joe]
March 18, 2016 was a beautiful day with the sun shining bright, so I decided to go for a walk and see if I could find a place my father had told me about. As a child growing up on South Road in the 1930s, he and his cousins had sometimes wandered south of their home over the hill to a flint quarry where the Nez Perce Indians had made arrowheads, tips for spears and other stone tools. Reject points could be found littered among the rocks where a cutting tool under construction had broken in the wrong place and been discarded. My father and his cousins had named the place Flint Ridge. I wanted to locate the quarry and take a look at it myself.
I was preparing to leave and altered my plans slightly when I decided to take our two dogs along. Kanobi is ten years old and slowing down some, but he still enjoys a good walk. Leia is just over a year old and full of energy. My brother had encountered a couple of stray dogs that had threatened him in that area a few years before and I had concerns for the safety of my dogs, so I went to the gun safe and brought out the 357 magnum I had owned since my college days. I loaded it with 130 grain hollow points which would be more than enough to stop most dogs. I loaded my two dogs in the pickup and we set out on our adventure.
I drove to property my wife and I own at 2767 South Road. I parked at the top of the hill just east of the house and let the dogs out. From there, we crossed the road into a wheat field and headed south. The field was muddy, so I climbed over a barbed wire fence on the east side of the field and walked south through a grassy pasture. As usual, the dogs were 50 – 100 yards ahead of me checking everywhere for new sights and smells. We were only about 600 yards south of the pickup when we started down a steep hillside. The dogs raced down into a brushy draw filled with hawthorn bushes so thick the dogs almost immediately disappeared when they entered the brush. They had barely disappeared from view when suddenly I heard the brush crackling and snapping with the sound of a large animal crashing though the heavy brush. It sounded like it was 75 – 100 feet ahead of me and at first I thought the dogs had frightened a large deer or perhaps an elk. The sound of crashing brush soon gave way to the frightened yelps of the younger dog Leia and the heavy huffing and grunting of an annoyed bear. Most bears don’t like loud noises and ordinarily run from barking dogs, but my dogs weren’t barking. I didn’t hear anything from the older dog, but the younger one continued to yelp in distress. I started shouting at the top of my lungs in part to frighten the bear away, but also I was calling my dogs back, telling them to come. The sound in the bushes would pause momentarily, then again I would hear the sound of crashing brush, huffing, grunting and the helpless distressed yelps from the younger dog Leia. I started down the steep hill into the brush yelling as loudly as possible to frighten away the bear. Soon I caught sight of the older dog Kanobi leaving the heavy brush to my left and circling up the hill behind me. Not far behind him came the bear. They had nearly disappeared into the brush on the uphill side of me when I saw Kanobi turn and prepare to challenge the bear. I suspect Kanobi thought he needed to defend his family from the attacker, but that was the last thing I wanted him to do. I drew my revolver and in an attempt to make more noise, I fired one round in the air. As sharp as a 357 report from a four inch barrel normally sounds, it now sounded pitifully weak to me. I didn’t even notice any recoil. Adrenaline does that sort of thing to our senses. About that time, the bear turned and came crashing back through the brush directly towards me. I was in heavy thorn brush on a steep hillside and could not easily maneuver. I again started yelling at the bear at the top of my lungs. I yelled BACK OFF!, STOP!, GIT!. With my revolver still in my hand I weighed my options of firing another warning shot or saving the five rounds I had left to fire directly into the bear. I remember thinking how woefully inadequate 130 grain hollow points seemed for the bulky animal headed towards me. The bear slowed to a walk and when it was 10 – 15 feet from me, it seemed to notice me for the first time and it steered slightly to the right and walked on past me disappearing into the heavy thorn brush.
Kanobi soon returned to me shaking in fear. He was limping slightly, but I think he had probably stepped on a thorn. My biggest concern was the younger dog. I called out to her, in part to warn the bear we were coming deeper into the brush patch. I didn’t get any response from Leia, no whimpers, no whining, no nothing. I thought of a story I had heard about a dog challenging a black bear and with one swipe of its paw, the bear had sent the dog flying through the air with its side ripped open. In this case, I had heard numerous yelps of distress, but I had not heard Leia screaming in mortal anguish. I was once with a dog when it stepped in a coyote trap. I didn’t know dogs could scream in pain and fear until that day. Leia hadn’t made that kind of noise, but I also knew if the bear had caught her, he might have crushed her before she could make any further sound.
It was 3:45 PM as Kanobi and I crawled deeper into the brush searching for Leia. I was on my hands and knees. It seemed like I was getting puncture wounds from the thorns with every move. For a while, I tried to keep my revolver in my hand, but it was too difficult to crawl that way, so I placed it back in the holster and made sure the snap held it firmly in place. Being on my hands and knees in the brush was an awkward position from which to defend myself. I kept looking around and listening, both for Leia and for the bear. I also continued to call for Leia as loud as I could, in part to frighten away the bear.
We probably searched for 30 minutes and found nothing of the younger dog. Kanobi and I headed back to the vehicle. As we climbed the steep hillside, I called out to Leia and scanned the hillsides below us, but saw nothing. I hoped we would find her at the vehicle. The 600 yard walk back to the vehicle seemed like a long one. It was 45 degrees outside, but I was perspiring heavily and took my coat off long before reaching the pickup.
As we came into sight of the vehicle, I hoped Leia would be waiting there for us. I couldn’t see her anywhere. The end gate of the pickup was closed, but the door on the canopy was open. I was preparing to lower the end gate to load kanobi when I heard a noise in the pickup. It was Leia. She had climbed over the end gate and was cowering at the front of the pickup bed. I lowered the end gate and called her to me. Still cowering, she came to the rear of the pickup and I inspected her for injury. I found nothing, although she was still obviously frightened. I picked up Kanobi and placed him in with Leia. He took an interest in her hip, sniffing and inspecting. I checked that and found no blood or sensitive areas. There was no blood in the pickup, so I concluded she was free of any serious injury.
The dogs and I came home and I told my wife of our adventure. My voice was hoarse from calling for Leia. We brought the dogs in the house and my wife threw a toy down the hall for Leia. This is a common game my wife plays with Leia, but this time the dog would only go part way down the hall before returning to us. She was afraid of what might be waiting for her at the other end of the hallway. She often lays at my feet while I am at the computer, but while I was writing this, she rested with her head between my feet, something she has never done before. I hope she will soon get over her fear and I am glad we all made it home in one piece. I still intend to find Flint Ridge, but I plan on leaving my dogs at home next time.
One candidate declares victory. The other cries foul. Protests go national. Violence, looting and active engagement with police.
Calls for calm ignored. Martial law is declared in different areas. Internet is turned off in different areas.
Violence grows. The global economy collapses due to uncertainty over US economy (ill conceived financial derivatives ensure that virulent US contagion spreads to every nook and cranny of the global financial and economic system).
The US, suddenly impoverished, extremely angry, and mortally betrayed stumbles into civil war.
Read his blog post for the details of how it might be done.
I simply and honestly proposed that our schools, our children, should be protected at least as much as our jewelry stores or banks or stadiums, and maybe the Oscars in Hollywood the other night. The national news media savaged me. What parent wouldn’t feel safer dropping their kids off at school with a police car parked out front?
The political and media elites set their hair on fire. Screaming and screeching, they called me just about every evil, nasty name in the book. But in state legislatures and school districts all over the country, the American people began implementing what I proposed, placing trained, armed security in their schools. They didn’t wait for the president or Congress to act. They took matters into their own hands to protect their children.
As a result, millions of our children go to school today, no longer the sitting ducks of the worst and most dangerous of all lies – gun-free zones. The news media, protected by their own armed security, will never admit it, but today, millions of children are safer for one reason: the NRA. The overwhelming majority of Americans agree with the simple truth that the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. The politicians and the media be damned!
We have reached a point where so many laws are immoral or infringements, or can no longer be legitimately obeyed by anyone dedicated to constitutional governance, the phrase “law-abiding” has become arcane and a relic. “Law-abiding gun owners” are reduced to shivering vestiges of their former selves, dependent on government travel papers, expiration dates, qualification tests, violations based on ammunition types and amounts, infringements so vast and immane it defies the average person’s ability to even know them all, let alone obey them and not step into violation.
In place of the olden standard “law-abiding gun owners” we now find ourselves in need of better and more accurate phrases such as:
You don’t need an automatic weapon to hunt deer or shoot targets,” she said. “If you really need a gun for target practice, why don’t the gun clubs have guns to rent?”
A statement like that only vaguely even makes sense to me. And when you try to talk to these people they seem incapable of understanding what you are saying as well. I would assert people like this really are that stupid, but yet they manage to dress and feed themselves with no apparent difficulty.
These groups have the need to combine and change names on a regular basis. They put out so many false statements that are so far over the top that their supporters stop being able to defend them. So, they are “born again” with a new name and an unsoiled reputation.
In contrast, how long has the NRA been around under the same name?
Those who say that you can solve this problem with gun control are engaging in a fantasy. Um, can you prevent some cases of this by locking up all the guns? Sure. Is that politically possible in the near-term in the United States? No. Uh, my problem with the gun control argument is that it so grossly simplifies what’s going on here, that this is, you know, we had tons and tons and tons of guns in this country and no school shootings for a long time. So, school shootings are not a necessary or inevitable consequence of having lots of guns.
After getting the essence of the school shooting correct he goes on to say:
This is a, gun control can solve the much bigger problem of the kind of unpremeditated shootings done in the heat of passion or drunkenness or drug use that claim the lives of tens of thousands of Americans every year. That’s the reason to ban guns.
This is complete B.S. without support of any data beyond his speculation. There are less than 10K illegal homicides in the U.S. each year. Hence there cannot be “tens of thousands” of “unpremeditated shootings” each year that result in loss of life.
Don’t ever let anyone get away with telling you that no one wants to take your guns.—Joe]
