Month: January 2010

Good News Minnesota, Coleman Won’t Run For Governor

I have good news to report fellow Minnesotans, Whiny Bitch Coleman (Who got into a hissy fit competition with Franklin The Whiner) won’t be making a run for the governor seat.

This hopefully means we might get a good candidate to vote for. Since Pat Anderson dropped from the governor race and went to the race for auditor I’m pretty sure I’ll be supporting Tom Emmers for this race. He seems to be a good free market supporter and of course he’s proven himself good on guns.

Either way regardless who ends up winning we shouldn’t have to be scared of another six month fiasco where we lack a political figure.

Meet the Glock 21SF and CMMG’s .22 AR-15 Conversion Kit

So the gun show this weekend ended up being very fruitful. My friend obtained a CMMG .22 conversion kit for his AR-15 for the cost of a song and dance. That thing is wicked fun. All the conversion kit does is replace the bolt and magazine, installation takes roughly 30 seconds. Once installed you get the have fun with cheap .22LR rounds.

We tested it out by shooting steel plates. The kit operated very well once he found the ammunition it liked. It’s strange firing an AR where there is literally no recoil. Anyways some of the plates were rather stubborn and wouldn’t go down with a single strike, but they went down after a good ten strikes in rapid succession. Seriously I can not emphasis how much fun the kit was.

For myself I ended up getting a Glock 21SF at the show. The one I got had the standard 3rd generation frame, ambidextrous magazine release, and the standard Glock rail. The dealer also had one with a picatinny rail but finding holsters for that particular model can be a nightmare. Anyways I obtained the gun because I want to start IPSC this year. I didn’t really want to use my 30SF due to the fact it’s just not a great competition gun (Small and heavy on the recoil). On the other hand I wanted to practice with my carry gun. The 21SF allows the best of both worlds in that it’s a larger and therefore heavier gun while having the exact same controls as my carry gun.

We took it to the show as well and I ran 100 rounds through it. As expected it worked like a dream. It shoots very nice and I really like how a full sized gun feels in the hands. Have an ambidextrous magazine release is also nice in that it makes shooting it left handed easier. I know a lot of people simply say to hit the magazine release with your middle or trigger finger but being my fingers are quite long I have to completely change my grip (Most to push the gun forward) so I can move my finger back far enough to hit the release. This is uncomfortable and time consuming so I prefer to hit the release with my thumb.

As with my 30SF there is one thing I don’t like. Slamming in a fully loaded magazine when the slide is forward is difficult (Not nearly as bad as the 30SF though). I expected this and since I’ll be doing limited 10 I won’t have to concern myself with having a full 13 rounds in the magazine.

Otherwise the gun seems pretty great. I’m going to reserve final judgement until I get more trigger time with it but so far I love it. As a bonus it fits perfectly into my 30SF carry holster. That saves some time having to find a whole new holster for it.

Orders of Magnitude

Remember the big swine flu scare of 2009? Probably not I mean it’s not like there was wall to wall coverage about how it was going to be the flu to end the existence of our miserable species on this planet. Anyhow we’ve got some numbers of Oceania in regards to predicted deaths versus actual deaths. First:

Sir Liam pointed out that there were the same experts who predicted that up to 65,000 people might die from swine flu this winter – a figure which was later downgraded to 1,000.

So first they were predicting 65,000 people were going to die. Then they downgraded it to 1/65,000 of the original value. That’s 65 TIMES fewer people. And what was the actual death toll? Well:

To date there have been 360 deaths from swine flu in the UK (251 in England, 64 in Scotland, 28 in Wales and 17 in Northern Ireland). But the vast majority of those infected have had either a mild disease or no symptoms at all.

So a little over 1/3 the number of people they predicted were going to die. This once against demonstrates how the mass media will hype anything to get a story. Of course you know the governments of the United Kingdom will proclaim the lower number of deaths was a result of the actions taken by the said governments. Might as well take credit where credit isn’t due.

Further more I’m almost willing now to believe the conspiracy theories about the swine flu being a plague designed by the world governments to lower the population. I’m not seen a government plan or program not end up being a total failure yet. This story lends credibility to the conspiracy theorists.

Another Great Idea Ruined By Litigation

I’m sure many of you have heard about several colleges doing pilot programs with the Amazon Kindle. The idea is to allow students to have all their heavy text books on a single device. Well the National Federation of the Blind and the American Council of the Blind decided they would have none of that and took a great big dump all over the the project. Why? Because the devices are not completely accessible to the blind.

In an agreement (At gun point) the Ministry Department of Justice barred the use of electronic readers until they are completely usable by the blind.

In other news another technological achievement will be banned in from use in universities due to inaccessibility to the blind. Although the technology has been in use for some time the two organizations in support of the blind have found that the devices were not accessible to those unable to see. They are working on brining a lawsuit against every university in the United States to bar the use of so called “text books” from use until such a time they are made accessible to the blind.

China Responds to Google

Google has threatened to pull out of China and have already stopped filtering search traffic in that country. Well China has responded:

China has said that foreign internet firms are welcome to do business there “according to the law”.

As I stated if you want to do business in a country you have to play by that country’s rules. If you don’t like the rules don’t do business there. That seems pretty straight forward to me.

What the Government Giveth

They taketh away. The government handed banks of this country a lot of tax payer month, wether the banks wanted the money or not. Well the banks are not looking at potentially being taxed by the government to recoup costs. Yes that’s right the banks are in financial trouble so we give them bailout money. If a bank wasn’t in financial trouble they had to take the money anyways. Now those banks are going to be taxed. That’s your government at work everybody.

Now That’s Just Funny

Two days ago I posted some stuff about a violent anti-gunner. Well I’ve learned some new things courtesy of Gun Nuts Media. First the violent coward was Rob Russell who ran for a seat in the House of Representatives. He lost, for reasons obvious to those who read what he stated.

Well the guys at Gun Nuts Media also found his blog. But it’s gone now; deleted by the author. I’m guessing it was due to people posting on his blog informing him that it’s not a good idea to make threats of violence against individuals, even if it’s on the Internet. I’m glad to see Mr. Russell listened to that advice and shut down his blog before he made any further threats that could land him in legal water.

I also want to mention that anybody who has be threatened by Mr. Russell should contact the authorities. After all you don’t want to wait for him to show up at your home and “punch your fucking face in.”

Update 2010-01-13 16:33: Walls of the City has screen captures and links to Google caches of the offending material. The post also helpfully lists the laws violated by Mr. Russell. The fact that the Internet is forever is proven once again. Reasoned discourse at its finest.

Talk About Low as You Go

Via Gun Nuts Media we get some of the lowest of the low from a “respected news source.” In this case we have an editorial writer comparing those of us with handgun carry permits to sex offenders:

Say, for example, you want to find out whether there are any convicted child molesters living in your neighborhood. You have young children, and like any good parent, you look up the information on available Web sites. Your research uncovers several living in your neighborhood. If you want to know whether they have permits to carry a gun, you can get that information. This bill, however, would prohibit that information from being made known.

Let’s step back a minute. First of all if a person is in a sex offender registry they have most likely committed a felony meaning they won’t be in the carry permit holder database. Second the implications of comparing law abiding citizens with clean records to child molesters is sickening. Just think about that for a minute. They are implying that those of us who hold permits to carry handguns are in the same class as those who have molested a child. A child molester is one of the most hated people in the country, they don’t even have a good life expectancy in prison because the prisoners hate them.

Of course the news paper wasn’t satisfied with just doing that. Let’s throw in the possibility of racism:

It also will be nearly impossible to find out whether police or other members are denying permits to legitimate applicants, maybe because of race or names that might denote a Muslim background, for example.

Oh OK I guess having a database of permit holders is OK because it will help fight racism. That makes so much sense. Except it doesn’t. This pretty much states that if you support keeping the names of those with carry permits secret you’re racist. At the moment that’s the gold card for those who don’t agree with you, accuse them of racism.

Let’s look at what the actual problems with publishing these names are. First and foremost there are people out there who obtain a carry permit for protection against a known potential threat. Often time these permit holders want their address kept secret so the potential threat can’t find them. Likewise many permit holders carry concealed because they don’t want people knowing they have a gun. See it’s a lot easier to survive a self defense situation if you have the element of surprise. It takes time, however brief, to for the human brain to deal with surprising criteria and that time could save your life. On the other hand if a criminal were targeting you or your family they would likely check to see if you had a carry permit and adjust their tactics as necessary. I’ll not even get into the whole shit storm of marketing people using the database as a mailing list.

Finally the author states the following:

As for allowing journalists access to generalized data: That information is useless. About all that could be gleaned is how many permits were issued and in what city or county — maybe.

Obviously the author doesn’t understand the wonderful world of data mining. A surprising amount of information can be derived from a little amount of data. From a person’s address you can theorize, quite accurately, their wealth (If they life in a upper class neighborhood for instance), the potential of having a family (A larger home often implies family versus an apartment), the car they drive (Parked out front often), and the hours they keep (Through observing their house and watching the times they come and go). This is just the icing on the cake obviously.

But the author obviously has a disconnection from reality as he thinks carry permit holders are in the same class of concern as sex offenders.

The bottom line is the anti-gun crowd love this database because it discriminates against gun owners gives reason for people to not obtain a carry permit (Personal information being published). An open database of carry permit holders has nothing to do with public safety and everything to do with social control.

The Lost Fleet Series

You know it’s come to my attention that I have an entire science fiction category and I hardly use it. This most certainly was not my intention. I’ve been planning on doing more science fiction reviews and after the previous story about the religious zealots not like the genre I thought I’d start posting more science fiction content. I’m going to start with a brief introduction to a science fiction series know as The Lost Fleet.

The Lost Fleet is a series penned by John Hermy under the pen name Jack Campbell. Why he used a pen name I’m not sure since the series is incredibly good. The basic premise is this, it is far into the future (When else?). The human race has not only developed faster than light travel but we’ve colonize many worlds. Eventually human colonized space was controlled by two entities; the Alliance and the Syndicate Worlds, or Syndics.

Of course if there are two super powers you know there has to be a war. That’s where this story takes place, a century into a war between the Alliance and the Syndics. The series follows the exploits of Captain John “Black Jack” Geary. At the beginning he is recovered by an Alliance fleet inside of Syndic territory. See life sucked pretty hard for Captain Geary, he was there at the first battle of the war. Unfortunately for him his ship was destroyed and he had to eject into a stasis pod where he sat for 100 years.

Anyways the fleet reaches the Syndicate home world where shit hits the fan and through circumstance out of his control Captain Geary becomes the head of the fleet. Being a captain who has held the rank for 100 years he’s the highest ranking officer in the fleet, fancy that.

The series, comprising of five books with another due this year, follows the fleet on their journey back to Alliance space. There are a few elements that really set this series apart from others though. First of all this is more of a naval fiction in space series. As I mentioned the series follows John Geary who becomes the fleet captain, which means a lot of logistics are used.

The biggest way to see that this is a naval fleet series is during the battles, which are masterfully done in my opinion. Everything is taken into consideration. The author details a navigation system where everything is measured relative a system’s sun. You either go towards the star, away from the star, or move up and down relative to the sun’s equator. All navigation on done with this mechanism and it’s a mechanism that makes sense (A opposed to made up sectors and quadrants that are never explained).

A lot of attention to detail is made for the fights. For instance the effects of relativity are a problem due to the speeds at which battles happen. Computers are required to fire ship based weapons during fleet confrontations because no human has the required reflexes. Fleet formations and their proper uses are also explained in detail.

It certainly shows that the author was a naval officer. A lot of people always ask why science fiction ships are controlled by the navy when they aren’t at sea. It’s not because they have nothing else to do, it’s because they understand how to manage large fleets of ships that are staffed by hundres of personel.

Anyways I’m getting side tracked here. The fleet has to deal with more than just combat. Unlike many science fiction series the fleet in question here doesn’t have infinite resources. They have limited fuel, ammunition, repair supplies, food, etc. Captain Geary spends a good amount of time on such logistics and their consequences.

The books are very well paced. I can say I plowed through the currently released five in no time at all and nowhere did I feel there was a lull in the books. Pacing is difficult in a series where everything isn’t based around action, and Mr. Hermy does an excellent job of it. He manages to deliver a great amount of detail without going overboard. The situations he places the fleet in are generally unique enough where you don’t feel you’re reading about the same problems over and over again. Any series that extends past three books usually ends up repeating itself, this is not the case though.

One criticism about this series is the opening of each book does a recap of the previous books. The author has stated he does this on purpose so a reader can pick up any book in the series and be able to get into the story. With that said I’d recommend starting from book one, Dauntless. Although each book does a recap such summaries can’t really give all the details by their nature.

This series is very well done and a refreshing break for the usual slew of science fiction space marine stories. It’s good to see not everything in the future revolves around space marines.