The TIS-1 man-portable military laser is an interesting concept: a reservoir of helium, heated by radioactive decay, releases its helium through a vortex tube into a resonant cavity. The vortex created by the flow of helium causes a population inversion among the helium atoms, which in turn stimulates the release of photons of a common wavelength. With enough helium atoms flowing, you get enough energy resonating in the cavity to emit through one end and damage something.
When the helium flow peters out, the laser shuts down. You have to cool and recompress the helium, then reheat it, to get another blast.
It has its limitations, in that your soldiers will be humping the ruck with compressed gas tanks full of dangerous alpha emitters, and sizeable radiators that will disclose their locations to thermal imagers. There might also be a tactically intolerable delay before a discharged weapon recharges for another blast.
Regular readers of WUTT! will recall that all things weapon-y are appreciated as Things of Beauty here, but sometimes we must consider gathering stones together instead of casting them away.
We also assert that our future is in space, and we have to develop economically feasible ways to explore, exploit, and populate it. Getting out of the atmosphere is one problem to solve, moving about efficiently among the planets is another. With capitalist solutions to the first problem within our grasp, let us turn our attention to the second. We need flight times to Mars and the Asteroid belt on the order of weeks rather than months. I am told the principal means to do that is to separate the problems of power production on the one hand, and generation of thrust on the other. You'll need less thrust if you use only enough to propel your payload, rather than propel your payload plus the power plant itself. Offload the power production and achieve economies of scale with it. Send that power to ships that need only enough to push the payload.
Take that same TIS-1 weapon to the Moon and beat it into a plowshare. Use ammonia or CO2 as the working gas instead of helium. Heat the working gas in solar collectors instead of using fissionable material; we'll need that stuff for future platforms farther away from sunlight.
Make the vortex tube very big, and make a few hundred of them. Mount them on pan-tilt heads slaved to an aiming system. Connect their exhausts to a large radiator to eliminate the remaining heat. The radiators could be located at the Moon's poles or mounted at the bottom of deep narrow trenches to minimize sunlight striking them.
Build the ships to be propelled not by the impingement of photons upon their sails, but by ion motors. The sails will carry large arrays of antennas to collect the microwaves from these lasers and convert them to electricity to power the ion motors.
With a large enough reservoir of masing gas, and a large enough network of radiators and compressors, it may be possible to aim multiple masers continuously at a flight of ships, providing them with constant thrust for days or even weeks, until they are out of range. It will also be possible to beam power to ships that are approaching, to help them decelerate as they reach their destination instead of relying on the nerve-wracking technique of aerobraking. The power to create the thrust will be completely unrelated to the direction of the thrust.
There are always details to be worked out. Will the ion propulsion exhaust reflect or diffract the incoming microwave beam to the extent that range or power is impaired? Will the flow of hundreds of tons of gas through the gasdynamic maser system set up vibrations that make aiming impossible, either for a Lunar platform or a Martian-orbiting one? Will the vortex tube or the cavity wear out? How much of this system can be built from Lunar materials, or will it all have to be boosted to orbit? Can this system be used to loft an X-prize type vehicle the rest of the way to orbit, or will even that thin upper atmosphere attenuate and spread the beam too much?
Update: The massive gasdynamic maser will also come in handy for dealing with these pesky Earth-crossing roids.
Friday, 24 December 2004
Thursday, 23 December 2004
We can neither confirm nor deny . . .
. . . that we may now or in the future have received our Colorado CCW, in accordance with Colorado's Revised Statutes section 18-12-201 et seq.
If we have or are about to, it will have been or will be among the low three-hundreds of those issued this year in Douglas County. That puts the per-capita of CCWs for Douglas County rather low, a totally wild-assed guess of .4 percent of total population, as Blog O'Stuff has observed (Hat tip to Renaissance man James Rummel).
The duration of such a CCW permit is five years from date of issue. The application-to-approval process can have taken 60-plus days. The permit itself is prepared on the day that that the application is submitted, and the fingerprints and photograph taken, thus it is technically "issued" on that day, but the you the applicant cannot take possession of it until the approval grinds around and you get your phone call from the Sheriff's office inviting you to come pick it up.
So the useful "life" of the permit is five years minus about 60 days. I couldn't find anything about that in the relevant CRS so I won't cry foul. Note also that the hours when applications are accepted are rather circumscribed. But overall, DCSO does not screw with applicants.
If we have or are about to, it will have been or will be among the low three-hundreds of those issued this year in Douglas County. That puts the per-capita of CCWs for Douglas County rather low, a totally wild-assed guess of .4 percent of total population, as Blog O'Stuff has observed (Hat tip to Renaissance man James Rummel).
The duration of such a CCW permit is five years from date of issue. The application-to-approval process can have taken 60-plus days. The permit itself is prepared on the day that that the application is submitted, and the fingerprints and photograph taken, thus it is technically "issued" on that day, but the you the applicant cannot take possession of it until the approval grinds around and you get your phone call from the Sheriff's office inviting you to come pick it up.
So the useful "life" of the permit is five years minus about 60 days. I couldn't find anything about that in the relevant CRS so I won't cry foul. Note also that the hours when applications are accepted are rather circumscribed. But overall, DCSO does not screw with applicants.
Wednesday, 22 December 2004
Toad repair
Toad, Barbaloot and I are holed up in Children's Hospital, getting Toad his palatoplasty and two tympanotomies. All went well, though Toad looks like he went through a round with Tyson, then a tequila hangover.
Much catching up to do. I have Days Off so it's worthwhile for all seven of my regular readers to start checking in again.
Much catching up to do. I have Days Off so it's worthwhile for all seven of my regular readers to start checking in again.
Sunday, 19 December 2004
Thursday, 16 December 2004
Monday, 13 December 2004
Quote for the day
Roughly $822 million was spent in support of President Bush in 2004, compared to $925 million spent on behalf of Sen. John Kerry.
So much for two of the fundamental lies behind campaign-finance reform. One, that McCain-Feingold, or any other piece of legislation, can "get money out of politics." Two, that "money rules." It turns out that sometimes, strangely enough, elections are decided by voters weighing the issues and making up their minds based on the candidates' positions.
Ryan Sager at Tech Central Station.
We at WUTT! have asserted the latter point for some time. Nice to be proved right in a big race that counts.
Though it certainly helps, money can't buy an election. It's necessary but not sufficient.
Sunday, 12 December 2004
Addition to Wish List
One more thing I want to add to my Beggars-Would-Ride wishlist, of things that are achievable but not available for immediate purchase:
I want somebody to offer to recycle old, intermittent, half-lighting strings of Christmas lights. There's too much valuable copper in there for this sh1t to just get shlepped off to a landfill. We're about to ditch a few hundred feet of them because half of the light and they are virtually immune to troubleshooting.
The bulbs can be ground and melted into glass cullet to fill out concrete park benches. The plastic, well, it's probably as valuable as the copper, kilo for kilo, and it could make nice Tyvek envelopes for FedEx someday if it were recovered. The problem, as usual, is identifying what kind of plastic it is so it can be recycled effectively, even if in some cases recycling translates into removal of halogens prior to conversion to Number 2 Diesel fuel.
Here's your bumper sticker:
My Huge SUV burns otherwise-unusable recycled plastics
I want somebody to offer to recycle old, intermittent, half-lighting strings of Christmas lights. There's too much valuable copper in there for this sh1t to just get shlepped off to a landfill. We're about to ditch a few hundred feet of them because half of the light and they are virtually immune to troubleshooting.
The bulbs can be ground and melted into glass cullet to fill out concrete park benches. The plastic, well, it's probably as valuable as the copper, kilo for kilo, and it could make nice Tyvek envelopes for FedEx someday if it were recovered. The problem, as usual, is identifying what kind of plastic it is so it can be recycled effectively, even if in some cases recycling translates into removal of halogens prior to conversion to Number 2 Diesel fuel.
Here's your bumper sticker:
Friday, 3 December 2004
My new email signature block will read:
"This email message is certified free of slogans, quotes, special backgrounds, special stationeries, digital images, and unusual fonts, in accordance with Air Force Instruction 33-119, Air Force Messaging."
Somebody in the headshed must have objected when he saw a subordinate's email signature was neater-looking than his, and put his Corfam down hard.
Another proud tradition done in just like nose art. Bummer.
A guarantee to deploy
I can't leave this a draft forever. Rather than hack at it further, I release it to the wild.
When I enlisted in the Air National Guard in 1981, I was viewing it as a way to avoid the brewing Central Asian mess. President Carter had pulled the US out of the Olympics in protest of the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. I didn't want to go to war. Stupid long-haired me.
Since joining, I settled myself down and matured real fast, and reread the contract. I stayed in the Guard because I felt good about what I was doing, to the point that I wanted to deploy so I could prove my worth.
The first invasion of Iraq came and went, and I was not deployed. I completed 20 years of service and received my letter, allowing me to retire. I had time left on my contract, but small children in the house. I seriously contemplated retirement, but I was also unemployed as a civilian, and not dealing well with that fact. The Guard was the only income I had.
When the WTC and the Pentagon were attacked, that desire to deploy became more urgent, and was finally fulfilled. Just days after accepting a new position with a civilian employer, the phone call came---on my cell, as I was headed to Logan Airport from the job site. I was at Cheyenne the following morning, with bags packed.
* * * *
Phil Carter prompts me to post this as I read his post, "Not your Father's National Guard."
The Total Force policy was fully in place when I enlisted. The unit that recruited me was a small truck-mobile radar unit that was Checkered-Flagged to Germany, later to Turkey. After Desert Storm, the whole concept of designating a deployment location in advance was scrapped and the Air Expeditionary Force concept took its place. I can be sent anywhere, and am more likely to go as a unit-type code---small teams to perform specific functions, such as fire-fighting, earthmoving, or in my case NBC defense. I'd deploy only with the swinging d1cks to my immediate left and right, as a team, flight or squadron, not as an entire wing.
Parted out like a junked car. One of the Air Guard's strengths, in my opinion, is that we have less churn, less turnover of personnel than our active duty counterparts. We know each other better, have trained together longer, and have turned that to our advantage. AEFs undermined that advantage by splitting us up and mixing us with other forces whose level of training is different. My criticism of AEF has softened somewhat, now that I've gone through it, because it achieves what it sought to do, to even the deployment burden across a career field.
On the Army side, the "parting out" is not as feasible. This means that entire units, built and equipped for a specific Army function such as air-defense artillery, would be repurposed for another function that was needed downrange more urgently, such as military police. I'm glad I didn't have to go through that.
But the AEF concept did make it more likely to deploy if one had a specialty that was needed down range, or that was in short supply in the first place. The more urgent the need, the more likely and frequent the deployment. The tradeoff is shorter and more fixed deployment durations: 90 days, now grown to 120, with a "hard" wall of 179 days at station at any one time without SECAF waiver. In contrast, Army rotations, Guard or active, start at 180 days.
I nearly ended up going to Afghanistan anyway, though 20 years later. I was within a few hundred km of it. And I will almost certainly deploy again.
When I enlisted in the Air National Guard in 1981, I was viewing it as a way to avoid the brewing Central Asian mess. President Carter had pulled the US out of the Olympics in protest of the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. I didn't want to go to war. Stupid long-haired me.
Since joining, I settled myself down and matured real fast, and reread the contract. I stayed in the Guard because I felt good about what I was doing, to the point that I wanted to deploy so I could prove my worth.
The first invasion of Iraq came and went, and I was not deployed. I completed 20 years of service and received my letter, allowing me to retire. I had time left on my contract, but small children in the house. I seriously contemplated retirement, but I was also unemployed as a civilian, and not dealing well with that fact. The Guard was the only income I had.
When the WTC and the Pentagon were attacked, that desire to deploy became more urgent, and was finally fulfilled. Just days after accepting a new position with a civilian employer, the phone call came---on my cell, as I was headed to Logan Airport from the job site. I was at Cheyenne the following morning, with bags packed.
* * * *
Phil Carter prompts me to post this as I read his post, "Not your Father's National Guard."
My father served in the Army Reserve during the early 1960s as a way to pay for college; it was then, and is now, an honorable way to serve. But you can't compare service then in the Guard with service now, because of the policy changes adopted by the military which made the National Guard an integral part of America's warfighting force.
The Total Force policy was fully in place when I enlisted. The unit that recruited me was a small truck-mobile radar unit that was Checkered-Flagged to Germany, later to Turkey. After Desert Storm, the whole concept of designating a deployment location in advance was scrapped and the Air Expeditionary Force concept took its place. I can be sent anywhere, and am more likely to go as a unit-type code---small teams to perform specific functions, such as fire-fighting, earthmoving, or in my case NBC defense. I'd deploy only with the swinging d1cks to my immediate left and right, as a team, flight or squadron, not as an entire wing.
Parted out like a junked car. One of the Air Guard's strengths, in my opinion, is that we have less churn, less turnover of personnel than our active duty counterparts. We know each other better, have trained together longer, and have turned that to our advantage. AEFs undermined that advantage by splitting us up and mixing us with other forces whose level of training is different. My criticism of AEF has softened somewhat, now that I've gone through it, because it achieves what it sought to do, to even the deployment burden across a career field.
On the Army side, the "parting out" is not as feasible. This means that entire units, built and equipped for a specific Army function such as air-defense artillery, would be repurposed for another function that was needed downrange more urgently, such as military police. I'm glad I didn't have to go through that.
But the AEF concept did make it more likely to deploy if one had a specialty that was needed down range, or that was in short supply in the first place. The more urgent the need, the more likely and frequent the deployment. The tradeoff is shorter and more fixed deployment durations: 90 days, now grown to 120, with a "hard" wall of 179 days at station at any one time without SECAF waiver. In contrast, Army rotations, Guard or active, start at 180 days.
I nearly ended up going to Afghanistan anyway, though 20 years later. I was within a few hundred km of it. And I will almost certainly deploy again.
Sunday, 21 November 2004
Monday, 15 November 2004
tech support question for Mac OS X geeks
My iRiver H120 no longer mounts on our G4 running Mac OS X 10.2.8. When I connect it to the Mac's USB, it beachballs for a while, then warns that the drive is unrecognizable and unable to mount, and would I like to format it?
Apple's support site mentions that a command might be missing from the hostconfig file, disabling it from automatically mounting removable drives. Yes, this command was missing (how did it get lost in the first place?), and now that's fixed and the player still doesn't mount.
In fact, I get that same "unrecognizable volume" warning days later, when I log back in. It's as if something is still asserting the presence of the player after it's been removed from the USB port. Even power-cycling doesn't remove the "ghost" player.
iRiver hasn't gotten back to me. Apple's vast support site has only one article on unrecognizable volumes and I've already doen what it advises. I now have to use Win2k to load up my player and frankly that sucks.
Any ideas? Zapping parameter RAM?
Apple's support site mentions that a command might be missing from the hostconfig file, disabling it from automatically mounting removable drives. Yes, this command was missing (how did it get lost in the first place?), and now that's fixed and the player still doesn't mount.
In fact, I get that same "unrecognizable volume" warning days later, when I log back in. It's as if something is still asserting the presence of the player after it's been removed from the USB port. Even power-cycling doesn't remove the "ghost" player.
iRiver hasn't gotten back to me. Apple's vast support site has only one article on unrecognizable volumes and I've already doen what it advises. I now have to use Win2k to load up my player and frankly that sucks.
Any ideas? Zapping parameter RAM?
Friday, 12 November 2004
The ZSU23-4 had a partner
I don't think I mentioned the other vehicle that was parked beside the ZSU23-4.
It is amphibious (there were propeller housings and thrust diverters on the rear), it has six pneumatic tires, and a radar or two or more on top. It looked like the kind of vehicle that would travel with a pack of ZSU23-4's, to provide search radar and direct the fire of all of those 23mm cannon.
Here's a look at the front, with buddy Doug. I had to crank the brightness and contrast to compensate for bad hangar lighting.
Starboard side:
Can anybody put a name to this unit?
It is amphibious (there were propeller housings and thrust diverters on the rear), it has six pneumatic tires, and a radar or two or more on top. It looked like the kind of vehicle that would travel with a pack of ZSU23-4's, to provide search radar and direct the fire of all of those 23mm cannon.
Here's a look at the front, with buddy Doug. I had to crank the brightness and contrast to compensate for bad hangar lighting.
Starboard side:
Can anybody put a name to this unit?
Thursday, 11 November 2004
G T squared
Boy is now bringing home the same kinds of notes that marked the beginning of Middlechild's saga.
After a brief consult with the teacher, we think he's also Gifted. He'll be harder to handle than Middlechild, though, because he's big and fast and immune to pain.
God have mercy on us all. At least we're catching this one early.
After a brief consult with the teacher, we think he's also Gifted. He'll be harder to handle than Middlechild, though, because he's big and fast and immune to pain.
God have mercy on us all. At least we're catching this one early.
This should erase all doubt
All right, Gun Lobby, listen carefully. Libertarians have been explaining for years now that there are unmistakable similarities between the War on Drugs and the War on Guns. You discounted us as dope-smoking libertines.
And you drug law reformers, you didn't listen very well either to our pleas to find common cause with the gun lobby. You dismissed us as bigoted rednecks.
Publicola pointed me to Says Uncle, who links to this petition by the Justice Department to reverse a Ninth Circuit ruling regarding home assembly of a full-auto firearm.
The petition says, in effect, that if the Federal government can legislate against private ownership of a home-made full-auto, they can legislate against simple possession of marijuana. The Federal government's lawyers are claiming that it is irrelevant that either the parts of the gun, or the seeds of the marijuana, were not transferred through interstate commerce---they have the power to pass and enforce legislation against it. The petition mentions a medicinal marijuana case and asks the Supreme Court to make a connection between their firearm case and the marijuana case:
The Department of Justice agrees with us kooky libertarians that there is (at least one) limit to Federal power, that this one limit pertains equally to Federal firearm laws as well as to drug laws, and oh, by the way, they want to remove that limit.
I can see some relevance to the Betamax decision as well; more on that later.
They understand that these two issues are intertwined, that a Federal win on one will give them the framework for a win on the other.
Do you?
And you drug law reformers, you didn't listen very well either to our pleas to find common cause with the gun lobby. You dismissed us as bigoted rednecks.
Publicola pointed me to Says Uncle, who links to this petition by the Justice Department to reverse a Ninth Circuit ruling regarding home assembly of a full-auto firearm.
The petition says, in effect, that if the Federal government can legislate against private ownership of a home-made full-auto, they can legislate against simple possession of marijuana. The Federal government's lawyers are claiming that it is irrelevant that either the parts of the gun, or the seeds of the marijuana, were not transferred through interstate commerce---they have the power to pass and enforce legislation against it. The petition mentions a medicinal marijuana case and asks the Supreme Court to make a connection between their firearm case and the marijuana case:
"A holding that Section 922(o) is unconstitutional as applied to the possession of “homemade” machineguns raises an important issue that may ultimately warrant review by this Court. Plenary review in this case, however,
would be premature at this time. On June 28, 2004, the Court granted certiorari in Ashcroft v. Raich,
No. 03-1454 (to be argued Nov. 29, 2004), which involves an analogous as-applied constitutional challenge
to the Controlled Substances Act, 21 U.S.C. 801 et seq. Accordingly, the petition should be held pending this
Court’s decision in Raich and then disposed of as appropriate in light of that decision."
The Department of Justice agrees with us kooky libertarians that there is (at least one) limit to Federal power, that this one limit pertains equally to Federal firearm laws as well as to drug laws, and oh, by the way, they want to remove that limit.
I can see some relevance to the Betamax decision as well; more on that later.
They understand that these two issues are intertwined, that a Federal win on one will give them the framework for a win on the other.
Do you?
Wednesday, 10 November 2004
How's he on the Second?
Anybody have a feel for how Gonzales has ruled on RKBA issues? He served on the Texas Supreme Court, so he should have some sort of track record that indicates how he'd behave in this respect.
I admit that in some respects I was hopeful for Ashcroft, strictly on RKBA issues. He showed promise but didn't follow through.
I'd like to know whether Gonzales has similar inclinations on this topic. Being a friend of W doesn't bode well. But Napolitano on Fox seems to like him.
I admit that in some respects I was hopeful for Ashcroft, strictly on RKBA issues. He showed promise but didn't follow through.
I'd like to know whether Gonzales has similar inclinations on this topic. Being a friend of W doesn't bode well. But Napolitano on Fox seems to like him.
Monday, 8 November 2004
Cabinet reshuffle?
President Bush is considering adjustments to his cabinet?
Great! Start with booting Mineta.
Great! Start with booting Mineta.
Thursday, 28 October 2004
Offline
Am offline for a while, but had a moment to post, with this question:
Who out here is good at identifying Soviet armored vehicles? I swear to God I was standing next to a ZSU23-4.
Update: Here are two frames.
Looks like mounts for 4 23mm cannon, with case ejection chutes and coolant lines, on the front of the rectangular turret.
Six roadwheels, evenly spaced except for the frontmost, no return rollers. Two reloading hatches on the side of the hull. See again the rectangular turret.
Yup. A ZSU23-4. Compare with photos and (French language) description here.
Who out here is good at identifying Soviet armored vehicles? I swear to God I was standing next to a ZSU23-4.
Update: Here are two frames.
Looks like mounts for 4 23mm cannon, with case ejection chutes and coolant lines, on the front of the rectangular turret.
Six roadwheels, evenly spaced except for the frontmost, no return rollers. Two reloading hatches on the side of the hull. See again the rectangular turret.
Yup. A ZSU23-4. Compare with photos and (French language) description here.
Thursday, 14 October 2004
Quote for the day
For most of us, America wasn't our first choice as much as it was
our last chance.
Varifrank. HT to James Rummel.
Monday, 11 October 2004
Red-headed stepson of RMBR
For your enjoyment, a sampler of some of the best weblogging the Front Range has to offer. Please pardon any typos I failed to catch: I'm typing with 8-month-old Toad in my lap.
As to be expected, election season figures prominently among the submissions by Rocky Mountain bloggers in this Roundup:
- White Dog draws our attention to Bill Whittle's two-part essay on the value of rhetorical skill vice the message, with respect to the Presidential election. Shall one vote for style, or for substance, given that between the two major-party candidates one cannot have both? Choose well.
- Dave disputes Josh Claybourn, arguing that the Republic is healthier when more people vote, rather than fewer, more-informed people vote.
- RMBR founder Walter In Denver argues from experience that the validity of our elections is at greater risk from inaccuracy than from fraud.
- BigSkyDave challenges the good Senator Kerry on who constitutes a threat to US security. Or world peace. Whatever.
Elsewhere:
- The Speculist offers a meta-roundup, headquartered in the Front Range but collecting contributions from faraway corners of the Republic. Raptors, privately-operated space flight, wickedfast computers, improved popcorn, and cancer-sniffing dogs.
- Jed at FreedomSight reminisces about the quintessential ban
ned-able book. I got my copy. I don't need it---I have it merely to remind myself that I can have it. - Publicola fisks an essay defending the Empire, even if it did make the trains run on time, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away.
- Your host offers his proposal to deploy high-speed internet service everywhere. We'll have to destroy the internet to save it. Always a downside.
Stop the Presses! A late entrant petitions to be included. We are fair and evenhanded to a fault.
- Bob at We The Free waxes Lettermanlike with Top Ten debating points. Though I dispute Bob's use of the term liberal . . .
Sunday, 10 October 2004
I really don't deserve her
My wife lets me spend most of the day converting antelope into sausage or corned antelope, with the enthusiastic assistance of The Cabinet Man (thanks, TCM).
She and I discuss What Not To Wear as it would apply to her, in the abstract. She really is the kind of woman to whom I could say, "that makes you look fat," and live to not regret it.
Then I discover that she's a closet Farscape fan. I ask her to watch the library for Babylon 5 DVDs. She says "OK."
I am not worthy of her. I'll keep her just the same.
She and I discuss What Not To Wear as it would apply to her, in the abstract. She really is the kind of woman to whom I could say, "that makes you look fat," and live to not regret it.
Then I discover that she's a closet Farscape fan. I ask her to watch the library for Babylon 5 DVDs. She says "OK."
I am not worthy of her. I'll keep her just the same.
Friday, 8 October 2004
For the Children!
Little Green Footballs asks: Were there plans in the works for a Beslan-like massacre in San Diego?
It doesn't matter whether plans actually existed, or whether a threat was truly posed---they didn't, as the article to which LGF links clearly states. It does not matter. The mere discovery of materials discussing public school security, in the abstract, in the possession of a person engaged in armed conflict against Coalition forces in the Middle East, is enough to contemplate for the moment. It crossed their minds.
Incidentally, a few weeks ago I posted a prediction on this sort of thing happening at StrategyPage's prediction market, though I thought Europe a more likely place for it to occur.
I'm not a particularly bright or well-spoken or uniquely malicious person, and it crossed my mind.
Now take a deep breath and one looong step backward to see the bigger picture.
Public schools are not the only vulnerable public spaces in America. They represent a tiny fraction of them all. Add day care centers, nursing homes, and churches. Then add shopping malls. Then keep on adding.
We can't put armed guards and concertina wire around them all. We can't put automatically locked doors and ID card swipers at all the entrances to them.
My day job is on a military base. I know what it's like to work in facilities that protect themselves like that, 24/7. It is incredibly expensive, incredibly slow, and it brings out the worst in people who think they are smarter than you. I can work like that but I will not live like that, and I won't ask my neighbors or teach my kids to live like that either. Our economy cannot survive it and our national character will not tolerate it.
Still, the threat exists to my neighbors and my kids, even though the most evidence for that threat is a CD-ROM found in Iraq, burnt with a pdf pulled from an open web page. What measures we take to counter that threat must be consistent with the national character we have chosen for ourselves, and otherwise be within our reach.
My Googling skills are failing me in seeking one politician's exhortations that we must not change the way we live, but to change the way the other bastards live. We are indeed doing the latter, at great expense and sacrifice, but it will not be enough. In some way we will have to change how we live, but it will not be in the direction of C-wire and ID badges. These measures simply wrap defensive layers around what remains a vulnerability.
I would rather deny any adversary his ultimate goal, by erasing that vulnerability and giving up some or all of the layers of defense surrounding it. This will have to be a change in attitudes first, then laws second, but little or no money need be spent publicly to bring it about.
I assert this without apology. We will remain vulnerable as long as it is not commonplace for people in public to be armed, able to protect themselves and the innocent among them.
As I have argued in other spaces, the present conflict will not be over until our servicemen begin to bring home Persian wives. That represents the "change how the other bastards live" aspect of the solution.
But it is only half of the solution. The other half will be signaled by, for instance:
Deny our philosophical enemies their ultimate goal by encouraging their victims to fight back. Celebrate the armed virtue.
The objection will be raised that we would be changing how we live. I concede that. But we would be changing toward a lifestyle of fewer fences and alarms and locked doors, fewer face-commparing cameras and identity badges, more economic prosperity, more confidence in oneself. We would be transferring our uncertainties to those who have taken advantage of our uncertainty.
Those who view human life through the lens of class should welcome the erasure of boundaries between the protected, protecting, and unprotected classes. Increasingly, this is the only stratification that matters, if we are to regard one another as equals before the law.
I do not present this as a complete solution, for no solution can be complete. It does not speak to concerns that jihadis will obtain a nuclear explosive, or smallpox, for example. But those contingencies are best addressed by military force over the course of weeks, months, and years.
The seizure of a school or a church by jihadis, on our own soil, which surely has been contemplated by our enemies, can be thwarted only in seconds, by the spontaneous and violent reaction of the people who were in that school or church at the moment it occurs.
It doesn't matter whether plans actually existed, or whether a threat was truly posed---they didn't, as the article to which LGF links clearly states. It does not matter. The mere discovery of materials discussing public school security, in the abstract, in the possession of a person engaged in armed conflict against Coalition forces in the Middle East, is enough to contemplate for the moment. It crossed their minds.
Incidentally, a few weeks ago I posted a prediction on this sort of thing happening at StrategyPage's prediction market, though I thought Europe a more likely place for it to occur.
I'm not a particularly bright or well-spoken or uniquely malicious person, and it crossed my mind.
Now take a deep breath and one looong step backward to see the bigger picture.
Public schools are not the only vulnerable public spaces in America. They represent a tiny fraction of them all. Add day care centers, nursing homes, and churches. Then add shopping malls. Then keep on adding.
We can't put armed guards and concertina wire around them all. We can't put automatically locked doors and ID card swipers at all the entrances to them.
My day job is on a military base. I know what it's like to work in facilities that protect themselves like that, 24/7. It is incredibly expensive, incredibly slow, and it brings out the worst in people who think they are smarter than you. I can work like that but I will not live like that, and I won't ask my neighbors or teach my kids to live like that either. Our economy cannot survive it and our national character will not tolerate it.
Still, the threat exists to my neighbors and my kids, even though the most evidence for that threat is a CD-ROM found in Iraq, burnt with a pdf pulled from an open web page. What measures we take to counter that threat must be consistent with the national character we have chosen for ourselves, and otherwise be within our reach.
My Googling skills are failing me in seeking one politician's exhortations that we must not change the way we live, but to change the way the other bastards live. We are indeed doing the latter, at great expense and sacrifice, but it will not be enough. In some way we will have to change how we live, but it will not be in the direction of C-wire and ID badges. These measures simply wrap defensive layers around what remains a vulnerability.
I would rather deny any adversary his ultimate goal, by erasing that vulnerability and giving up some or all of the layers of defense surrounding it. This will have to be a change in attitudes first, then laws second, but little or no money need be spent publicly to bring it about.
I assert this without apology. We will remain vulnerable as long as it is not commonplace for people in public to be armed, able to protect themselves and the innocent among them.
As I have argued in other spaces, the present conflict will not be over until our servicemen begin to bring home Persian wives. That represents the "change how the other bastards live" aspect of the solution.
But it is only half of the solution. The other half will be signaled by, for instance:
- being able to buy targets at Target, and a brick of .22LR while you're at it;
- turning on TLC to see Paige Davis or Bob Vila advise a young couple on renovating a rifle on This Old Mauser;
- the high school yearbook photos show a larger trap shooting team than basketball team;
- an adult showing anxiety around firearms will earn the same contempt we express today for a man who beats his wife, or the same pity we express to one who lacks the capacity to wipe one's own bottom.
Deny our philosophical enemies their ultimate goal by encouraging their victims to fight back. Celebrate the armed virtue.
The objection will be raised that we would be changing how we live. I concede that. But we would be changing toward a lifestyle of fewer fences and alarms and locked doors, fewer face-commparing cameras and identity badges, more economic prosperity, more confidence in oneself. We would be transferring our uncertainties to those who have taken advantage of our uncertainty.
Those who view human life through the lens of class should welcome the erasure of boundaries between the protected, protecting, and unprotected classes. Increasingly, this is the only stratification that matters, if we are to regard one another as equals before the law.
I do not present this as a complete solution, for no solution can be complete. It does not speak to concerns that jihadis will obtain a nuclear explosive, or smallpox, for example. But those contingencies are best addressed by military force over the course of weeks, months, and years.
The seizure of a school or a church by jihadis, on our own soil, which surely has been contemplated by our enemies, can be thwarted only in seconds, by the spontaneous and violent reaction of the people who were in that school or church at the moment it occurs.
Thursday, 7 October 2004
Roundup!
Walter has graciously agreed to let me host the latest Rocky Mountain Blog Roundup.
Please send me a link to your best recent post---sorry, only one post per blogger---with a brief description of it and yourself. Deadline forthcoming.
Deadline 1700 hours Mountain, 10 October for publication on Columbus Day.
Tuesday, 5 October 2004
Quote for the day
The U.S. military---particularly at the level of NCOs, who are the guardians of its culture and traditions---is a world of beer, cigarettes, instant coffee, and chewing tobacco. It is composed of people who hunt, drive pickups, use profanity as an element of ordinary speech and yet have a simple, sure, demonstrative belief in the Almighty.
Robert Kaplan in Atlantic Monthly. Hat Tip to Lexington Green at ChicagoBoyz.
Robert Kaplan in Atlantic Monthly. Hat Tip to Lexington Green at ChicagoBoyz.
Monday, 4 October 2004
Time to overhaul all of it, then
United Airlines has told the bankruptcy court that the "likely result" will be a decision to terminate all of its pension plans. ... That would precipitate the biggest pension default in history ... The move is expected to
destabilize the already struggling airline industry, prompting other old-line carriers like Delta to eventually follow suit ... It would also put additional pressure on the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC,) the federal agency that insures traditional pensions in case companies go belly
up.
Why not allow all pension plans to convert to defined-contribution plans? Then dissolve the PBGC.
Sunday, 3 October 2004
I gots ambition
If I learn enough Linux to be dangerous, I'll make my mark, and secure my retirement, by selling an intelligible, hotlinked replacement for the MAN pages.
Saturday, 2 October 2004
The New Orleans of the Atlantic
The Real Sam Johnson Show reminds me: Savannah, Georgia impresses me as the New Orleans of the Atlantic. And how the Atlantic needs one.
I'll be going there again soon.
I'll be going there again soon.
The Fusilier Pundit Plan to Deploy Ubiquitous High-Speed Internet Bandwidth
Executive Summary: outlaw the Internet.
Abstract: the fastest way to ensure that high-speed wireless Internet connectivity is deployed to every possible inhabited place in the United States is to chase it into the shadows through the power of US law. The author draws parallels between the the War on Drugs, the War on Guns, and alcohol Prohibition on the one hand, and the availability of high-speed wireless Internet connections on the other.
Making alcohol, abuse drugs, and certain types of firearms illegal encouraged criminal entrepreneurs to ramp up supply to meet suppressed demand. In fact, milieus presumably under total control by government, such as prisons, are incapable of eradicating such "contraband."
A comparable approach, resulting from heavy lobbying by industries who perceive threats to their business model from digital reproducibility of their content, would incentivize a cottage industry of hackers and geeks to circumvent these legal controls, thereby making bandwidth more available, more reliable, more anonymous, and more resilient to malicious code attacks.
The fundamental problem facing developers an underground ubiquitous IP infrastructure are political and economic, not technical. To date there has been no incentive to develop or deploy such an infrastructure because there has been no pressure to do so.
However, if the entertainment industry succeeds in enacting laws that will mandate the inclusion of digital rights management in the existing IP network, for example, there will be ample incentive for industries or activities to move their IP-dependent applications to a network that does not obey those laws. The technology exists, or the precursors to that technology exist, and only await the incentive to be assembled and applied. The demand, today legitimate and above board, will be forced underground. An active community of politicized engineers and technologists already exists to serve them.
The greatest technological obstacle would be replacement of the long-haul high-speed connections provided by such carriers as Level3, Qwest, and Worldcom.
For more, beg and plead for it in Comments.
Thursday, 30 September 2004
Not quite there yet
I'm waiting for the market to roll out a PDA/computer hybrid:
For respectable desktop performance, it would farm out the functions of full-power CPU, graphics processor, and vast amounts of memory to the cradle, and run from on-board equivalents only when portable. Separate OSs?
It seems that all of the components are there, only waiting for integration.
At least one company is pursuing it, I don't recall the name (OXO?), but they are, of course, basing theirs on Windows.
Who else is close? One of the reasons I went for the iRiver MP3 player is that it could be the progenitor of such a desktop/PDA killer. It is principally, by weight at least, a hard drive. The desktop/PDA killer will be, mostly, a hard drive, with enough application hardware and an OS wrapped around it to support PDA functions, using information written to that drive. Putting a Palm front-end on this drive will do that, if Palm can be made to access hard drives. The whole Palm front-end can go inert when the device is docked.
When the killer is booted in its cradle, the CPU there strokes the hard drive and accesses everything that the Palm OS has put there.
Other devices will be coming towards the killer from other directions. For example, Tapwave's Zodiac is a game console. Put a HD in it?
- It would operate as a PDA when it's pulled from its cradle and jammed into my pocket,
- It can connect to WiFi hotspots and provide a full-featured browser on a low-res monitor in the PDA mode;
- When it's resting in its cradle, it does not sync with another computer, it reboots as one, and simply interfaces with input devices, peripherals, a high-speed IP connection, etc through the cradle.
For respectable desktop performance, it would farm out the functions of full-power CPU, graphics processor, and vast amounts of memory to the cradle, and run from on-board equivalents only when portable. Separate OSs?
It seems that all of the components are there, only waiting for integration.
At least one company is pursuing it, I don't recall the name (OXO?), but they are, of course, basing theirs on Windows.
Who else is close? One of the reasons I went for the iRiver MP3 player is that it could be the progenitor of such a desktop/PDA killer. It is principally, by weight at least, a hard drive. The desktop/PDA killer will be, mostly, a hard drive, with enough application hardware and an OS wrapped around it to support PDA functions, using information written to that drive. Putting a Palm front-end on this drive will do that, if Palm can be made to access hard drives. The whole Palm front-end can go inert when the device is docked.
When the killer is booted in its cradle, the CPU there strokes the hard drive and accesses everything that the Palm OS has put there.
Other devices will be coming towards the killer from other directions. For example, Tapwave's Zodiac is a game console. Put a HD in it?
WTF for the day
At the Commissary, right up front near the entrance, there was a rack of the current generation of MREs for sale. For about $7, IIRC, marked down from the usual $9.
There's nothing wrong with them, I've lived on them and was able to transition back to real food successfully afterward. Some of them I even like---the pork rib, for example, and the clam chowder.
But I wouldn't actually buy them. Through the normal course of my service, I accumulate enough of them for my other needs, like the car trunk and the occasional hunting trip, even the overnight bag if I'm on a weird commercial airline flight. But somebody out there thinks they're great long-term survival food and they want to buy and hold them against Doomsday? Not at seven bucks a meal.
The real punchline, though: they're for sale, to any qualified Commissary customer, though every package is marked in Uncle Sugar's standard all-caps boldface,
Hey, I just work here.
There's nothing wrong with them, I've lived on them and was able to transition back to real food successfully afterward. Some of them I even like---the pork rib, for example, and the clam chowder.
But I wouldn't actually buy them. Through the normal course of my service, I accumulate enough of them for my other needs, like the car trunk and the occasional hunting trip, even the overnight bag if I'm on a weird commercial airline flight. But somebody out there thinks they're great long-term survival food and they want to buy and hold them against Doomsday? Not at seven bucks a meal.
The real punchline, though: they're for sale, to any qualified Commissary customer, though every package is marked in Uncle Sugar's standard all-caps boldface,
COMMERCIAL RESALE IS UNLAWFUL
Hey, I just work here.
Monday, 27 September 2004
Bee in My Bonnet
Hello all! Well, just like jumping into a cold pool is best done all at once and quickly... here goes my dive into blogging!
I usually listen to Christian radio while on the job as Mom the Chauffeur. Last week for some reason I tuned into conservative talk radio. Dennis Prager (http://www.dennisprager.com/) was interviewing a gentleman about Liberals - why they act as they do and why they won't change. Maybe this is old news to you, but for me it finally lit a light bulb. The point being made was that for Liberals equality was the overriding priority. Equality is more important to Liberals than morality or freedom or responsibility or anything else. It is their overriding concern.
I asked myself how the world would look though equality colored glasses.
One example: parents versus children. For there to be equality children need to have the same power as parents. And so we have children suing parents and parents afraid to discipline their children when they misbehave in public. Children are smart enough to use their parents hesitation to their own advantage. Parents are responsible for forming morality and decision making in their children and discipline is one of the tools. Oh, but I forgot. That would only be important if morality and decision making had a higher priority than equality.
And what about jobs? In my lifetime I have already seem equality erode job standards. When women wanted to become firemen, they had to lower the standards so the women could qualify for the positions. Now don't get me wrong. I'm all for women being firemen. I think it's great. But I also think they need to meet the same standards as the men for our safety and theirs! Those standards were not plucked out of thin air. If you want the job then work for it and EARN it!
Life is not supposed to be fair and I'd Like to know who started the rumor that it was!
I usually listen to Christian radio while on the job as Mom the Chauffeur. Last week for some reason I tuned into conservative talk radio. Dennis Prager (http://www.dennisprager.com/) was interviewing a gentleman about Liberals - why they act as they do and why they won't change. Maybe this is old news to you, but for me it finally lit a light bulb. The point being made was that for Liberals equality was the overriding priority. Equality is more important to Liberals than morality or freedom or responsibility or anything else. It is their overriding concern.
I asked myself how the world would look though equality colored glasses.
One example: parents versus children. For there to be equality children need to have the same power as parents. And so we have children suing parents and parents afraid to discipline their children when they misbehave in public. Children are smart enough to use their parents hesitation to their own advantage. Parents are responsible for forming morality and decision making in their children and discipline is one of the tools. Oh, but I forgot. That would only be important if morality and decision making had a higher priority than equality.
And what about jobs? In my lifetime I have already seem equality erode job standards. When women wanted to become firemen, they had to lower the standards so the women could qualify for the positions. Now don't get me wrong. I'm all for women being firemen. I think it's great. But I also think they need to meet the same standards as the men for our safety and theirs! Those standards were not plucked out of thin air. If you want the job then work for it and EARN it!
Life is not supposed to be fair and I'd Like to know who started the rumor that it was!
Sunday, 26 September 2004
More speedgoat
At 1320 hours Mountain, I felled a pronghorn on Foote Creek Rim, west of McFadden, Wyoming.
This is what leave is for.
Update: The buck fell at 13TDS0365819982. Range was 207 meters, through a light crosswind, with the same 139-grain .284" pointed-soft-point thrown by 50 grains of IMR4350 from the same 7x57mm Ruger as last year. He fell instantly, then after about twenty seconds he got back up. Then he fell again for good.
He was struck through the sternum. The projo was not recovered.
Next time:
This is what leave is for.
Update: The buck fell at 13TDS0365819982. Range was 207 meters, through a light crosswind, with the same 139-grain .284" pointed-soft-point thrown by 50 grains of IMR4350 from the same 7x57mm Ruger as last year. He fell instantly, then after about twenty seconds he got back up. Then he fell again for good.
He was struck through the sternum. The projo was not recovered.
Next time:
- a laser rangefinder is on order, using miles left over from an old credit card, not enough for a ticket but plenty for this gadget.
- need to carry a safety-orange object just to mark the place where I took the shot. Having nothing this time, I just stacked some rocks. Not easy to find after dressing the animal.
Saturday, 25 September 2004
Thursday, 23 September 2004
Make way for another poster
Barbaloot amazes me. She texted me last week: "I want you to help me set up my own blog."
She's been listening to Dennis Prager, some Hugh Hewitt, some Glenn Beck. Her dander is up, dogs. She's gonna do something rash unless she gets to post.
FWIW, she's been following the story of how Dan Rather is imploding, and she now "gets" what web logs can do. She looks at my blogs differently now; she no longer regards the time I spend at them the same way she views playing Harry Potter or Diablo. Blogs have crossed the line from interesting geeky diversion to, well, something deeper, more important, engaged with the world. Those who dismiss arguments that blogging has had its watershed in RatherGate should interview Barbaloot about it.
We discussed it some, and she chose to post here for a while, taking the pseudonym I have always used for her. If she wants, we'll launch her on her own blog later.
I'm hunting antelope this weekend, and plan to have her set up before I go, so watch this space.
Did I mention that she's the best thing that ever happened to me, and that I don't deserve her? And that if she finds out I got that MP3 player she'll kick my ass?
She's been listening to Dennis Prager, some Hugh Hewitt, some Glenn Beck. Her dander is up, dogs. She's gonna do something rash unless she gets to post.
FWIW, she's been following the story of how Dan Rather is imploding, and she now "gets" what web logs can do. She looks at my blogs differently now; she no longer regards the time I spend at them the same way she views playing Harry Potter or Diablo. Blogs have crossed the line from interesting geeky diversion to, well, something deeper, more important, engaged with the world. Those who dismiss arguments that blogging has had its watershed in RatherGate should interview Barbaloot about it.
We discussed it some, and she chose to post here for a while, taking the pseudonym I have always used for her. If she wants, we'll launch her on her own blog later.
I'm hunting antelope this weekend, and plan to have her set up before I go, so watch this space.
Did I mention that she's the best thing that ever happened to me, and that I don't deserve her? And that if she finds out I got that MP3 player she'll kick my ass?
Buy only the amount of electronics you must have to survive to your next paycheck
Consumer electronics prices continue a weird downward spiral. I posted recently about my beloved iRiver iHP120. I scored an open-box special from BestBuy at just under $300---new ones went for $339. When I was choosing a new LeapPad book for Boy's birthday, I glanced at the MP3 players again and got one of the nastiest buyer's remorses of my life.
They had put their existing stocks of iHP120's on clearance for $269. Making room for the 40GB model? Maybe. Or maybe they're making way for a player with a screen that shows JPEGs and BMPs too. Same MSRP as the audio-only player.
That remorseful incident was last Friday. Today, browsing at a CompUSA, I saw they still had their iHP120's at $329.
They had put their existing stocks of iHP120's on clearance for $269. Making room for the 40GB model? Maybe. Or maybe they're making way for a player with a screen that shows JPEGs and BMPs too. Same MSRP as the audio-only player.
That remorseful incident was last Friday. Today, browsing at a CompUSA, I saw they still had their iHP120's at $329.
Wednesday, 22 September 2004
Roxaaaannne
More men than women have failed to reproduce in each generation.
This item from FuturePundit is not news, it's merely repeatable objective proof of something geeky men have always known:
"There are men around who aren't able to have children, because they are being outcompeted by more successful males."
Any bearer of a Y chromosome who's seen Roxanne can tell you this, though in less charitable terms: "You wanted it all. All the romance and emotion, all wrapped up in a cute little nose and a cute little ass!"
[FuturePundit's] guess is that the legalization and increasing use of divorce has increased the gap between what percentage of women and what percentage of men manage to reproduce in each generation.
Think of the thousand Princes in Sa'udi Arabia, and how they came to be. Then think of the millions of poor schmucks in such countries, who will never get laid in their lives, let alone sire children, because of a paternal religious/political system that treats women as property and allows men to hoard them under polygamy. Liberalized divorce simply means shifting the balance of power over procreation from man toward woman. Clearly, having all of the power rest with the man has not been beneficial there.
A shortage of females will very likely select for genes carried by males who become more successful.Check out the quote from Roxanne above. Shifting the balance completely over to the woman will result in attractive, hunky guys who know how to talk women out of their clothes. Is that how brutal Mother Nature would define success?
Tuesday, 21 September 2004
I don't deserve her
Barbaloot and I celebrated eleven years of marriage this weekend. I chose Moroccan, and suggested to her to invite Firstborn. Like a shot Firstborn agreed.
I am lucky to have this woman. I don't deserve her, but she's mine.
Saturday, 18 September 2004
Friday, 17 September 2004
Add one more industry, Laila
We would also like WUTT! to be recognized for our opinions on Film and Television. To wit:
Which supporting actor do you think most deserves a lead role in a major Hollywood motion picture?
It's time for the Baldwins, Travolta, Cruise and the others to step aside and let some sunlight reach through the canopy of this knotted forest. These people deserve Star Vehicles.
Winner: !
Runner-up: !!
Actress: !
Please offer yours in Comments.
Which supporting actor do you think most deserves a lead role in a major Hollywood motion picture?
It's time for the Baldwins, Travolta, Cruise and the others to step aside and let some sunlight reach through the canopy of this knotted forest. These people deserve Star Vehicles.
Winner: !
Runner-up: !!
Actress: !
Please offer yours in Comments.
Wednesday, 15 September 2004
Ownership society
If a company finds that a particular property has become a liability to the point it affects the company's stock price, it can spin the property off.
Chaz reminds me of a grassroots plan to buy a major anti-gun broadcast network and assign proxy to the fire-breathing gun lobbyist Neal Knox. He'd take the network in a new editorial direction.
The plan looks more feasible today than it did when it was floated years ago. The network? CBS.
I advise holding out a while longer. If VIA goes below 30?
Chaz reminds me of a grassroots plan to buy a major anti-gun broadcast network and assign proxy to the fire-breathing gun lobbyist Neal Knox. He'd take the network in a new editorial direction.
The plan looks more feasible today than it did when it was floated years ago. The network? CBS.
I advise holding out a while longer. If VIA goes below 30?
Yes we do, but . . .
Orin Kerr asks at VC, regarding RatherGate: C'mon, folks: don't we have more important things to blog about?
Remember why we Americans in general and bloggers in particular are obsessed with media dishonesty and inaccuracy. That election over which Orin expresses concern cannot be expected to conclude fairly or peacefully if a major media outlet is carelessly reporting a fraud passed to them. The power of the media in political affairs is a given. The responsibility that
the media have in these affairs is unenforceable.
As far as I am concerned there is prima facie that the memos are frauds. Consequently the network that relies on these memos should answer challenges to their validity, and challenges to their fairness in other reporting about the memos' subject as well.
If true, their errors need to be detected and corrected, and I'd rather have bloggers doing it than Congress or the courts.
If false---if the influence of the network media is diminshing, and that of decentralized media is increasing---media consumers are making it so, and should articulate why.
Either way, I don't see this as a matter distracting the body politic from the truly salient issues of a presidential election. I see this as a message to the body politic to be aware of the curvature of the lens through which they view the election, and to either correct that lens or discard it if they feel it cannot be trusted.
The only way to do that, within Constitutional constraints, is to point out the distortions, in painful detail, over and over and over, right now. It will not interfere with discussion of genuine campaign issues, it can only help.
Monday, 13 September 2004
Haven't seen any yet
I was hoping to see some Kalashnikovs in the streets---Sarah Brady said so---but none have surfaced just yet. At least on my usual route along Mississippi, Chambers, and Parker Road, and if there are any in Aurora or Parker, that's where the little bastards would be. Right on the sidewalks. Were they supposed to be falling from the sky?
To anybody reading, if you do see one and don't really want it for yourself, hold it for me, would you?
Maybe I have to wait until after midnight tonight. Tomorrow's another day.
To anybody reading, if you do see one and don't really want it for yourself, hold it for me, would you?
Maybe I have to wait until after midnight tonight. Tomorrow's another day.
Time for some nomenclature, OK class?
Alphecca rates the Manchester Union-Leader highly in its politically balanced approach to reporting on firearms issues. However, their editor needs some schooling:
The thingy that that is projected from the gun, travels to the target and hits it is a bullet. In shotguns, specially built to throw multiple projectiles in a single discharge, the many projectiles are called pellets of shot.
The device that contains the projectile along with a measured quantity of propellant is the cartridge. A shotgun cartridge is called a shotshell.
In a self-loading firearm, such as that class of self-loaders that is now legal to manufacture and market with military cosmetic features, the device that holds and feeds cartridges into the firearm is a magazine. A common misnomer for magazine is clip, which actually refers to a device used to stack cartridges together for insertion into the magazine.
So what the sentence should have said is:
The editor surely did not mean to refer to the Salvo project, which sought to fit multiple bullets in a single cartridge. This was not a shotgun, in that the cartridge contained a number of simple spherical pellets of lead that are thrown from a smooth barrel in a spreading pattern, but an axial stack of bullets, each fitting the bore of a rifled barrel and taking spin from it.
But I digress. If the press wants to be taken seriously, they need to get even the simplest facts straight, even if didactodorks like me can still figure out what they are trying to say.
About the only material difference New Hampshire gun enthusiasts are likely to see after the federal assault weapons ban expires tomorrow are lower prices for high-capacity gun cartridges that hold more than 10 bullets, gun owners and dealers said.
The thingy that that is projected from the gun, travels to the target and hits it is a bullet. In shotguns, specially built to throw multiple projectiles in a single discharge, the many projectiles are called pellets of shot.
The device that contains the projectile along with a measured quantity of propellant is the cartridge. A shotgun cartridge is called a shotshell.
In a self-loading firearm, such as that class of self-loaders that is now legal to manufacture and market with military cosmetic features, the device that holds and feeds cartridges into the firearm is a magazine. A common misnomer for magazine is clip, which actually refers to a device used to stack cartridges together for insertion into the magazine.
So what the sentence should have said is:
About the only material difference New Hampshire gun enthusiasts are likely to see after the federal assault weapons ban expires tomorrow are lower prices for high-capacity gun magazinesthat hold more than 10 cartridges , gun owners and dealers said.
The editor surely did not mean to refer to the Salvo project, which sought to fit multiple bullets in a single cartridge. This was not a shotgun, in that the cartridge contained a number of simple spherical pellets of lead that are thrown from a smooth barrel in a spreading pattern, but an axial stack of bullets, each fitting the bore of a rifled barrel and taking spin from it.
But I digress. If the press wants to be taken seriously, they need to get even the simplest facts straight, even if didactodorks like me can still figure out what they are trying to say.
Sunday, 12 September 2004
"There will be a next move. Count on it."
In reference to the forged Bush TXANG memos, Sandy at comments at ChicagoBoyz that "we're going to see attempts to bring the blogosphere/net under gov't. control."
Could gigital rights management could be applied to this task somehow?
Oh and remind me again how the current McCain-Feingold-reformed situation is better, wherein Big News has a free hand to report on candidates, but certain other entities have legal limits imposed on their political speech within X days of the election.
Could gigital rights management could be applied to this task somehow?
Oh and remind me again how the current McCain-Feingold-reformed situation is better, wherein Big News has a free hand to report on candidates, but certain other entities have legal limits imposed on their political speech within X days of the election.
Red sails in the sunset . . . .
I like Geek's postcard to DiFi.
Ding, dong, the witch is dead. The 1994 AWB sunsets.
Oddly enough, as I've shopped for these dreaded weapons during these ten years, prices spiked on the pre-ban weapons early, but the free(er) market reacted. Rule-beating weapons (no flash hider or bayonet lug, some domestic parts) otherwise identical to the banned weapons appeared promptly and prices quickly settled down, even to levels below those for the pre-bans.
Without realizing it, the proponents of the AWB energized a domestic industry in weapons that used to be strictly imports. Of course they didn't anticipate this unintended consequence. Will they learn from it?
So what will happen to prices? Up, or down? Supply increased during the ban, as companies set themselves up to manufacture domestically what the AWB would not allow them to import, and that capacity isn't going away. It was more affordable for me to get an FAL during the ban than before it. With the AWB sunsetting, some products will be legitimate to import again, so overall supply increases.
On the other side of the price curve, will demand increase simply because a law changes?
My prognostication: many people who get their news from the major press have assumed that these weapons have been unavailable for the last ten years, and now that the ban is over, they'll buy. Prices will spike, but this time the domestic manufacturing capacity will ramp up to absorb it faster than when the ban was imposed (easier to add a shift to machines already tooled up, than to set the tooling up in the first place). Prices won't spike as high and will fall sooner for end items.
Meanwhile, owners of post-ban guns will want to refit theirs with post-post-ban features. Many of these are bolt-on, such as stocks and bayonets. That capacity is there, in fact the products themselves are, since they were removed from complete weapons or parts kits to make post-ban weapons in the first place, as well as third-party firms making domestic parts for rule-beaters.
Ding, dong, the witch is dead. The 1994 AWB sunsets.
Oddly enough, as I've shopped for these dreaded weapons during these ten years, prices spiked on the pre-ban weapons early, but the free(er) market reacted. Rule-beating weapons (no flash hider or bayonet lug, some domestic parts) otherwise identical to the banned weapons appeared promptly and prices quickly settled down, even to levels below those for the pre-bans.
Without realizing it, the proponents of the AWB energized a domestic industry in weapons that used to be strictly imports. Of course they didn't anticipate this unintended consequence. Will they learn from it?
So what will happen to prices? Up, or down? Supply increased during the ban, as companies set themselves up to manufacture domestically what the AWB would not allow them to import, and that capacity isn't going away. It was more affordable for me to get an FAL during the ban than before it. With the AWB sunsetting, some products will be legitimate to import again, so overall supply increases.
On the other side of the price curve, will demand increase simply because a law changes?
My prognostication: many people who get their news from the major press have assumed that these weapons have been unavailable for the last ten years, and now that the ban is over, they'll buy. Prices will spike, but this time the domestic manufacturing capacity will ramp up to absorb it faster than when the ban was imposed (easier to add a shift to machines already tooled up, than to set the tooling up in the first place). Prices won't spike as high and will fall sooner for end items.
Meanwhile, owners of post-ban guns will want to refit theirs with post-post-ban features. Many of these are bolt-on, such as stocks and bayonets. That capacity is there, in fact the products themselves are, since they were removed from complete weapons or parts kits to make post-ban weapons in the first place, as well as third-party firms making domestic parts for rule-beaters.
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