Yes, there are.
No, not really.
Whenever the prices skyrocket on anything it's just supply and demand.
Too much demand chasing too little supply.
Thus, "too many" collectors.
But it's not even really NFA, it's specifically machine guns. Transferrable machine guns in particular.
Thanks to the Hughes Amendment to the Firearm Owners Protection Act, there aren't any new transferrable machine guns made after May of 1986.
The supply is fixed.
Demand, on the other hand, is far less static and is balanced against the money people are willing to spend to get them.
By this same logic there are too many Luger collectors out there as well. [shakes fist!] The same supply / demand thing happened with normal AR's during The Panic™ if you'll recall, but unlike transferrable machine guns and Lugers, they're still making normal AR's so the prices dropped back down.
Related: there are too many .22 LR collectors out there too!
The huge price spike for transferrable machine guns didn't happen to the other NFA categories.
A short barreled AR-15 is substantially the same price as a Title I AR-15.
As are short barreled shotguns, and destructive devices.
They've all marched relatively closely in value with inflation.
Prices on suppressors have gone up a bit because there's been a substantial increase in demand relatively recently that the manufacturers are just now coming to grips with. But those aren't collectors...
By the way, one does not need to own a single NFA item (or Luger) to observe and analyze these trends.
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31 July 2015
30 July 2015
Expiration
The GURPS: Traveller license expires at the end of the year and rumor has it that SJG will not be renewing it.
No firm rumor on why just that it's going away.
If you were holding off on buying some GURPS: Traveller pdf from Warehouse 23, now would probably be a good time to get in there.
No firm rumor on why just that it's going away.
If you were holding off on buying some GURPS: Traveller pdf from Warehouse 23, now would probably be a good time to get in there.
An Apology
I do tend to go off on things that appear to be tangents from out of the blue. They usually aren't completely out of the blue from my end, but you can't see that.
It is during these tangents I am at my most offensive and I only realize how offensive long after the fact and far too late to take it back.
It is something I've been wrestling with for a long time, especially since me at my most offensive very rarely is managing to say what I meant.
Being offensive while not even meaning it.
Wow.
Just wow.
I am sorry for being offensive. Really!
I think I am doing better overall and that makes when I still lose my grip seem worse. Is that true?
I can't tell from here.
You can tell me through comments though. That invitation is going to sting, but... well I need to learn.
Thanks in advance for your help.
Sorry for being the jerk I tend to be.
It is during these tangents I am at my most offensive and I only realize how offensive long after the fact and far too late to take it back.
It is something I've been wrestling with for a long time, especially since me at my most offensive very rarely is managing to say what I meant.
Being offensive while not even meaning it.
Wow.
Just wow.
I am sorry for being offensive. Really!
I think I am doing better overall and that makes when I still lose my grip seem worse. Is that true?
I can't tell from here.
You can tell me through comments though. That invitation is going to sting, but... well I need to learn.
Thanks in advance for your help.
Sorry for being the jerk I tend to be.
Car Hacking
I know a couple of people who are going to feel very vindicated with their keeping their carbureted cars running.
They don't even have no fancy-ass HEI distributor! Points or NOTHIN'!
They don't even have no fancy-ass HEI distributor! Points or NOTHIN'!
And That Reminds Me
NFATCA's petition was primarily aimed at getting the CLEO signature removed from individual transfers.
The quote in the previous post reminds me.
I own my NFA items through a trust and I did not appreciate the implication that this was why a person would establish a trust in the first place.
The entire tone from NFATCA was that once the CLEO sign off was out of the way all good and honest people could now get individual transfers and only the sneaky, underhanded criminals would use trusts to own NFA items.
Should have kept your trap shut on Facebook and let this grudge simmer down, buddy.
Do you know why my NFA items are in a trust? It's nothing nefarious.
The Boy can't inherit them. He's mentally incompetent. The trust is our means of making sure that he doesn't actually ever own the items he can't and to have them liquidated in a straight forward and legal manner to his benefit should something happen to me or The Lovely Harvey.
A side effect of trust ownership is that I don't have to have a special gun safe to lock my NFA items away from The Lovely Harvey because she's a trustee too.
The quote in the previous post reminds me.
I own my NFA items through a trust and I did not appreciate the implication that this was why a person would establish a trust in the first place.
The entire tone from NFATCA was that once the CLEO sign off was out of the way all good and honest people could now get individual transfers and only the sneaky, underhanded criminals would use trusts to own NFA items.
Should have kept your trap shut on Facebook and let this grudge simmer down, buddy.
Do you know why my NFA items are in a trust? It's nothing nefarious.
The Boy can't inherit them. He's mentally incompetent. The trust is our means of making sure that he doesn't actually ever own the items he can't and to have them liquidated in a straight forward and legal manner to his benefit should something happen to me or The Lovely Harvey.
A side effect of trust ownership is that I don't have to have a special gun safe to lock my NFA items away from The Lovely Harvey because she's a trustee too.
I Should Not Be The One Explaining This
Also file under "If you're so smart why didn't you know this?"
Rulemaking.
Its the process used by the regulatory agencies of the executive branch to make legislation in and around their sphere of influence.
There are two ways to start a rulemaking.
First is when the executive gets a burr up their ass to outlaw something. This is how we get rulemaking that bans M855 and other SS109 ammunition as "armor piercing". It's also where 5.56x45mm becomes "designed for" use in a pistol.
Second is when the citizens petition for a rulemaking. They can suggest what rule they want to see when they petition, but the actual rule will be drafted by the agency and colored by the sitting administration.
Read that very carefully.
You are begging (which is what a petition really is) an agency to change a rule they've already made to make your life easier but they have complete control over what changes will be submitted for comment, and then whether to ignore those comments and do what they want anyways.
In most cases what this boils down to is "leave it well enough alone."
This is also why the best method of affecting changes to the regulations is by getting Congress to pass a law.
But it didn't. When they proposed doing it, I remember people warning them that the sitting administration and their appointees weren't going to let that fly and the best case scenario was them doing nothing and ignoring the petition.
When the best you can hope for is status quo, don't rock the boat. No, I am not happy that's true, but it doesn't change that it is.
NFATCA pressed on and got rulemaking opened up with an anti-gun president, an anti-gun head of BATFE with an anti-gun majority Senate. What the fuck did you think was going to happen?
Well, Rulemaking 41P is what did happen and NFATCA is in full-on retcon that they started the ball rolling. They're also very unhappy that people remember their role in getting this shit-sandwich submitted for comment.
Someplace I have a quote from someone at NFATCA talking about prohibited persons getting stamps through the "trust loophole" which is the real crux of what went wrong here.
“The NFATCA expressed concern that persons who are prohibited by law from possessing or receiving firearms may acquire NFA firearms through the establishment of legal entities such as a corporation, trust, or partnership.”
"The Petitioner [NFATCA] expressed concern that an NFA firearm could be obtained by a prohibited person and used in a violent crime.”
“Therefore, for applications for a corporation, trust, partnership, or other legal entity to make or receive an NFA firearms, petitioner has requested amendments to §§ 479.63 and 479.85 to require photographs and fingerprint cards for persons who are responsible for directing the management and policies of the entity, so that a background check of the individual may be conducted.”
29 July 2015
No Good Way To Say It
EDIT:
This little rant was triggered by a co-worker of The Lovely Harvey at a work social function where the co-worker pontificated long and in detail about what useless scum all men were and how we should just accept our place at the bottom of the social order. She specifically used me as an example of a "good man" who'd learned his place by being The Lovely Harvey's submissive wife.
Harvey's feelings were hurt. My feelings were hurt. The injury was not mollified in the slightest that we had to keep our mouths shut so as to not cause issues at her work later.
The hurt festered, and rotted my brain so that the following emerged.
END EDIT
Feminism lasts as long as men will feel guilty.
Once men finally get fed up with being punished for doing things they never considered doing, let along actually did...
It's going to be noticed that a fairly wimpy man is more than a physical match for a fairly stout woman.
And we're going to be back to chattel wives.
And all I will have to say to the morons who pushed it to that point is, "you could have avoided it all, but you weren't happy with winning..."
I'm going be pissed about it coming to chattel wives, to be honest, because I think that any person is a person.
But dammit, I will be treated like a person too! Even if I have a Y chromosome!
This little rant was triggered by a co-worker of The Lovely Harvey at a work social function where the co-worker pontificated long and in detail about what useless scum all men were and how we should just accept our place at the bottom of the social order. She specifically used me as an example of a "good man" who'd learned his place by being The Lovely Harvey's submissive wife.
Harvey's feelings were hurt. My feelings were hurt. The injury was not mollified in the slightest that we had to keep our mouths shut so as to not cause issues at her work later.
The hurt festered, and rotted my brain so that the following emerged.
END EDIT
Feminism lasts as long as men will feel guilty.
Once men finally get fed up with being punished for doing things they never considered doing, let along actually did...
It's going to be noticed that a fairly wimpy man is more than a physical match for a fairly stout woman.
And we're going to be back to chattel wives.
And all I will have to say to the morons who pushed it to that point is, "you could have avoided it all, but you weren't happy with winning..."
I'm going be pissed about it coming to chattel wives, to be honest, because I think that any person is a person.
But dammit, I will be treated like a person too! Even if I have a Y chromosome!
28 July 2015
Random Army Memory
Something that went out on the Abrams with depressing regularity was the turret hydraulic junction box.
It's a big slab of a manifold under high hydraulic pressure that has some solenoids in it and distributes the fluid where it needs to go.
It's not a dash-10 serviceable item, so it'd go to the battalion mechanics to be swapped out. They didn't fix them, they just shipped them back to General Dynamics Land Div.
The first sign that it'd failed was always finding fluid in the sub-turret floor.
When the mechanics changed it, all of the fluid was dumped into the hull. Fluid they left there for the crew to clean up.
How did I decide to get those many gallons of fluid out?
The bilge pump!
Now there were gallons of hydraulic fluid arcing in a stream ten feet from the tank in the middle of the mechanic's bay!
Where my TC told me to leave for them to clean up under the same rationale they'd given for leaving the mess in the hull.
Good times.
It's a big slab of a manifold under high hydraulic pressure that has some solenoids in it and distributes the fluid where it needs to go.
It's not a dash-10 serviceable item, so it'd go to the battalion mechanics to be swapped out. They didn't fix them, they just shipped them back to General Dynamics Land Div.
The first sign that it'd failed was always finding fluid in the sub-turret floor.
When the mechanics changed it, all of the fluid was dumped into the hull. Fluid they left there for the crew to clean up.
How did I decide to get those many gallons of fluid out?
The bilge pump!
Now there were gallons of hydraulic fluid arcing in a stream ten feet from the tank in the middle of the mechanic's bay!
Where my TC told me to leave for them to clean up under the same rationale they'd given for leaving the mess in the hull.
Good times.
Bonjour Readers In France!
Or whomever is using a French IP address to view the site. 250 times more than my normal 200 a day hits.
The Market
Stock market failures occur when the idiots who've convinced themselves (via the mind game) that the the ownership of a chit or marker has actual value and can't find a bigger idiot to pay them more for it than they paid to get it.
All of the "wealth" being destroyed is just the notational value of those chits and not the actual destruction of anything.
That the idiots who endorse this mind game have all the real money and are in charge is something we should examine closely. Especially since they're least fucked over when the mind-game collapses through their idiocy.
All of the "wealth" being destroyed is just the notational value of those chits and not the actual destruction of anything.
That the idiots who endorse this mind game have all the real money and are in charge is something we should examine closely. Especially since they're least fucked over when the mind-game collapses through their idiocy.
Mad Max
Mad Max is a classic case of how the world would look if your murder-hobo™ player characters were ever to be put in charge...
...Of a farm.
...Of a farm.
Getting Caught Up
Almost up to date on My Little Pony.
I am noticing that the episodes by M.A. Larson are much stronger than the writing team of Jayson Thiessen and Jim Miller.
I am noticing that the episodes by M.A. Larson are much stronger than the writing team of Jayson Thiessen and Jim Miller.
27 July 2015
We Are Brony
Ordered some family stickers with an MLP-FIP theme.
The Lovely Harvey picked alicorn. We both describe The Boy as an earth pony, but I have the wings and horn just in case.
Chow Down EU
Google just put out that the EU requires notification that Google sites use cookies.
So if you're reading this from the EU, you probably see a notification.
Chocolate Chip is the flavor I've requested the cookies be in.
If you're outside the EU and wanna see the notice, just change .com to .co.uk in the address.
So if you're reading this from the EU, you probably see a notification.
Chocolate Chip is the flavor I've requested the cookies be in.
If you're outside the EU and wanna see the notice, just change .com to .co.uk in the address.
Hey I've Done Those Things
I did a week in the weeds with nothing but shorts, undies, shirt and sandals and a swiss army knife.
That was a miserable week.
But I ate. I had shelter. I had fire.
And it would take the end of the world to get me to do it again.
Fuck living like a caveman!
But should the end of the world come I know a lot more than my stone-age forbears.
I once thought that I could survive the end.
We were called survivalists back then, not preppers.
When it hits you that the sheer number of people hitting the woods at the same time at the end of the world will no shit make all game extinct in a month, tops. Then the pure idiocy about sanitation people will bring out of the ruins... Famine will be a light let-down as pestilence and disease take hold and crack down.
Happily, I don't think we're going to be falling that far should things fall apart. We're social creatures and we'll tend to clump up together and we tend to help one another.
I know how to make something or fix something, I can swap that for something I need to someone who can't make or fix.
But I don't expect Mad Max.
Because we don't get Mad Max when we get localized disruptions, even NOLA didn't go full-retard after Katrina.
That was a miserable week.
But I ate. I had shelter. I had fire.
And it would take the end of the world to get me to do it again.
Fuck living like a caveman!
But should the end of the world come I know a lot more than my stone-age forbears.
I once thought that I could survive the end.
We were called survivalists back then, not preppers.
When it hits you that the sheer number of people hitting the woods at the same time at the end of the world will no shit make all game extinct in a month, tops. Then the pure idiocy about sanitation people will bring out of the ruins... Famine will be a light let-down as pestilence and disease take hold and crack down.
Happily, I don't think we're going to be falling that far should things fall apart. We're social creatures and we'll tend to clump up together and we tend to help one another.
I know how to make something or fix something, I can swap that for something I need to someone who can't make or fix.
But I don't expect Mad Max.
Because we don't get Mad Max when we get localized disruptions, even NOLA didn't go full-retard after Katrina.
26 July 2015
I Guess He's Not A Crook Too
With the revelation that the Obama administration apparently targeted conservative groups using the IRS I am struck with something...
How many things is the present administration doing that were also attributed to the hated and never to be forgiven Richard Milhouse Nixon?
How many things is the present administration doing that were also attributed to the hated and never to be forgiven Richard Milhouse Nixon?
Need A Better Dart Board
I'm a Business Admin grad.
I took the classes I grok the material.
The problem is econ is both super simple and insanely complicated.
Predicting things requires accounting for so many variables that it just can't really be done except in the broadest of sweeps.
But economists do try...
Inflation is BAD!
Deflation is BAD!
Prices remaining steady is STAGNATION, and BAD!
Commodity prices are low is GOOD!
Commodity prices are low is BAD!
Commodity prices are high is GOOD!
Commodity prices are high is BAD!
Any of those markers taken on their own can be indicative of anything. Figuring out what they actually are indicating means adding in and accounting for more variables.
I am starting to believe that the real cause of depressions and recessions is the people who predict them constantly and become to need and want to be vindicated. With their charts and graphs and pulpits they convince people the sky is falling and that in turn causes the prophecy to be fulfilled.
They are the same people who can prevent a recovery with the same doom and gloom.
A great deal of this is a mind game.
What is the mechanism that causes a healthy company's stock to rise and a sick company's stock to fall?
How is that mechanism related to a healthy company with poorly performing stock suddenly going out of business?
Because people believe.
Most people have no clue what stocks are. They're kind of a loan. The only time a company gets direct value from a stock is at its initial offer. If they offer at $1 a share and sell 10,000 shares, that's $10,000 that goes into the company coffers.
How much money does the company get if the price per share jumps to $5?
$0.00.
After the initial sale, it's actually worthless to the company except for the mind game of investors gambling on the value of the chit.
Likewise, how much does the company lose if the price drops to $0.50 a share?
The same $0.00.
If it weren't for the mind game of the no-limits high-stakes gambling known as the stock market issuing stocks (especially non-voting, zero dividend stocks) would be known as a confidence scheme.
And it all meshes into the zeroth rule of economics. Things are valuable because people think they are.
It's why I am unconcerned over the value of my house. I bought it as a place to keep me dry in the rain and warm in the cold. The only metric of value that matters (to me) for my dwelling. That I am paying more than I would if I'd bought it today doesn't really matter much since we made the decision that we'd pay what we did when it was more expensive.
I don't feel cheated by the market.
In fact I'd been well prepared by everything else I've ever bought to expect its value to drop as it became more used.
I took the classes I grok the material.
The problem is econ is both super simple and insanely complicated.
Predicting things requires accounting for so many variables that it just can't really be done except in the broadest of sweeps.
But economists do try...
Inflation is BAD!
Deflation is BAD!
Prices remaining steady is STAGNATION, and BAD!
Commodity prices are low is GOOD!
Commodity prices are low is BAD!
Commodity prices are high is GOOD!
Commodity prices are high is BAD!
Any of those markers taken on their own can be indicative of anything. Figuring out what they actually are indicating means adding in and accounting for more variables.
I am starting to believe that the real cause of depressions and recessions is the people who predict them constantly and become to need and want to be vindicated. With their charts and graphs and pulpits they convince people the sky is falling and that in turn causes the prophecy to be fulfilled.
They are the same people who can prevent a recovery with the same doom and gloom.
A great deal of this is a mind game.
What is the mechanism that causes a healthy company's stock to rise and a sick company's stock to fall?
How is that mechanism related to a healthy company with poorly performing stock suddenly going out of business?
Because people believe.
Most people have no clue what stocks are. They're kind of a loan. The only time a company gets direct value from a stock is at its initial offer. If they offer at $1 a share and sell 10,000 shares, that's $10,000 that goes into the company coffers.
How much money does the company get if the price per share jumps to $5?
$0.00.
After the initial sale, it's actually worthless to the company except for the mind game of investors gambling on the value of the chit.
Likewise, how much does the company lose if the price drops to $0.50 a share?
The same $0.00.
If it weren't for the mind game of the no-limits high-stakes gambling known as the stock market issuing stocks (especially non-voting, zero dividend stocks) would be known as a confidence scheme.
And it all meshes into the zeroth rule of economics. Things are valuable because people think they are.
It's why I am unconcerned over the value of my house. I bought it as a place to keep me dry in the rain and warm in the cold. The only metric of value that matters (to me) for my dwelling. That I am paying more than I would if I'd bought it today doesn't really matter much since we made the decision that we'd pay what we did when it was more expensive.
I don't feel cheated by the market.
In fact I'd been well prepared by everything else I've ever bought to expect its value to drop as it became more used.
Civic Sensor Second Update
A code that the car has had since I got it P1298, that doesn't light the check-engine light.
It's "Electrical Load Detector (ELD) Circuit High Voltage".
I read that it's a known problem and sometimes is set merely by turning on the headlights.
The problem with known "no-problem" problems is sometimes the "no-problem" isn't the cause.
Our ELD was toasted and melty.
The cam-position sensor code (1361) has not reoccurred since replacing the ELD.
Huzzah!
Plus thanks to The Father-In-Law for taking the car in and having the work done out of his pocket so his little girl would be able to get home. (Also so that The Lovely Harvey wouldn't take his Trailblazer from him).
It's "Electrical Load Detector (ELD) Circuit High Voltage".
I read that it's a known problem and sometimes is set merely by turning on the headlights.
The problem with known "no-problem" problems is sometimes the "no-problem" isn't the cause.
Our ELD was toasted and melty.
The cam-position sensor code (1361) has not reoccurred since replacing the ELD.
Huzzah!
Plus thanks to The Father-In-Law for taking the car in and having the work done out of his pocket so his little girl would be able to get home. (Also so that The Lovely Harvey wouldn't take his Trailblazer from him).
25 July 2015
Who Wants To Fisk This
Cracked: 5 Reasons Even Gun Owners Should Hate The NRA.
It tastes wrong to me, but I can't summon a point by point rebuttal like some of y'all.
It tastes wrong to me, but I can't summon a point by point rebuttal like some of y'all.
24 July 2015
Civic Sensor Update
The Lovely Harvey had it replaced while Up North™.
The Dormann sensor I'd bought from Advanced Auto had failed and "looks all melty".
She had them give her the part so we can demand warranty from Advanced.
Very reasonable rate for the work too.
The Dormann sensor I'd bought from Advanced Auto had failed and "looks all melty".
She had them give her the part so we can demand warranty from Advanced.
Very reasonable rate for the work too.
23 July 2015
Drawing A Blank
In the spirit of making noise for the 4th of July and New Year's Eve I've long wanted some blank ammunition to go with my M16A1 clone and M15A2 Blank Firing Adaptor.
When purchasing blanks make sure you get the M200 blank and not the M195 grenade launching blank or M755 Sting Ring Airfoil launching blank.
They're easy to tell apart.
The M195 has red lacquer sealing the rose-crimp, the M755 gas yellow lacquer, the M200 has none or blue.
M200 has a knurl about half an inch from the head.
The launching blanks have a lot more thump to them and could damage the gun if fired through the BFA.
When purchasing blanks make sure you get the M200 blank and not the M195 grenade launching blank or M755 Sting Ring Airfoil launching blank.
They're easy to tell apart.
The M195 has red lacquer sealing the rose-crimp, the M755 gas yellow lacquer, the M200 has none or blue.
M200 has a knurl about half an inch from the head.
The launching blanks have a lot more thump to them and could damage the gun if fired through the BFA.
Invalidate
This is the crux of why the hullaballoo about the Confederate Battle Flag bugs me.
Symbols, being mutable, can mean different things to different people.
Swastikas are the ur-example.
What I wonder though, is why A person, offended by A meaning of a symbol, may demand and receive censure of that symbol irregardless of other meanings for that symbol.
The CBF is pregnant with diverse meaning, yet it doesn't matter what the person displaying this symbol means with their display if ever it was used to symbolize today's popular offense?
Am I getting this right?
Because if the offended get to define the reason someone has displayed a "symbol of hate" MRC/Tamiya, Monogram, Revell, Testors, Dragon and Hasegawa have been actively recruiting for the National Socialist German Worker's Party for decades and millions of scale model builders have been promoting the final solution to the Jewish problem with the assembly of every model ship, plane or tank.
Hang on, lemme guess, "but that's different," right?
No. It's the same.
The difference is my building and owning a 1/35 scale Panther doesn't make anyone accuse me of being a disciple of Hitler.
It's assumptions.
It's sad because the people who actually made the CBF a symbol of racism are the very party most associated with the most active in attempting to ban it. I think it makes sense that they would, because the "Southern Pride" folks, who aren't racists, were successfully taking the symbol back!
Makes it seem more like a trademark dispute, doesn't it?
Symbols, being mutable, can mean different things to different people.
Swastikas are the ur-example.
What I wonder though, is why A person, offended by A meaning of a symbol, may demand and receive censure of that symbol irregardless of other meanings for that symbol.
The CBF is pregnant with diverse meaning, yet it doesn't matter what the person displaying this symbol means with their display if ever it was used to symbolize today's popular offense?
Am I getting this right?
Because if the offended get to define the reason someone has displayed a "symbol of hate" MRC/Tamiya, Monogram, Revell, Testors, Dragon and Hasegawa have been actively recruiting for the National Socialist German Worker's Party for decades and millions of scale model builders have been promoting the final solution to the Jewish problem with the assembly of every model ship, plane or tank.
Hang on, lemme guess, "but that's different," right?
No. It's the same.
The difference is my building and owning a 1/35 scale Panther doesn't make anyone accuse me of being a disciple of Hitler.
It's assumptions.
It's sad because the people who actually made the CBF a symbol of racism are the very party most associated with the most active in attempting to ban it. I think it makes sense that they would, because the "Southern Pride" folks, who aren't racists, were successfully taking the symbol back!
Makes it seem more like a trademark dispute, doesn't it?
Running Gag
Some generalizations get too much traction on Facebook.
There's a cute little pie chart showing a teeny sliver of "all religions" and a huge swath for "atheists".
I get ticked off at some atheists myself from time to time. The Freedom From Religion Foundation because they're jerks. It mostly centers around that they've decided to be offended that religion can exist where they can observe it and wish the world to be scourged of anything they've interpreted to be religious in nature. Especially when its something I care about and my atheist ass didn't bring no imaginary buddy to the symbol.
But I am ticked off at them for specific actions and don't blame all atheists for their actions.
But I posted it just to yank a Facebook buddy's chain (and it worked) =D.
He's a magnet for the kind of attention from Christian proselytizers that make me want to donate to FFRF!
He so consistently finds this attention where FuzzyGeff and I don't makes us wonder if it's actually him and not them. There were years before we all moved away from each other when were in the same places at the same time, yet it was only Skeezer who attracted the special attention of religious kooks. He still attracts this special attention. Yeah, it's him.
It's entirely possible that I just didn't notice them and it rolled off my back like a water on a duck; but FuzzyGeff would have noticed if it were happening to him.
And it really didn't, beyond some harassment at the gaming table playing AD&D at The ISU Memorial Union. Public place and all...
Honestly, despite the irritation from asshole atheists, I am far more concerned about devout Islam.
Assholes file lawsuits and demand you pay attention to them.
Fanatically devout Muslims murder people.
Even pushy ass Christians don't rise to that level.
22 July 2015
Two Steps Forward One Step Back
The massaged Star B magazines both function.
Hurray!
The firing pin broke.
Disassembly was simple. Drift out the rear sight, push out the firing pin retaining pin from the bottom of the slide through the dovetail for the rear sight, dump out the pin and its spring.
I expected it to break around the thin spot for the retainer.
While I vocally and publicly blame Willard, who did dry fire it once at the range...
The damn things are notoriously fragile and it just happened to happen this time the hammer was dropped on an empty chamber absentmindedly.
Looks like it's been cracked for a while too. The pictures don't clearly show it, but there's some shine of edges that have been rubbing in the fractured area.
Bummer.
Replacements look to be $25 plus $5 shipping.
I wonder if a tiny o-ring between the firing pin spring and the thicker part of the pin would buffer it and prevent further breakage.
Hurray!
The firing pin broke.
Disassembly was simple. Drift out the rear sight, push out the firing pin retaining pin from the bottom of the slide through the dovetail for the rear sight, dump out the pin and its spring.
I expected it to break around the thin spot for the retainer.
While I vocally and publicly blame Willard, who did dry fire it once at the range...
The damn things are notoriously fragile and it just happened to happen this time the hammer was dropped on an empty chamber absentmindedly.
Looks like it's been cracked for a while too. The pictures don't clearly show it, but there's some shine of edges that have been rubbing in the fractured area.
Bummer.
Replacements look to be $25 plus $5 shipping.
I wonder if a tiny o-ring between the firing pin spring and the thicker part of the pin would buffer it and prevent further breakage.
Standards
If the ability to manage ones own financial affairs is now the new standard to allow gun ownership:
There's going to be a LOT of disarmed police departments out there.
There's going to be a LOT of disarmed police departments out there.
21 July 2015
Grav Pong
Control of the artificial gravity, grav compensators and utility gravity systems is important in keeping control of the ship from pirates in Traveller.
Anti-Hijack is the go-to program to keep the command and control spaces secure from hijacking.
Because the grav systems are safety equipment, it's normally very difficult to disable and bypass the interlocks and lock-out-tag-out protocols.
I add in my campaigns that anti-hijack going active allows engineering to easily take manual control of the grav systems and play a brisk game of grav-pong!
Merely shutting off the artificial gravity and acceleration compensators on a type S means aft is down and at 2g. A fall of 4m hits at 12.71m/s. If you're at the bridge door when engineering flips these systems down its a 15m fall and you hit at 24.27m/s.
That's the equivalent to falling from twice the distance on earth.
So a 4m fall becomes the equivalent to an 8m fall that rounds to 9 yards in GURPS... There's a table on B.431.
Lets say our hijacker has 10 HP (the more HP you have the harder you fall). The hatch on the aft wall of the common area in our Type-S is a hard surface (which doubles the dice)... So (2x10x14)/100=2.8 which rounds to 3d cr damage.
If he fell the whole 15m that's 32 yards equivalent. for (2x10x26)/100=5.2 or 5d crushing damage.
That's one heck of a fall, really. Even more fun for the hijacker, the engineer can apply up to 6g to the fall, making it a 98 yard fall from the bridge hatch or 9d cr! On average that's two death rolls!
Now, if our engineer is a deft hand with the grav controls he can apply the gravity laterally and bounce our hijacker back and forth along the 16.5m engineering corridor once he's smashed through the hatch from the common area for as long as he wants (9d+2 cr per smack which is also per second).
Please note that this only applies to hijackers who've managed to get inside the ship.
There's no artificial gravity or compensation outside on the hull.
Anti-Hijack is the go-to program to keep the command and control spaces secure from hijacking.
Because the grav systems are safety equipment, it's normally very difficult to disable and bypass the interlocks and lock-out-tag-out protocols.
I add in my campaigns that anti-hijack going active allows engineering to easily take manual control of the grav systems and play a brisk game of grav-pong!
Merely shutting off the artificial gravity and acceleration compensators on a type S means aft is down and at 2g. A fall of 4m hits at 12.71m/s. If you're at the bridge door when engineering flips these systems down its a 15m fall and you hit at 24.27m/s.
That's the equivalent to falling from twice the distance on earth.
So a 4m fall becomes the equivalent to an 8m fall that rounds to 9 yards in GURPS... There's a table on B.431.
Lets say our hijacker has 10 HP (the more HP you have the harder you fall). The hatch on the aft wall of the common area in our Type-S is a hard surface (which doubles the dice)... So (2x10x14)/100=2.8 which rounds to 3d cr damage.
If he fell the whole 15m that's 32 yards equivalent. for (2x10x26)/100=5.2 or 5d crushing damage.
That's one heck of a fall, really. Even more fun for the hijacker, the engineer can apply up to 6g to the fall, making it a 98 yard fall from the bridge hatch or 9d cr! On average that's two death rolls!
Now, if our engineer is a deft hand with the grav controls he can apply the gravity laterally and bounce our hijacker back and forth along the 16.5m engineering corridor once he's smashed through the hatch from the common area for as long as he wants (9d+2 cr per smack which is also per second).
Please note that this only applies to hijackers who've managed to get inside the ship.
There's no artificial gravity or compensation outside on the hull.
Star For The Course
My Star B came with two magazines.
One worked with all 8 rounds. One double fed if loaded with more than six. Even hand feeding slowly they'd pop an extra round up past the feed lips.
I found a Triple-K* magazine at a gun show, that would double if loaded with more than five...
I decided today that I couldn't break a broken thing so I started comparing the good magazine to the bad ones.
Both of the bad ones springs were too long. Two coils on the Star and half on the Triple-K.
Both had feed lips that didn't match the good one.
So I shortened some springs and bent some lips (and hammered out a dent in the Star one).
Now I have two repaired magazines that hand feed all eight. Range testing, perhaps, tomorrow, depending on Willard's generosity.
The reason, I think, they were double feeding was the pressure from below was pushing the round against the lips which were only in contact with the rim of the round. That made the lips a ramp and they slid down it. Tweaking the lips to they contacted the entire round and reducing the pressure seems to have cured it.
Interestingly, if this was a 1911, Glock or M&P magazine, I'd have tossed them and bought new. Not an option with the Model B since there aren't really any new magazines out there.
* Triple-K... KKK... Makes you wonder how they escape the trigger-word PC police, don't it?
Appendix Carry
For my fat ass that's like a flap holster...
Flap of flab!
I'd say try the veal, but the mental image prolly has eliminated all hunger from your mind.
Flap of flab!
I'd say try the veal, but the mental image prolly has eliminated all hunger from your mind.
Feel The Hate
I read this...
You know, for a group so supposedly filled with hate as Confederate Flag Supporters are... I'm just not seeing them murdering folks for it.
Unlike the people who supposedly don't hate at all.
It's almost a classic case of transference or projection.
You know, for a group so supposedly filled with hate as Confederate Flag Supporters are... I'm just not seeing them murdering folks for it.
Unlike the people who supposedly don't hate at all.
It's almost a classic case of transference or projection.
Are My Online Friends Real
Sometimes I think I should administer a Turing test to my online friends to see if they'd just created a script to keep me entertained.
On one hand it's depressing they don't want to interact with me.
On the other it's touching they'd go to the effort.
On one hand it's depressing they don't want to interact with me.
On the other it's touching they'd go to the effort.
True Story
I'll go shooting in the rain.
I've found I'm fairly waterproof.
But there's various degrees of "the rain".
Here in sunny Florida, there's a rain that's not unpleasant and while you're wet, you're not really miserable because the air is warm enough you don't feel cold.
We get this kind of rain fairly regularly here on the Gulf side.
The Army has a slogan, "If it ain't rainin' we ain't trainin'". It seems like much of the time I was in the field we were cold, wet and miserable. Taking one-station-unit-training (OSUT) in winter in Kentucky didn't help either.
The Army experience has made me very adverse to being cold, wet and miserable. I am a tool using monkey and shelter is a tool. Air conditioning is a tool.
Good news for most trainers is I know what a cranky bitch I am so I don't subject them to my money much.
For civilian training, I'm going to refuse to be treated like a soldier. One, been there done that, got the medal, lost the leg. Two I have vastly different expectations from a teacher I am paying to teach me. I expect the environment to be conducive to learning. Three, what's this applicable towards?
Outdoor training, the weather gets a vote. I'm stoic enough to account for it. I'm gutting past my throbbing leg just standing there; what's a little hurricane strength wind and torrential downpour?
For me to risk being cold, wet and miserable or hot, sunburned and miserable... can you, Mr Trainer, tell me what I am going to be learning a little better on your web-page?
Good web pages must really be expensive because the places that seem to do a good job explaining why you should part with your hard-earned sure want a lot of my hard-earned. Actually, the places with bad web pages don't really seem to want less money, they just tend to lack a blogger taking the time to document the place.
I occasionally wonder if the whole point of many training places is to give a military fantasy experience to people who regret never serving. They then impart what any graduate of basic training learned and everyone walks away happy.
In one of the shitty little carbine classes I took, I was giggling to myself about how most of this group preparing for WARRE would be lost and starving in the wilderness because shooting is such a small part of soldiering. Never mind that training your shooting to the latest Army standard forgets that Big Green is a gigantic organization with a correspondingly large number of people doing things that are more akin to what Fed-Ex does to make sure that the boots on the ground don't have to carry a campaign's worth of stuff.
In this case it's Preppers 1; Gun-Campers 0.
Where can I be a-shooting my carbine for reals?
Well, hurricane apocalypse is one scenario. That's not move-and-shoot house clearing drill. That's defend the bunker, supplies and wimmins! Why is it defend the bunker? Because Law will return and when they come you're going to have to justify every fucking round fired while they wereon vacation evacuated. Preppers 2; Gun-Campers 0...
So far I've yet to see someone talking about a GUN-course that will pertain to this sort of scenario. I've seen, through Erin, several prepper places that talk about the being prepared for hurricane and tornado disruptions to law enforcement. Thankfully, humans really don't descend to lowest-common when confronted with disaster most of the time. We tribe-up and work together. Barbarity is the exception and that's what I want to take a class on.
If I knew more, I might even teach that class!
Now there's an idea!
I've found I'm fairly waterproof.
But there's various degrees of "the rain".
Here in sunny Florida, there's a rain that's not unpleasant and while you're wet, you're not really miserable because the air is warm enough you don't feel cold.
We get this kind of rain fairly regularly here on the Gulf side.
The Army has a slogan, "If it ain't rainin' we ain't trainin'". It seems like much of the time I was in the field we were cold, wet and miserable. Taking one-station-unit-training (OSUT) in winter in Kentucky didn't help either.
The Army experience has made me very adverse to being cold, wet and miserable. I am a tool using monkey and shelter is a tool. Air conditioning is a tool.
Good news for most trainers is I know what a cranky bitch I am so I don't subject them to my money much.
For civilian training, I'm going to refuse to be treated like a soldier. One, been there done that, got the medal, lost the leg. Two I have vastly different expectations from a teacher I am paying to teach me. I expect the environment to be conducive to learning. Three, what's this applicable towards?
Outdoor training, the weather gets a vote. I'm stoic enough to account for it. I'm gutting past my throbbing leg just standing there; what's a little hurricane strength wind and torrential downpour?
For me to risk being cold, wet and miserable or hot, sunburned and miserable... can you, Mr Trainer, tell me what I am going to be learning a little better on your web-page?
Good web pages must really be expensive because the places that seem to do a good job explaining why you should part with your hard-earned sure want a lot of my hard-earned. Actually, the places with bad web pages don't really seem to want less money, they just tend to lack a blogger taking the time to document the place.
I occasionally wonder if the whole point of many training places is to give a military fantasy experience to people who regret never serving. They then impart what any graduate of basic training learned and everyone walks away happy.
In one of the shitty little carbine classes I took, I was giggling to myself about how most of this group preparing for WARRE would be lost and starving in the wilderness because shooting is such a small part of soldiering. Never mind that training your shooting to the latest Army standard forgets that Big Green is a gigantic organization with a correspondingly large number of people doing things that are more akin to what Fed-Ex does to make sure that the boots on the ground don't have to carry a campaign's worth of stuff.
In this case it's Preppers 1; Gun-Campers 0.
Where can I be a-shooting my carbine for reals?
Well, hurricane apocalypse is one scenario. That's not move-and-shoot house clearing drill. That's defend the bunker, supplies and wimmins! Why is it defend the bunker? Because Law will return and when they come you're going to have to justify every fucking round fired while they were
So far I've yet to see someone talking about a GUN-course that will pertain to this sort of scenario. I've seen, through Erin, several prepper places that talk about the being prepared for hurricane and tornado disruptions to law enforcement. Thankfully, humans really don't descend to lowest-common when confronted with disaster most of the time. We tribe-up and work together. Barbarity is the exception and that's what I want to take a class on.
If I knew more, I might even teach that class!
Now there's an idea!
20 July 2015
Zastava CZ999
We took Willard's CZ999 to the range.
It shoots a little left for me. I put 15 into the head and 15 at the '7'. Some of the vertical stringing is from the fans behind us blowing the target around.
I'd say it shoots! Very comfortable in the hand and mild recoil. Single action is nice and crisp, with a dead space in the takeup that took no time to get used to. Double action is a long, jerky drag until it goes off. The single hole to the right of the '8' was aimed at the '7' above it in double action.
We fired 60 rounds, proving it to be reliable for all time. ALL TIME! GRIN
Very pleasant, very affordable. I wonder if I can trade him for my Star B...
It shoots a little left for me. I put 15 into the head and 15 at the '7'. Some of the vertical stringing is from the fans behind us blowing the target around.
I'd say it shoots! Very comfortable in the hand and mild recoil. Single action is nice and crisp, with a dead space in the takeup that took no time to get used to. Double action is a long, jerky drag until it goes off. The single hole to the right of the '8' was aimed at the '7' above it in double action.
We fired 60 rounds, proving it to be reliable for all time. ALL TIME! GRIN
Very pleasant, very affordable. I wonder if I can trade him for my Star B...
New Shooter Alert!
Willard's granddaughter is now a shooter!
You just don't get this smile from being a new not-shooter...
This is her with Ian's US Survival AR-7.
Shooting lefty she blocked the bolt handle from reciprocating a couple of times.
She started with a handgun.
Willard started her off with hummingbird rounds in a .22 revolver fired single action just to build confidence. And about 3 yards. You have to start somewhere and it's way better for your first experience to be positive and fun than negative and frustrating.
I think she'll be back!
You just don't get this smile from being a new not-shooter...
This is her with Ian's US Survival AR-7.
Shooting lefty she blocked the bolt handle from reciprocating a couple of times.
She started with a handgun.
Willard started her off with hummingbird rounds in a .22 revolver fired single action just to build confidence. And about 3 yards. You have to start somewhere and it's way better for your first experience to be positive and fun than negative and frustrating.
I think she'll be back!
SIGH
I am frustrated by the pride some people take in not even learning how to use modern technology.
I am happy for you that you've never owned a cell phone and your POTS is copper. Just as I am happy for the ignorant savage in the rain forest who's never owned a longer ranged weapon than a bow and arrow.
I am frustrated by people who claim to be experts on a topic and don't bother to update their knowledge from time to time.
Yes, the round in question started as a means to improve terminal ballistics at close range. Ten minutes after making that decision someone said, "it'd be nice if we could outrange an AKM too..."
If CQB was the the goal entire, then they'd have stopped when they discovered that 7mm did the most damage. The person who initially developed the round is part of your rarified air of retired SF, why don't you call him up and ask him?
He was friendly enough on the forum.
Even though it is true they had an eye on CQB at first, that was 13 years ago. In the mean time lots and lots of effort was put into the round to increase its reach. It's not the round that it was introduced as.
I am happy for you that you've never owned a cell phone and your POTS is copper. Just as I am happy for the ignorant savage in the rain forest who's never owned a longer ranged weapon than a bow and arrow.
I am frustrated by people who claim to be experts on a topic and don't bother to update their knowledge from time to time.
Yes, the round in question started as a means to improve terminal ballistics at close range. Ten minutes after making that decision someone said, "it'd be nice if we could outrange an AKM too..."
If CQB was the the goal entire, then they'd have stopped when they discovered that 7mm did the most damage. The person who initially developed the round is part of your rarified air of retired SF, why don't you call him up and ask him?
He was friendly enough on the forum.
Even though it is true they had an eye on CQB at first, that was 13 years ago. In the mean time lots and lots of effort was put into the round to increase its reach. It's not the round that it was introduced as.
19 July 2015
Can You Do This?
Night landing an F-4J from VMFA-333 aboard USS America on Yankee Station about 2030 local in the rain.
What I am not showing you in these screen shots is checking the ILS needles or when I'm off speed, because I'm busy as hell fixing the problem.
Strike Fighters 2 is all the more difficult because of a lack of an optical landing system.
18 July 2015
Speed Of Heat
Don't hardly ever see the glove vanes out on a Tomcat.
You've got to be over Mach 1.34 before they start to deploy in automatic sweep mode.
Just like flying past the pyramids is mandatory when over Egypt; sunset shots of F-14's must be taken!
You've got to be over Mach 1.34 before they start to deploy in automatic sweep mode.
Just like flying past the pyramids is mandatory when over Egypt; sunset shots of F-14's must be taken!
Fuck Me Running
The Civic threw the same code that it did in December/January.
P1361.
We replaced that sensor.
It was fixed!
Gods be damned it.
P1361.
We replaced that sensor.
It was fixed!
Gods be damned it.
Not News
On one side of many political arguments there's a group of people who recognize they have a bias and make attempts to correct for that bias while making their case.
On the other side there's a group that insists that no bias exists on their part.
The problem is that both sides are biased.
It might not be insurmountable, but the side that insists that they've no bias knows they are.
On the other side there's a group that insists that no bias exists on their part.
The problem is that both sides are biased.
It might not be insurmountable, but the side that insists that they've no bias knows they are.
17 July 2015
Well That Fucking Sucks
The Lovely Harvey's uncle just up and had a heart attack and died.
Remember when I said we were tapped out after vacations and fixing computers?
Here's my hat in hand begging so that she can go up for the funeral.
Just dammit.
Remember when I said we were tapped out after vacations and fixing computers?
Here's my hat in hand begging so that she can go up for the funeral.
Just dammit.
All Versions
Seat upgrade applied to all variants of the Tomcat.
F-14A with the 1977 ECM/ECCM upgrades.
And the Imperial Iranian Air Force version.
The game shouldn't have loaded AIM-9L on it. I have markings for the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force too, but it's the same plane...
It turns out that I do have the markings for VF-142 for late '78 thru early '82...
I don't remember how to activate them...
UPDATE:
I figured it out!
F-14A with the 1977 ECM/ECCM upgrades.
And the Imperial Iranian Air Force version.
The game shouldn't have loaded AIM-9L on it. I have markings for the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force too, but it's the same plane...
It turns out that I do have the markings for VF-142 for late '78 thru early '82...
I don't remember how to activate them...
UPDATE:
I figured it out!
16 July 2015
Tomcat Tweaking
Strike Fighters 2: North Atlantic introduced the F-14A to the game.
Unfortunately, this expansion was kinda hurried.
There were some details that got missed.
The first thing that the fan base fixed was the anachronistic squadron markings. VF-142 (Ghostriders) here didn't change to the Grim Reaper tail-art until late 1978; but not the AG code until they moved to USS Eisenhower in April 1982. I don't have the AE code markings, sadly. Because the game spans the early '50's until 1982 normally; you need the 1975-78 markings.
The next thing was the ejection seats, that was harder for me to fix. If you look in the above picture you'll see a very plain-jane ACES II seat (borrowed from the long-released F-15A.
Thanks to the fine folks at The Mirage Factory, a proper GRU-7(A) ejection seat was made for their pre-North Atlantic release F-14 pack. A seat that I had in my files from adding the A-6E to the game.
Yes, the difference is subtle, but it really affects the feel of the game for me.
There's some display modifications in the cockpit I'll be doing anon.
Unfortunately, this expansion was kinda hurried.
There were some details that got missed.
The next thing was the ejection seats, that was harder for me to fix. If you look in the above picture you'll see a very plain-jane ACES II seat (borrowed from the long-released F-15A.
Thanks to the fine folks at The Mirage Factory, a proper GRU-7(A) ejection seat was made for their pre-North Atlantic release F-14 pack. A seat that I had in my files from adding the A-6E to the game.
Yes, the difference is subtle, but it really affects the feel of the game for me.
There's some display modifications in the cockpit I'll be doing anon.
15 July 2015
Check With The Geeks First
Dear Hollywood,
Whenever you decide to make a comic movie, or a sequel to a beloved sci-fi movie, reboot a franchise etc...
Hire the most rabid of the fan base.
Actually, this can make you money: Auction the jobs to the fan base at Comicon or something!
The fans will literally pay you to fix the movie.
It will keep you from stepping on your dicks again.
I bitched a little in May about it, but casting a black guy as the Human Torch and a blonde white woman as The Invisible Girl makes the geeks froth.
Susan Richards nee Storm is Johnny Storm's sister.
To cast one black and the other white just proclaims you're doing just to have a black character.
Why not cast a man to be Susan too?
That's different? How so?
This is just a specific gripe about a much larger problem in Hollywood.
Films based on print properties where it's evident that the only thing the makers of the film read was the title.
Starship Troopers anyone? The Hobbit for a recent example...
I had so hoped Hollywood was getting over it.
300 is frame for frame Frank Miller's comic.
The Harry Potter movies track well with the books.
The Lord of the Rings didn't do too bad either.
Then where was X-Men Last Stand... For fucks sake, Singer set you up to segue into The Dark Phoenix Saga! You could have made three movies to cover that arc and made what Marvel is doing with their "we couldn't sell these and they're all we have left" properties look unambitious and shallow.
If. You. Had. Only. Bothered. To. Read. The. Source. Material.
With 300 lurking successfully in the background you should have realized that Frank Miller kind of knows his genre and you could have made The Wolverine run just like the 4-issue Wolverine comic and had something really epic... Instead you made up your own sub-arc and plot that make the portions of Miller's work you did keep seem out of place and tacked on.
Both Last Stand and Wolverine suffer from an over emotional Logan pinin' for Jean Gray. Again if they'd bothered reading Dark Phoenix, they'd have been handed his response on a plate and it'd been self consistent with the character.
Reading the source material and understanding it also lets you know when you can depart from the pages. Days of Future Past is a very different comic from the movie, but it's OK because the changes mesh with the feel of the original.
It's why we love Heath Ledger's Joker when Cesar Romero's behaved far more like the character from the comics.
Reading the comics also is instructional in how to do a retcon properly and incorporate it into your story going forward.
Checking with the geeks also tells you if your changes are going to be met with disdain or acceptance.
Whenever you decide to make a comic movie, or a sequel to a beloved sci-fi movie, reboot a franchise etc...
Hire the most rabid of the fan base.
Actually, this can make you money: Auction the jobs to the fan base at Comicon or something!
The fans will literally pay you to fix the movie.
It will keep you from stepping on your dicks again.
I bitched a little in May about it, but casting a black guy as the Human Torch and a blonde white woman as The Invisible Girl makes the geeks froth.
Susan Richards nee Storm is Johnny Storm's sister.
To cast one black and the other white just proclaims you're doing just to have a black character.
Why not cast a man to be Susan too?
That's different? How so?
This is just a specific gripe about a much larger problem in Hollywood.
Films based on print properties where it's evident that the only thing the makers of the film read was the title.
Starship Troopers anyone? The Hobbit for a recent example...
I had so hoped Hollywood was getting over it.
300 is frame for frame Frank Miller's comic.
The Harry Potter movies track well with the books.
The Lord of the Rings didn't do too bad either.
Then where was X-Men Last Stand... For fucks sake, Singer set you up to segue into The Dark Phoenix Saga! You could have made three movies to cover that arc and made what Marvel is doing with their "we couldn't sell these and they're all we have left" properties look unambitious and shallow.
If. You. Had. Only. Bothered. To. Read. The. Source. Material.
With 300 lurking successfully in the background you should have realized that Frank Miller kind of knows his genre and you could have made The Wolverine run just like the 4-issue Wolverine comic and had something really epic... Instead you made up your own sub-arc and plot that make the portions of Miller's work you did keep seem out of place and tacked on.
Both Last Stand and Wolverine suffer from an over emotional Logan pinin' for Jean Gray. Again if they'd bothered reading Dark Phoenix, they'd have been handed his response on a plate and it'd been self consistent with the character.
Reading the source material and understanding it also lets you know when you can depart from the pages. Days of Future Past is a very different comic from the movie, but it's OK because the changes mesh with the feel of the original.
It's why we love Heath Ledger's Joker when Cesar Romero's behaved far more like the character from the comics.
Reading the comics also is instructional in how to do a retcon properly and incorporate it into your story going forward.
Checking with the geeks also tells you if your changes are going to be met with disdain or acceptance.
Does Anything Normal Happen Here
Headline: "Cops Arrest Woman, 57, For Battering Female Domestic Partner With Dildo."
Pleasedon'tbeFlorida! Pleasedon'tbeFlorida! Pleasedon'tbeFlorida! Pleasedon'tbeFlorida! Pleasedon'tbeFlorida! Pleasedon'tbeFlorida!
"A Florida woman is facing a domestic battery charge..."
Pleasedon'tbenearhere! Pleasedon'tbenearhere! Pleasedon'tbenearhere! Pleasedon'tbenearhere! Pleasedon'tbenearhere! Pleasedon'tbenearhere!
"The confrontation Saturday evening occurred while a St. Petersburg Police Department officer was inside the home of..."
DAMMIT!DAMMIT!DAMMIT!DAMMIT!DAMMIT!DAMMIT!
We watch Cops! every once and a while and episodes in Florida have a certain... um... flavor. I dunno what's in the water, but I think it's excreted by manatees.
Pleasedon'tbeFlorida! Pleasedon'tbeFlorida! Pleasedon'tbeFlorida! Pleasedon'tbeFlorida! Pleasedon'tbeFlorida! Pleasedon'tbeFlorida!
"A Florida woman is facing a domestic battery charge..."
Pleasedon'tbenearhere! Pleasedon'tbenearhere! Pleasedon'tbenearhere! Pleasedon'tbenearhere! Pleasedon'tbenearhere! Pleasedon'tbenearhere!
"The confrontation Saturday evening occurred while a St. Petersburg Police Department officer was inside the home of..."
DAMMIT!DAMMIT!DAMMIT!DAMMIT!DAMMIT!DAMMIT!
We watch Cops! every once and a while and episodes in Florida have a certain... um... flavor. I dunno what's in the water, but I think it's excreted by manatees.
Sad h/t to WeaponsMan
14 July 2015
It's Barely Moved
In Traveller Imperial Year 1110 (5628 AD), as the Fifth Frontier War is wrapping up...
Voyager 1 will be 13,080 AU fromEarth Terra.
That's 1,215,846,381,789.46 miles. 1,956,715,086,500 km. 75.54 light days.
0.20 light years.
0.063 parsecs.
After 3,651 years, it's still in the same hex with us.
Has anyone mentioned that space is big yet?
Even more fun...
If someone were to mount an expedition from Terra to Voyager 1 in a typical 30t Ship's Boat...
1.6g according to GURPS: Traveller.
It would take about 37 weeks to get there and match speeds.
It'd be a lot more comfortable in a 50t Modular Cutter and it's faster at 3.8g. Just under 24 weeks.
Let's say we're in a hurry.
A 40t Pinnace pulls 5g. Under 21 weeks.
A military ship pulling 6g will span it in about 19 weeks.
If we're really in a hurry we'll make a jump. 1 week.
Voyager 1 will be 13,080 AU from
That's 1,215,846,381,789.46 miles. 1,956,715,086,500 km. 75.54 light days.
0.20 light years.
0.063 parsecs.
After 3,651 years, it's still in the same hex with us.
Has anyone mentioned that space is big yet?
Even more fun...
If someone were to mount an expedition from Terra to Voyager 1 in a typical 30t Ship's Boat...
1.6g according to GURPS: Traveller.
It would take about 37 weeks to get there and match speeds.
It'd be a lot more comfortable in a 50t Modular Cutter and it's faster at 3.8g. Just under 24 weeks.
Let's say we're in a hurry.
A 40t Pinnace pulls 5g. Under 21 weeks.
A military ship pulling 6g will span it in about 19 weeks.
If we're really in a hurry we'll make a jump. 1 week.
So?
It's impugned that I own guns because I have a small dick.
This accusation is also slung at people who own Corvettes, which I do.
Tell you what, haters...
I do have a small dick.
It was small before I bought my first gun. I was small before I bought the Corvette. It remains small.
Even though it's small, I am not compensating for it with possessions. Mostly because having a little dick has not bothered me since High School.
What compensation I do make has had more to do with tongue and fingers than buying shit.
If I was compensating there'd be a list of why I bought what I bought with lots of non-dick related justifications and no admission that I have a below-average size sex organ. Compensation doesn't work the way they think it does.
The "force" of the impugnment is I should feel threatened by people with normal or large sized penises and that my purchases are a sort of display that proclaims to all that, "my cock is the same size as everyone elses!" The corollary is I am correct in feeling bad that I don't have a normal sized prick, like they do, but I am merely choosing the wrong means of feeling better about it.
What they are doing with the comparison is cock-shaming me. Once again, something that would be considered vile and off-limits in another context is allowed because of guns.
If I were to infer that a woman bought something expensive to compensate for her small breasts, how do you think they'd react? But it's OK to shame me over both my small penis and my preferences in cars?
Bravo you inconsistent idiots. Wait, that's not right. You're consistently idiots, it's you inconsistently apply your "logic" because you're idiots.
PS: A free bit of psychology: The people who are most insecure about something are often the fastest and loudest about finding that insecurity in others, whether it exists or not. Compensating for their (often perceived) inadequacies by ridiculing others in the hopes that nobody notices they are as inadequate as they claim the other they are making fun of is.
This accusation is also slung at people who own Corvettes, which I do.
Tell you what, haters...
I do have a small dick.
It was small before I bought my first gun. I was small before I bought the Corvette. It remains small.
Even though it's small, I am not compensating for it with possessions. Mostly because having a little dick has not bothered me since High School.
What compensation I do make has had more to do with tongue and fingers than buying shit.
If I was compensating there'd be a list of why I bought what I bought with lots of non-dick related justifications and no admission that I have a below-average size sex organ. Compensation doesn't work the way they think it does.
The "force" of the impugnment is I should feel threatened by people with normal or large sized penises and that my purchases are a sort of display that proclaims to all that, "my cock is the same size as everyone elses!" The corollary is I am correct in feeling bad that I don't have a normal sized prick, like they do, but I am merely choosing the wrong means of feeling better about it.
What they are doing with the comparison is cock-shaming me. Once again, something that would be considered vile and off-limits in another context is allowed because of guns.
If I were to infer that a woman bought something expensive to compensate for her small breasts, how do you think they'd react? But it's OK to shame me over both my small penis and my preferences in cars?
Bravo you inconsistent idiots. Wait, that's not right. You're consistently idiots, it's you inconsistently apply your "logic" because you're idiots.
PS: A free bit of psychology: The people who are most insecure about something are often the fastest and loudest about finding that insecurity in others, whether it exists or not. Compensating for their (often perceived) inadequacies by ridiculing others in the hopes that nobody notices they are as inadequate as they claim the other they are making fun of is.
13 July 2015
What Happens
Read This
What happens when white people stop trying to prove the negative?
What happens when they say, "gonna be treated like a racist, might as well be a racist (you can also insert sexist, homophobe, islamaphobe, etc.)"?
What happens when they say fuck it and fuck you?
I really want to know.
I suspect that it won't be pretty.
What happens when white people stop trying to prove the negative?
What happens when they say, "gonna be treated like a racist, might as well be a racist (you can also insert sexist, homophobe, islamaphobe, etc.)"?
What happens when they say fuck it and fuck you?
I really want to know.
I suspect that it won't be pretty.
Serbian Wonder Nine
Willard has scored a Zastava CZ999 Compact. With shipping and FFL it ran him a mere $370. The Lovely Harvey expresses that it fits her hand well.
It's compact in the sense that it's 0.4" shorter than the non-compact version.
It's kind of a commander idea, full length grip with a shorter barrel.
My coon-finger review is that it's chunky, but not uncomfortable. Double/Single action. The decocker is also the slide release. Everything is ambidextrously mirrored. Easy take-down. Machining on the inside of the slide is very coarse, on the frame very clean. Bore access seems very high now that I am accustomed to the M&P.
If all goes well, we take it to the range tomorrow and see how it shoots.
There's even Engrish in the Certificate of Authenticity!
It's compact in the sense that it's 0.4" shorter than the non-compact version.
 |
| Why, yes, it does accept a lanyard! |
 |
| Compared to an M1911A1 |
 |
| Compared to an M&P 9 |
My coon-finger review is that it's chunky, but not uncomfortable. Double/Single action. The decocker is also the slide release. Everything is ambidextrously mirrored. Easy take-down. Machining on the inside of the slide is very coarse, on the frame very clean. Bore access seems very high now that I am accustomed to the M&P.
If all goes well, we take it to the range tomorrow and see how it shoots.
There's even Engrish in the Certificate of Authenticity!
Mutable
Symbols are mutable.
The Confederate Battle Flag is perhaps the finest textbook example ever made.
It was an Army flag to identify units on the battlefield.
It's been a symbol of resistance to the evils done during Reconstruction.
It's been a symbol of racists from Reconstruction until at least 1992...
It's been nearly always used by Democrats when used for racism, come to think of it...
It's been a generic symbol of Southern Heritage and Pride (which always glosses over that slavery thing).
Still, symbols are mutable.
Anyone can walk off with your symbol and make it represent hate.
My copy of "Departmental Ditties and Barracks Room Ballads" has a swastika proudly emblazoned on its cover. Since it's a 1913 printing the likelihood of it representing National Socialism is very very VERY small.
Should I burn my copy because an Eastern symbol of eternity, luck and prosperity was suborned? Should we shun Hindus and Buddhists who still use it as part of their rituals and ceremonies?
Your symbol could be next. Any symbol can be next.
And don't think because you're flying a liberal symbol you're immune, because unlike a lot of people condemning the Confederate Flag, I've experienced real hate from people flying the "all inclusive" LGBT rainbow. Yet I still support their rights, because what rights they have are the same rights I have (if only we could get more people on both sides of this debate to become aware of that).
And just to go Godwin... Someone else had a rainbow...
Speaking of mutable, the Pink Pistols has taken the National Socialist badge, made it their own, and run with it! Mutability is not a one-way ratchet.
The Confederate Battle Flag is perhaps the finest textbook example ever made.
It was an Army flag to identify units on the battlefield.
It's been a symbol of resistance to the evils done during Reconstruction.
It's been a symbol of racists from Reconstruction until at least 1992...
It's been nearly always used by Democrats when used for racism, come to think of it...
It's been a generic symbol of Southern Heritage and Pride (which always glosses over that slavery thing).
Still, symbols are mutable.
Anyone can walk off with your symbol and make it represent hate.
My copy of "Departmental Ditties and Barracks Room Ballads" has a swastika proudly emblazoned on its cover. Since it's a 1913 printing the likelihood of it representing National Socialism is very very VERY small.
Should I burn my copy because an Eastern symbol of eternity, luck and prosperity was suborned? Should we shun Hindus and Buddhists who still use it as part of their rituals and ceremonies?
Your symbol could be next. Any symbol can be next.
And don't think because you're flying a liberal symbol you're immune, because unlike a lot of people condemning the Confederate Flag, I've experienced real hate from people flying the "all inclusive" LGBT rainbow. Yet I still support their rights, because what rights they have are the same rights I have (if only we could get more people on both sides of this debate to become aware of that).
And just to go Godwin... Someone else had a rainbow...
 |
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_concentration_camp_badges |
12 July 2015
Rifle On The Wall
"That rifle on the wall of the labourer's cottage or working class flat is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there." -- George Orwell
It's kind of ironic that this British rifle can't be on the wall of the labourer's cottage Mr Orwell had in mind when he made that statement.
Fury Road
I've seen it!
Still haven't paid to see it.
Turns out I have friends who manage at theaters and if I wanted to meet at this theater they'd play it at 0200 because they had to send their copy of the movie back soon.
Networking!
I think this is about the best Mad Max made to date.
Made even better by huge screen and just three people in the whole building.
I am happy that the content wasn't the hyper-feminist diatribe some attributed to the film. The motives of the characters made sense and were personal rather than evangelical.
Still haven't paid to see it.
Turns out I have friends who manage at theaters and if I wanted to meet at this theater they'd play it at 0200 because they had to send their copy of the movie back soon.
Networking!
I think this is about the best Mad Max made to date.
Made even better by huge screen and just three people in the whole building.
I am happy that the content wasn't the hyper-feminist diatribe some attributed to the film. The motives of the characters made sense and were personal rather than evangelical.
Wait What
One of those click-bait things in the sidebar at Facebook got me to click...
"13 Times Hollywood Made Totally Racist Casting Decisions"
One of them is casting Tom Cruise for "The Last Samurai".
Yes, casting an American actor to play an American is racist. For reasons.
I guess that casting the entire Japanese portion of the cast with actual Japanese actors was racist as well?
I cannot wait for the tagline, "Samuel L Jackson IS Tokugawa Ieyasu! IN Sengoku!"
"13 Times Hollywood Made Totally Racist Casting Decisions"
One of them is casting Tom Cruise for "The Last Samurai".
Yes, casting an American actor to play an American is racist. For reasons.
I guess that casting the entire Japanese portion of the cast with actual Japanese actors was racist as well?
I cannot wait for the tagline, "Samuel L Jackson IS Tokugawa Ieyasu! IN Sengoku!"
Mutt
I overemphasize my Scots heritage.
In truth it's but a tiny slice of my ancestry.
The Scots part emigrated south to Jolly Ol' when offers of titles and lands were being made to get Scotland under heel by the English. Family history is a bit vague about when this occurred.
This formerly Scot splinter flat refused to fight for their "homeland", having been bought they stayed bought. Lands and titles in Scotland were forfeited, other lands and titles in England obtained. Not a bad deal. But for a long time they were "that Scottish family" where they'd settled. It took a PR campaign and some royal endorsements to become English and that changed the family's name at the same time.
But this is just my father's side. And that's not even pure English descent either.
I've a Japanese great-grandmother, a German great-grandmother and a mumble mumble don't talk about him great grandfather on Dad's side (rumor has it he was half-breed Souix or some other "we're not going to say inferior, but we're kinda racist about it even if he IS family" mixing).
Even my Italian mother's side isn't near so pure. Both the great-grands on grampa's side were off-the-boat-WoP. But grandma was English/Norwegian.
I am a mutt.
In truth it's but a tiny slice of my ancestry.
The Scots part emigrated south to Jolly Ol' when offers of titles and lands were being made to get Scotland under heel by the English. Family history is a bit vague about when this occurred.
This formerly Scot splinter flat refused to fight for their "homeland", having been bought they stayed bought. Lands and titles in Scotland were forfeited, other lands and titles in England obtained. Not a bad deal. But for a long time they were "that Scottish family" where they'd settled. It took a PR campaign and some royal endorsements to become English and that changed the family's name at the same time.
But this is just my father's side. And that's not even pure English descent either.
I've a Japanese great-grandmother, a German great-grandmother and a mumble mumble don't talk about him great grandfather on Dad's side (rumor has it he was half-breed Souix or some other "we're not going to say inferior, but we're kinda racist about it even if he IS family" mixing).
Even my Italian mother's side isn't near so pure. Both the great-grands on grampa's side were off-the-boat-WoP. But grandma was English/Norwegian.
I am a mutt.
11 July 2015
Seitsemän Kuusi Kaksi Millimeter Täysi Metalli Vaippa
Balls
Dear Republican Party.
Stop running candidates.
Don't even bother.
The fucking speaker of the house doesn't even have the balls to just drop the mic and walk off when the press decides to change the subject of a scheduled press conference.
Lemme help you for next time, Boehner.
Say what you have to say. When they don't ask questions about what you just said, just read the whole speech back to them. Keep doing that until they talk about what you came to talk about or you get bored.
Stop treating them as if they weren't your opponents and you might find your job is a shit load more fun. Act like they hate you, always have and always will, because they do hate you.
Republican Party? Until you get that last message and stop caring if the press likes you, you're not going to ever get anything done.
But I think you already know that, and what the Democrats want is what you want...
Which brings me back to my second and third line above.
Stop running candidates.
Don't even bother.
The fucking speaker of the house doesn't even have the balls to just drop the mic and walk off when the press decides to change the subject of a scheduled press conference.
Lemme help you for next time, Boehner.
Say what you have to say. When they don't ask questions about what you just said, just read the whole speech back to them. Keep doing that until they talk about what you came to talk about or you get bored.
Stop treating them as if they weren't your opponents and you might find your job is a shit load more fun. Act like they hate you, always have and always will, because they do hate you.
Republican Party? Until you get that last message and stop caring if the press likes you, you're not going to ever get anything done.
But I think you already know that, and what the Democrats want is what you want...
Which brings me back to my second and third line above.
My Gawd It's Full Of Nerds
Trying to explain what a comic/sci-fi convention is to The Lovely Harvey...
"Imagine a gun show, except full of nerds."
She didn't run screaming, at least.
She's intrigued enough we might go to the Tampa Comicon or to Necronomicon.
If she has fun, perhaps even Dragon Con where the big dollars are pissed away.
Dragon Con is harder to dial in because The Boy might have State Special Olympics the same weekend.
"Imagine a gun show, except full of nerds."
She didn't run screaming, at least.
She's intrigued enough we might go to the Tampa Comicon or to Necronomicon.
If she has fun, perhaps even Dragon Con where the big dollars are pissed away.
Dragon Con is harder to dial in because The Boy might have State Special Olympics the same weekend.
Hot Lazy Summer Day
With scattered thunderstorms so going for a cruise with the top off is problematic.
It's the sort of day where I really feel like doing something, but can't be arsed to actually do it.
Damned hard-drives ate the shooting budget for a while too.
It's the sort of day where I really feel like doing something, but can't be arsed to actually do it.
Damned hard-drives ate the shooting budget for a while too.
10 July 2015
This Is Tam's Fault
I am glad I had the DVD on hand, otherwise she'd have cost me money wanting to rewatch it.
Icky Reason I Don't IWB
That puckered scar is from a boil that got out of hand. The main part of it is about an inch wide, with scarring going out another half inch surrounding.
I actually did almost die from this because the staph infection got into my bloodstream. Nasty shit.
Well, if I carry inside the waistband, the holster puts a lot of pressure on this spot. Short little guns, like my J-Frame, end right about on top of the scar and really dig in.
It's still tender, three years later.
Fundraiser
Clear your calendars!
Sunday 19 July 2015. 1pm to 4pm at Painting with a Twist...
http://www.paintingwithatwist.com/events/viewevent.aspx?eventID=306486
Passcode is: APPLE to RSVP.
This helps fund The Boy's school, so come out and paint some happy little trees!
If you can't make it, but wish to donate in a non-tax-deductable way; stab the paypal link to the right and I'll forward it to the school.
Sunday 19 July 2015. 1pm to 4pm at Painting with a Twist...
http://www.paintingwithatwist.com/events/viewevent.aspx?eventID=306486
Passcode is: APPLE to RSVP.
This helps fund The Boy's school, so come out and paint some happy little trees!
If you can't make it, but wish to donate in a non-tax-deductable way; stab the paypal link to the right and I'll forward it to the school.
09 July 2015
Pristine
It is clear that I don't shoot enough.
Not a single one of my guns has become all beat to shit by me.
The guns that I have that are in that condition came to me in that condition. I call it 'character' on my old milsurps.
My carry guns are starting to show signs of being carried. They'd show more, but I had an extended period of changing out guns (and holsters) trying to find the combination I preferred.
I also had my carry permit for quite a while before I actually carried much at all. Part of the problem was that I had two handguns at the time. A Glock 21 and an ancient H&R "Automatic" revolver I'd inherited from my grandfather.
The Glock is a big handgun. Too big for comfortable carry for me IWB and Florida doesn't lend itself to wearing enough for concealed on the belt.
Never mind that my car has very narrow seats and the seatbelt latch sits right where the gun wants to be. There's plenty of space on the left side, oddly enough, making me think about cross-draw holsters, which I notice there aren't many.
I've gravitated to pocket carry and shoulder holsters (when it's cool enough). Pockets have a definite size limit.
Pocket carry has also put the most wear on my carry guns. It's a pretty harsh environment in there.
Not a single one of my guns has become all beat to shit by me.
The guns that I have that are in that condition came to me in that condition. I call it 'character' on my old milsurps.
My carry guns are starting to show signs of being carried. They'd show more, but I had an extended period of changing out guns (and holsters) trying to find the combination I preferred.
I also had my carry permit for quite a while before I actually carried much at all. Part of the problem was that I had two handguns at the time. A Glock 21 and an ancient H&R "Automatic" revolver I'd inherited from my grandfather.
The Glock is a big handgun. Too big for comfortable carry for me IWB and Florida doesn't lend itself to wearing enough for concealed on the belt.
Never mind that my car has very narrow seats and the seatbelt latch sits right where the gun wants to be. There's plenty of space on the left side, oddly enough, making me think about cross-draw holsters, which I notice there aren't many.
I've gravitated to pocket carry and shoulder holsters (when it's cool enough). Pockets have a definite size limit.
Pocket carry has also put the most wear on my carry guns. It's a pretty harsh environment in there.
08 July 2015
How's That Gonna Work Again
A guy in Germany hid a Panther tank in his cellar for close 40 years.
This was after driving it around the neighborhood in the late '70's so it's not like nobody knew he'd had the thing.
So if someone in Germany can hide a tank for near 40 years, explain to me again how a handgun ban is going to work.
I really wanna know now.
This was after driving it around the neighborhood in the late '70's so it's not like nobody knew he'd had the thing.
So if someone in Germany can hide a tank for near 40 years, explain to me again how a handgun ban is going to work.
I really wanna know now.
Offensive Beer
Took a poll at the local brewery.
Nobody, including a local pastor, was actually offended by any of the offensive beer names presented in the Slate article, and many went looking for more off-color names to laugh about.
The clientele at Escape is about 40% female and the feeling I get from their responses was that the names could certainly be offensive if you were looking to be offended.
About what I figured.
So many "offensive" things just really aren't out in contact with normal people it seems.
Nobody, including a local pastor, was actually offended by any of the offensive beer names presented in the Slate article, and many went looking for more off-color names to laugh about.
The clientele at Escape is about 40% female and the feeling I get from their responses was that the names could certainly be offensive if you were looking to be offended.
About what I figured.
So many "offensive" things just really aren't out in contact with normal people it seems.
07 July 2015
Dear Slate
You are morons.
In essence you're saying, "this is successful in marketing beer to its intended audience, you must stop doing it because people who are outside that demographic may become offended."
This is akin to demanding that My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic be taken off the air because it's known to offend middle-aged bikers through the existence of Bronies. Hasbro will cater to nine-year-old girls and Bronies with MLP:FiP, but will ignore the offence to bikers because the bikers typically don't buy the product.
The target demographic for the "offensive" beers isn't people who would get offended at the off-color humor.
The real message in the article is, "why don't they make a beer that caters to MEEEEEEEEEEE?" Actually, someone probably does... I remember the white cans with the black "BEER" label.
Here's something I can say with reasonable certainty. I am the housewife in my household, The Lovely Harvey is the "man" of the house with the job. What I get to do is hang out with the other wives at work social functions while the men talk shop. Guess how many of those girls are drinking beer. Go on.
Me and maybe one other (not 32%). Wine is the preferred drink of the person who's most likely to be offended by these "sexist" labels followed closely by sweet cocktails (or is it sexist to say cock now when referring to mixed drinks?).
If I go to these women you're apparently trying to shelter with your demand for more sensitive beer names, I think you're going to find they're going to laugh at both the humor on the labels and you for thinking those names are so offensive they need to be removed from the market.
Something else that bears mentioning is the women I know who drink beer, aren't the same sort of women who drink wine. Entirely different mindset about lots of things. Humor included.
I think what we have here is the brewers understanding their market better than a writer at Slate and catering to it, rather than worrying that they're missing 1/3 of their market from that pandering.
We don't really need to go too far here in the blogs. Tam is a beer drinker, we could ask her if she's offended. Tomorrow I'm going to a local nano-brewery and I can put it to both the owner and the beer-drinking female portion of the customers.
In essence you're saying, "this is successful in marketing beer to its intended audience, you must stop doing it because people who are outside that demographic may become offended."
This is akin to demanding that My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic be taken off the air because it's known to offend middle-aged bikers through the existence of Bronies. Hasbro will cater to nine-year-old girls and Bronies with MLP:FiP, but will ignore the offence to bikers because the bikers typically don't buy the product.
The target demographic for the "offensive" beers isn't people who would get offended at the off-color humor.
The real message in the article is, "why don't they make a beer that caters to MEEEEEEEEEEE?" Actually, someone probably does... I remember the white cans with the black "BEER" label.
Here's something I can say with reasonable certainty. I am the housewife in my household, The Lovely Harvey is the "man" of the house with the job. What I get to do is hang out with the other wives at work social functions while the men talk shop. Guess how many of those girls are drinking beer. Go on.
Me and maybe one other (not 32%). Wine is the preferred drink of the person who's most likely to be offended by these "sexist" labels followed closely by sweet cocktails (or is it sexist to say cock now when referring to mixed drinks?).
If I go to these women you're apparently trying to shelter with your demand for more sensitive beer names, I think you're going to find they're going to laugh at both the humor on the labels and you for thinking those names are so offensive they need to be removed from the market.
Something else that bears mentioning is the women I know who drink beer, aren't the same sort of women who drink wine. Entirely different mindset about lots of things. Humor included.
I think what we have here is the brewers understanding their market better than a writer at Slate and catering to it, rather than worrying that they're missing 1/3 of their market from that pandering.
We don't really need to go too far here in the blogs. Tam is a beer drinker, we could ask her if she's offended. Tomorrow I'm going to a local nano-brewery and I can put it to both the owner and the beer-drinking female portion of the customers.
06 July 2015
Is Life Is No Getting Out Alive
The ending of the Firecracker 250 Firecracker 400 Firecracker Medal of Honor 400 Pepsi Firecracker 400 Pepsi 400 Coke-Zero 400 Powered by Coca-Cola last night this morning had a pretty spectacular crash where the Three Car driven flown by Austin Dillon got up into the fencing that's there to keep the car from continuing up into the bleachers.
The fencing did its job, but some debris still made it into the stands and some people were injured, none seriously and only one taken to the hospital.
But over at FoxNews... A video speculating about whether the fans can sue NASCAR over this. Perhaps. But the real thrust of the piece is all about how things need to be made 100% safe for the fans. Probability 1.0 safe. Impossible for a fan to be injured safe.
I'll bet they'd approve a meteor defense system...
The thing is, despite the injuries sustained last night, you're a lot more likely to get hurt in the stands falling while trying to save your beer from spilling when you were watching the race while walking instead of where you were putting your feet. And at $8 for 12 oz. of Budweiser, by The GAWDS you are GOING to save that beer!
It's more dangerous leaving the track to head home than it is sitting in the stands!
The current talking-head-press for safety definitely forgets that people used to die when shit went wrong at the races. It wasn't even very long ago, really. NASCAR has been proactive about making things safer and is constantly working on it, and they talk about it all the time.
So piss off FoxNews commentators. You probably had to google every proper noun you used in your commentary.
The fencing did its job, but some debris still made it into the stands and some people were injured, none seriously and only one taken to the hospital.
But over at FoxNews... A video speculating about whether the fans can sue NASCAR over this. Perhaps. But the real thrust of the piece is all about how things need to be made 100% safe for the fans. Probability 1.0 safe. Impossible for a fan to be injured safe.
I'll bet they'd approve a meteor defense system...
The thing is, despite the injuries sustained last night, you're a lot more likely to get hurt in the stands falling while trying to save your beer from spilling when you were watching the race while walking instead of where you were putting your feet. And at $8 for 12 oz. of Budweiser, by The GAWDS you are GOING to save that beer!
It's more dangerous leaving the track to head home than it is sitting in the stands!
The current talking-head-press for safety definitely forgets that people used to die when shit went wrong at the races. It wasn't even very long ago, really. NASCAR has been proactive about making things safer and is constantly working on it, and they talk about it all the time.
So piss off FoxNews commentators. You probably had to google every proper noun you used in your commentary.
Seagate Sucks
Or so I am told by every review I've read in my quest to replace a failed Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 drive.
My history with Seagate...
The failed drive was made on 09Sep08. As was its partner.
The drive that came with the computer is a 320gb Barracuda 7200.10; made on 22May08.
The oldest drive I still use regularly is a 250gb Barracuda 7200.9 made on 02May06! This is the Bootcamp'd Win7 Ultimate/64 drive I use to run my flight sims.
All in all I've had good luck with Seagate.
My original Bootcamp drive that ran WinXP Pro still lives in an external enclosure as spare data storage. It's a Western Digital Green Power made on 20Jan09.
I've a stack of old IDE drives that probably still work too.
My history with Seagate...
The failed drive was made on 09Sep08. As was its partner.
The drive that came with the computer is a 320gb Barracuda 7200.10; made on 22May08.
The oldest drive I still use regularly is a 250gb Barracuda 7200.9 made on 02May06! This is the Bootcamp'd Win7 Ultimate/64 drive I use to run my flight sims.
All in all I've had good luck with Seagate.
My original Bootcamp drive that ran WinXP Pro still lives in an external enclosure as spare data storage. It's a Western Digital Green Power made on 20Jan09.
I've a stack of old IDE drives that probably still work too.
Tapped
The universe can sense when you're tapped out.
Budgeted for my vacation to Indiana.
Saved for a whole year.
Went on vacation and spent the money.
Hard drive crapped out on the main machine!
Luckily, and happily, it was in a RAID mirror!
No data lost, yet. Both drives were same make, model and bought at the same time. So the remaining drive might be on very borrowed time.
Fingers crossed that it lasts a bit!
Budgeted for my vacation to Indiana.
Saved for a whole year.
Went on vacation and spent the money.
Hard drive crapped out on the main machine!
Luckily, and happily, it was in a RAID mirror!
No data lost, yet. Both drives were same make, model and bought at the same time. So the remaining drive might be on very borrowed time.
Fingers crossed that it lasts a bit!
04 July 2015
Not Legally Binding Document
In Congress, July 4, 1776. [239 years ago]
The unanimous Declaration of the united States of America,
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.
He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.
He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.
He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:
For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing taxes on us without our consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:
For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:
For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:
For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:
For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.
We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.
New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts: John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware: Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
[Type this thing in manually sometime instead of copy pasting it. The stuff we put up with on a daily basis would have the founders shooting already. Any time someone calls you intolerant, remember we're tolerating far more than they were in 1776 and they literally called their suffering "the intolerable acts"!]
This is yet another day that's not about veterans (dead or alive) or soldiers. Those are Memorial Day, Veteran's Day and Armed Forces Day (respectively). Today is also not Flag Day, despite the prominent red-white-and-blue bunting.
Set off some fireworks, burn some questionable meat and reflect on what we've lost and could regain.
Never forget what those men signing that document were risking, and many of them gave nearly all.
The unanimous Declaration of the united States of America,
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.
He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.
He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.
He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:
For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing taxes on us without our consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:
For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:
For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:
For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:
For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.
We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.
New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts: John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware: Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
[Type this thing in manually sometime instead of copy pasting it. The stuff we put up with on a daily basis would have the founders shooting already. Any time someone calls you intolerant, remember we're tolerating far more than they were in 1776 and they literally called their suffering "the intolerable acts"!]
This is yet another day that's not about veterans (dead or alive) or soldiers. Those are Memorial Day, Veteran's Day and Armed Forces Day (respectively). Today is also not Flag Day, despite the prominent red-white-and-blue bunting.
Set off some fireworks, burn some questionable meat and reflect on what we've lost and could regain.
Never forget what those men signing that document were risking, and many of them gave nearly all.
Doomed
This just in, the F4F-2, widely deployed by our Naval forces in the Pacific Theater are unable to out maneuver Japanese A6M-5 aircraft in flight regimes that favor the enemy aircraft.
We are completely doomed in this theater and should sue for peace immediately as there is no hope whatsoever to attain any aerial victories against these nimble and untouchable foes.
Combined with the virtual eradication of Chennault's Flying Tigers there is no reason to continue to fight against the Imperial Juggernaut.
Or maybe an F-16D-40 beating an F-35A pre-production plane when specifically testing particular flight regimes and envelopes to explore the idea of changing the flight control laws isn't the end of the world?
We are completely doomed in this theater and should sue for peace immediately as there is no hope whatsoever to attain any aerial victories against these nimble and untouchable foes.
Combined with the virtual eradication of Chennault's Flying Tigers there is no reason to continue to fight against the Imperial Juggernaut.
Or maybe an F-16D-40 beating an F-35A pre-production plane when specifically testing particular flight regimes and envelopes to explore the idea of changing the flight control laws isn't the end of the world?
03 July 2015
I Am Now Obamacovered!
Got my information packet and booklet explaining what the VA will cover.
I skimmed it.
Can't wait to start the tedious process to get my disability reassessed again.
Thanks for erasing all those records you fucking prick!
Designing a system that takes years to navigate and closing all unresolved cases older than a year?
How can I tell this was a government program?
Even more fun was learning that if I'd had a higher percentage, the reassessments were nearly automatic.
Have I ever mentioned that there's not a reputable lawyer I've spoken to who will represent me?
Because I have the honor of serving between the end of Vietnam and before the beginning of Gulf War I.
This also means no VFW, American Legion, etc... All the heavyweight veterans orgs don't give two shits about Cold War Vets either (at least they sound sorry about their charters forbidding it).
I'd prolly not be near so bitter about it, but I know more than a couple "Vietnam Era" vets who did the exact same things as I did in Germany and came as close as I did to Vietnam while enlisted. But the VA rolls over backwards and they're allowed to join up with the VFW.
I skimmed it.
Can't wait to start the tedious process to get my disability reassessed again.
Thanks for erasing all those records you fucking prick!
Designing a system that takes years to navigate and closing all unresolved cases older than a year?
How can I tell this was a government program?
Even more fun was learning that if I'd had a higher percentage, the reassessments were nearly automatic.
Have I ever mentioned that there's not a reputable lawyer I've spoken to who will represent me?
Because I have the honor of serving between the end of Vietnam and before the beginning of Gulf War I.
This also means no VFW, American Legion, etc... All the heavyweight veterans orgs don't give two shits about Cold War Vets either (at least they sound sorry about their charters forbidding it).
I'd prolly not be near so bitter about it, but I know more than a couple "Vietnam Era" vets who did the exact same things as I did in Germany and came as close as I did to Vietnam while enlisted. But the VA rolls over backwards and they're allowed to join up with the VFW.
Bad Form
Some has-been actor has said, "I am sorry that you took the racist thing I said at face value as racism. I will now explain that what I meant is not the plain, racist, meaning of what I said. In the course of the explanation it will become clear that I am not actually sorry and did, indeed, mean the racist thing I said at face value. It will also become clear that I am actually sorry people are upset that I am a racist rather than being sorry about being a racist."
I am getting so very sick of these non-apologies.
02 July 2015
Mount Soledad
I've posted from time to time on this thing.
Today I find that it's still going on!
When I last looked there was an order to destroy it.
Now we're back to stays and appeals and the Feds selling the land to the people who tried to buy it from San Diego but couldn't because the ACLU has decided that this cross WILL be destroyed.
If it's not on government land, there's no legal way to force that so the sale to a private owner must be blocked.
What a fucking waste of money and effort.
Today I find that it's still going on!
When I last looked there was an order to destroy it.
Now we're back to stays and appeals and the Feds selling the land to the people who tried to buy it from San Diego but couldn't because the ACLU has decided that this cross WILL be destroyed.
If it's not on government land, there's no legal way to force that so the sale to a private owner must be blocked.
What a fucking waste of money and effort.
The Stakes
In my flag waving post...
What happened to Brendan Eich is exactly the wrong way to handle political disagreement.
What was announced is that if you disagree with the winners in a particular political issue on your own time with your own money your livelihood is at risk.
He was forced to resign for backing the losing side in the gay marriage debate.
Did he preach at work? No.
Did he change any policies at Mozilla to make it unfriendly to homosexuals? No.
He donated money in the course of peaceful political discourse.
And was excoriated for it when the donation list was made public.
I am unsatisfied about the circumstances surrounding the release of that list.
But knowing that your political donations can be made public and your donations to any given cause can be used as grounds for termination? It's known as having a chilling effect on such donations.
As I am sure the people who leaked that list were well aware of.
What happened to Brendan Eich is exactly the wrong way to handle political disagreement.
What was announced is that if you disagree with the winners in a particular political issue on your own time with your own money your livelihood is at risk.
He was forced to resign for backing the losing side in the gay marriage debate.
Did he preach at work? No.
Did he change any policies at Mozilla to make it unfriendly to homosexuals? No.
He donated money in the course of peaceful political discourse.
And was excoriated for it when the donation list was made public.
I am unsatisfied about the circumstances surrounding the release of that list.
But knowing that your political donations can be made public and your donations to any given cause can be used as grounds for termination? It's known as having a chilling effect on such donations.
As I am sure the people who leaked that list were well aware of.
Flag Waving
If I wave a Confederate Battle Flag, what am I saying?
Think hard about that.
The reason I say you should think hard on that is very rarely are the people waving or displaying these flags being asked what they are saying.
We sure are hearing from the people who've decided that waving said flag can only mean racism. They communicate that anyone who says they're displaying that flag for reasons other than racism is lying about their motivations.
Good footing to start on. "You there, lying racist!"
I've mentioned before that symbols are mutable.
It means that any symbol's meaning is very subjective.
Because there's a large group of people who find this flag racist, I'd normal say, "let's be polite about it and take them down." The problem with the being polite "solution" is the Confederate Battle Flag is just the latest in the "everything is racism if you're white" parade.
I've mentioned this sort of thing before. Somebody wants a race war. I don't think it will end like they think.
We're rapidly getting to the point where not being a racist is no longer a defense to the charge of being a racist. I am a racist because I am white is a racist accusation!
It will just be assumed that I am lying about it and I will be punished as if I had been a racist all along.
The most disturbing thing about the accusation of lying is that the reason it sticks. They've made telling the truth criminal in some cases and career ending in others (just ask Brendan Eich). It makes lying about your true thoughts and positions a matter of self defense! What we're getting is worse than racism and thought police. We're getting our freedom to peacefully object to political policy removed bit by bit.
Legal participation in the political process, as is your right as an American citizen is now grounds for termination should your political position be in opposition to... to... it can be anything. No it can't be anything, it's always the position of one side in these debates that causes it.
Compare the treatment of Brendan Eich to that of Irene Gallo in the social justice war camps to see what I mean.
Edit to add:
Think hard about that.
The reason I say you should think hard on that is very rarely are the people waving or displaying these flags being asked what they are saying.
We sure are hearing from the people who've decided that waving said flag can only mean racism. They communicate that anyone who says they're displaying that flag for reasons other than racism is lying about their motivations.
Good footing to start on. "You there, lying racist!"
I've mentioned before that symbols are mutable.
It means that any symbol's meaning is very subjective.
Because there's a large group of people who find this flag racist, I'd normal say, "let's be polite about it and take them down." The problem with the being polite "solution" is the Confederate Battle Flag is just the latest in the "everything is racism if you're white" parade.
I've mentioned this sort of thing before. Somebody wants a race war. I don't think it will end like they think.
We're rapidly getting to the point where not being a racist is no longer a defense to the charge of being a racist. I am a racist because I am white is a racist accusation!
It will just be assumed that I am lying about it and I will be punished as if I had been a racist all along.
The most disturbing thing about the accusation of lying is that the reason it sticks. They've made telling the truth criminal in some cases and career ending in others (just ask Brendan Eich). It makes lying about your true thoughts and positions a matter of self defense! What we're getting is worse than racism and thought police. We're getting our freedom to peacefully object to political policy removed bit by bit.
Legal participation in the political process, as is your right as an American citizen is now grounds for termination should your political position be in opposition to... to... it can be anything. No it can't be anything, it's always the position of one side in these debates that causes it.
Compare the treatment of Brendan Eich to that of Irene Gallo in the social justice war camps to see what I mean.
Edit to add:
01 July 2015
Why
How come my M&P 9 seems all whizzer-shiny high-tech and modern when I put a light on it?
I think it might be the resemblance to Winona from Farscape.
No, it doesn't look a thing like it, it's a feel thing.
We're all about teh feels now, right?
I think it might be the resemblance to Winona from Farscape.
No, it doesn't look a thing like it, it's a feel thing.
We're all about teh feels now, right?
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