TEA party pictures soon

I managed to squeeze an hour in at my local tax day TEA party, and took a bunch of pictures. Those will be up tonight or tomorrow.

Quick thoughts;
99% of the signs were handmade.
Somehow almost all of these evil racist homophobic violent protesters looked like my grandma.
Saw two overt birthers, and one truther.
No signs were really over the top (IE party crashers)
Only one young couple refused to have their picture taken with their sign, and avoided me.
Lots of petition signing going on.
Parking overflowed into nearby lots, had to walk for about 5 minutes to get there.

Update: flickr photoset here

More Taxes or More Jobs?

California leads by example, reminding the rest of the country that you can either have more taxes or more jobs, not both.

Death by 1000 cuts is a perfect way to word it.

Lets dust off the old Laffer curve...

My Rifle

Stag. Lower, LPK, upper, stock, and buffer are Stag Arms. It's really nothing too special, but it's reliable. I'm not sure why Stag gets a bad rap. The only issue I had with it was some upper/lower pin fitting, but after that, all it needed was lube and the occasional cleaning. I cycled about 500 rounds of wolf through it (only 500 because it's useless for anything but short range plinking), and it stank, but it cleaned up just fine. I had some issues with feeding initially, but those disappeared when I broke it in and/or learned how to lube it properly. It has been smooth and accurate, and I'd buy another in a heartbeat. The carry handle sight holds a zero nicely, no matter how many times I remove and replace it.

Handguard. The Magpul MOE Handguard was the only purchase that was made only for aesthetic reasons, but it turns out that it's actually a better fit for my small hands. Since it's easier for me to get a grip around the smaller handguard than around the standard handguard, I've noticed more recoil control, and better general control when holding the rifle by the handguard.

Zero. It's zeroed for 200 yards with the Improved Battlesight Zero. I'm waiting until I can get some better distance estimation before I zero it back to 300 yards. I've considered a thinner sight post because I really like them, but I'm going to wait to make sure it would improve my shooting. If it ain't broke, and all that...

Flash Hider. It's fitted with a Vortex flash hider, which virtually eliminates muzzle flash, especially under semi-automatic fire. While flash elimination is technically useful, it really doesn't apply to defense shooting, so it's really just a neato purchase. But the best thing about it is that it rings like a tuning fork when the bolt closes. Just a little bit more character for the rifle. :)
*SHHHUNKiiiinnnnnnnnnggggggg*


Left. The Stag lefty upper is due to my cross dominance. Interestingly enough, I shoot more accurate single shots left handed, but more accurate rapid fire right handed. Despite being a lefty upper, I don't have any problems shooting right handed. I also haven't had any complaints from other people who have shot it right handed. Because the upper is the only part that is left handed, I've worked out different ways to operate the mag release (on the AR that isn't mag-locked), and can reach the bolt release with my left middle finger, but I have to break my grip to do it.

Stock. A Stag Arms 8 position stock with a zip tie around the back of the stock to attach the small clip of a sling that won't around the thick loops for a sling to run through. Just more mounting points.

Beard Saver. There is a crocheted wrap around the beginning of the stock to keep errant beard hairs from becoming pinched between the stock and buffer tube. When this happens, beard hairs are yanked out, much to the shooter's annoyance. You can decrease the chance of this by getting a stock that fits the buffer tube better, or you can eliminate it by buying something like the Magpul UBR. Or you can just spend a few fractions of a cent on a short length of camo yarn, and do what I've done. No beard hairs have been lost since then. Some electrical tape has also been placed over a hole in the top of the stock which, much less commonly, was known to pull beard hairs.


Grip. Inside that Magpul MOE grip is a complete replacement (lefty) bolt, and a field repair kit of spare parts. Aside from storage, the grip also improves on the original ergonomics in a number of ways. It's thicker, which allows for a stronger grip because it fits my hand better. It's at less of an angle, which gives my wrist a more natural, and therefore more comfortable and stronger, position. Finally, the new backstrap repositions the web of my hand so that the trigger pull is more straight back. All these things mean more comfort in shooting, and more strength in one-handed holding. I bought it for the storage, but the ergonomics were a pleasant surprise.

Safety. I use an ambi-safety because I find it easier to operate from both sides. Using my thumb to push it down into the firing position, and the first joint on my trigger finger to drag the lever back to safe. I have small hands, and I don't know if you're supposed to be able to flip the lever to safe with your thumb, but I can't, and this is what works. With practice, it's very smooth to go back and forth without compromising your grip.

Lock. California legal ARs must be in one of two configurations. This configuration includes "evil" features (pernicious pistol grip, atrocious adjustable stock, and foul flash hider!) so it must have a magazine of a capacity no greater than 10, and that magazine must require a tool to remove. I've used a Bushmaster mag lock (the silver nut where the mag release should be) with a Bushmaster 20 round magazine body that's blocked to only take 10. At first I was bothered by only having 10 rounds in a defense weapon, but I realized that I could do more with 10 rounds in this rifle than I could with more rounds in any other gun.


Sling Mount. At the base of the buffer tube is a Vltor ambidextrous single point sling mount. It's set for lefty right now, and I like the single ring instead of two rings on both sides. I may replace it with one of those new slider mounts that lets the mount clip slide from left to right, but it's not to difficult to hold it right handed in the same mount. I like the idea of single point slings for some situations, but I've tried to keep as many slinging options open as possible.

But all that is just half of what makes this my rifle. The other half is me.

Me. I can't say that I have shot my rifle until the pins walked out and the handguard grooves wore smooth, it only has about 1500 rounds through it. But I've tried to learn from each one of those rounds. I have no interest in making noise and flash, I want my rifle to be an extension of my will. Live fire practice was only a part of the training. In fact, for every real bullet I've shot, I've probably shot three imaginary ones. Practicing shooting "O"s on the teevee with my unloaded rifle has grown the rifle to my shoulder, the stock to my cheek, and the sights to my eyes. As I've said before;

You will be amazed when spotting a target, snapping your rifle to your shoulder, lining the sights on your target, and achieving a motionless trigger break comes as naturally as reaching your hand out, and catching a ball in the air.

I'm not sure the rifle is a complete extension of my will just yet, but it's damn close. I look forward to that day, and will continue to work toward it.

Upbeat and Downbeat

Ring My Bell - Anita Ward

[direct link]

Humming - Portishead

[direct link]

Closer
No hesitation
Give me
All that you have

And it's been so long, that I can't explain
And it's been so wrong
Right now, so wrong

Naked
My thoughts are creeping
Too late
The show has begun

And it's been so long, that I can't confess
And it's been so wrong
Right now, so wrong

Is it all as it seems
So unresolved, so unredeemed
If I remain, how will I know

And it's been so long, that I can't be sure
And it's been so wrong
Right now, so wrong

Quote of the ungovernment

A government is a body of people; usually, notably, ungoverned.
~Joss Whedon

*sigh*

Honestly, this really sucks the drive right out of you. What's the point?

From Yuri via IRC

Autotune the news is awesome.

Autotune The News is a collection of videos where they electronically "tune" the actual voices of people in the news to fit in a song they produce around the news items. It's also goddamn hilarious.

Here's the most recent video, and here's the second most recent.

The most recent video has Close Captioning, which I recommend you turn on, and the second has the words along the bottom.

As near as I can tell, these are actual words spoken by these newscasters, politicians, and pundits. I must express disbelief at some of the idiotic topics that come up in congress, and confusion about Katie Couric's writers (at least I HOPE she has writers for this drivel).

All 7 Attendees Agree… Belleville "Coffee Party" a Huge Success

Whoops.

But don't worry, by CNN's count, there were 100,000 people who showed up.

Quote of the that's HIS problem...

To put this in perspective, when you shoot somebody in self defense, the goal isn’t necessarily to kill them, it is to stop them. You want the bad guy to stop doing whatever it is they are doing that caused you go pull a gun in the first place. Live or die is really irrelevant. You want them to leave you alone. Sadly, the best way to make somebody leave you alone is to shoot them in their vital organs, and that often results in the bad guy’s death. But that’s his problem, not yours.
~Larry Correia

For the serial killer who has everything...

Get your Dexter kill shirt here.

Yeahhhh...

Free speech is free speech when the gov SAYS it's free speech

And art is art when the gov SAYS it's art!

Protesting the government is the most important form of free speech. Why should the government get to say who can and can't protest, and how?

From Uncle

Classico - Tenacious D the pick of destiny

[explicit]

Quote of the solution to the problem IS the problem!

The regulatory scheme in the US has grown so complex that no one and no organization can understand the entirety of the impact of any new additions or changes. That's an argument for reducing mandates, not expanding organizations to somehow retain competency, because as Hayek argues, it becomes impossible to predict and resolve problems. Instead, the organization creates problems and then has to fix them, creating even more unforeseen problems that require even more interventions, and so on.
~Ed Morrissey

ObamaCare timing hoist by excessive regulation petard

Hotair: The knowledge problem: Congress doesn’t have any, even its own bailiwick

The act required CEOs to release information as though under oath in order to hold them criminally responsible for misleading financial statements, ... If these companies know that they will lose the money from the tax credits Democrats canceled, they have to inform their shareholders immediately, not in 2014 [when most of the health care reform bill activates], thanks to the rules Congress imposed on them.

Congress tells these big companies they have to report any possible negative financial news ASAP to keep them honest, then they write ObamaCare specifically so the timing is to their favor, holding off on the major changes until after elections to minimize the legislation's negative impact on the elections. Except the big companies have to report the potential negative impact of the legislation as soon as they get the news, regardless of the carefully developed timeline.

It seems the level of regulation has gotten so great that not even the people who write the regulation can understand the full impact of their actions.

This way lies a collapse of our regulatory legal system, or our civilization. I'd prefer the former.

New layout!

Now with header randomizer!

Enjoy hitting F5!

Good news! 162,000* new jobs!

*number may include 48,000 temporary jobs created by hiring by the Census Bureau

I <3<3 my laptop

About five years ago I got my eMachines m5309. Over two years ago I made this post about my laptop.

My epically reliable emachine scared me recently. You see, the power cable had been problematic after years of twisting and pulling, and refused to work unless the cable around the plug (on the laptop end) was just so, so I used a zip tie to hold the cord in a position that kept the power flowing. I knew it was bad to bend electrical cords so severely, but it ran, and I hoped it would hold out until the laptop gave up the ghost. It would have to be soon, right?

Nope. For about a year and a half, the laptop chugged merrily away until just recently. There was a pop, a flash, and the smell of burning electrical equipment. The heat melted the shielding around the core wire, and electricity arced between the two poles, shooting sparks, and burning a hole straight through the outer insulation. I fiddled with the cable, and satisfied my curiosity that it was teh dead...

Well, it had a good run. No, a GREAT run! But it's still a shame that it ends like this. Especially from an issue with the cable. Of course it happens at a time when we've run into a number of other unexpected expenses... When it rains it pours. Well, might as well see if I can salvage anything from it.

I then set about loose-wiring up the power to see if the motherboard and (most importantly) hard drive were ok. I was pretty sure the hard drive was ok, but didn't have much hope for the motherboard. Those kinds of voltage spikes can easily mess up sensitive electronics.

I pulled apart the power plug (on the laptop side), until it was down to the bare cylinder of the plug with the wires soldered to the housing, and twisted them together with the newly stripped wires from the AC adapter. I plugged it in to the laptop, made sure the wires were secure, and plugged the AC adapter into the wall...

It didn't blow up, which is a good sign, and the light indicates it's getting power. Lets try turning it on... It started up normally, and all the files were available! It was running a little slow, but I was just happy it ran! I'll be able to save my data! I can't believe it's ok after that... Hmmmm... The plug is destroyed, but everything else still works. I can't just wrap it up with electrical tape, because this thing gets too hot, and it'd probably melt right off the wires. Even if I use wire caps, they still won't be that secure. Maybe I can just soldier the wires directly to the motherboard. That would be pretty secure. If only I could make a new plug...

I wander around the house, looking for something I can use to make a strong housing for the plug, when lightning strikes! JB Weld!

I clean the wires and leads as best as I can, and twist them together as tightly and completely as I can, then mix up the JB Weld. I applied it while it was still runny, and it insisted in drooping to whichever side was at the bottom, so I kept flipping the JB Weld covered wires and plug until it started to become more solid. I worked it with the chopstick I used to mix it to make sure it fit around the wires and plug correctly, and in a few minutes (I used the 4 minute kind), it was almost rock solid. I eyed my handiwork and noted that the drooping exposed a few tiny points of the twisted wires that were just barely visible in the light. I wrapped the ends in electrical tape for added safety, and let it set for a little longer.

I plugged it in to the wall, and it didn't explode, which was good. (I later realized that I didn't think to check if JB Weld was a conductor. I'm lucky it's a strong insulator, because if it WAS a conductor, I would have permanently encased the plug in conducting steel, and probably destroyed the AC adapter with a full short) I plugged it in, and it worked fantastically!

After testing the box for a bit, I kept noticing how slow it was. When it overheated and shutdown on me, I realized I hadn't cleaned the heatsink in a very long time! I cracked it open and found the heatsink almost completely blocked with compacted dust! It had been overheating so severely that the CPU was cycling down to keep from frying itself! This puts terrible strain on the processor! I quickly cleaned out the heatsink, put it back together, and started it up again. Right back to normal. This thing is the fucking little laptop that could!

This laptop refuses to die.

It ran with almost no ventilation for weeks, took power spikes without flinching, saved itself from burning out when overheating, and just keeps on going.

The hinges that the screen opens up on froze up, and the housing holding the screen to the hinges cracked and broke off soon after, so the screen is held up by a Rube Goldberg wire hanger bent to hook to the PCMCIA wireless card. The screen is covered in scrapes and smudges to the unprotected LCD. The plastic housing it cracked and broken off in a variety of places. The battery refuses to hold a charge. The plastic on the bottom is darkened by the constant heat. The tactile click on the touchpad left click button is gone. The rough plastic under the keyboard and in many other places is worn completely smooth. It baked for months at a time, running constantly with no surface stand-off for the intake vent.

The motherboard still works, the CPU fan still spins, the ORIGINAL HARD DRIVE still works great after countless reformats, all the keys on the keyboard still work, PCMCIA slot (and wireless card) still work, the display is still bright and usable, the CDROM works (but complains), all USB ports work, and the touchpad still works perfectly.

This laptop has gone above and beyond, and when I get a replacement soon, it will sit behind the teevee as a Linux server barely making a sound.

Far, far, FAR more than I expected from an eMachine.

Bravo.

Obama makes fun of opponents' concerns immediately after passage, tells supporters bill will take time

When opponents of the bill say dangerous things will happen, he says he signed the bill and the birds were still chirping after his pen left the paper, so they're silly and wrong.

When supporters of the bill say it's not making changes fast enough, he says the bill will take time to go into full effect, and calls for patience.

He knows exactly what's in this bill, what it does, and when it does it, so playing smart right after you played dumb isn't convincing anyone.

Real world impact of ObamaCare menu mandate

Buried deep inside the ObamaCare bill was a bit of "health" legislation requiring restaurants with more than 20 locations to post caloric counts for each item on their menu. This information is to be made available on all signage, menus, and brochures.

Is it expensive to update all that information every time an ingredient changes?
How will businesses react to these additional costs?
How will restaurants with 19 locations, ready to expand and hire, react?
Will consumers react differently when they are confronted with the shocking reality that a large pepperoni and sausage pizza with ranch dressing on the side is not as healthy as a bag of carrots?
Most importantly, how will the added expense to these the providers of unskilled labor affect the employment of lower income workers?

If you have half a brain or even an elementary grasp of economics, you already know the answers to these questions. But if you're a liberal or a half-retarded marmot, click through and watch the video and find out why this seemingly innocuous addition to the bill will make things harder on businesses during "The worst financial crisis since The Great Depression" ~Obama