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I Hope Mr. Completely and Keewee are OK

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Homes evacuated after major landslide on Whidbey Island
At least 17 homes have been evacuated after a major landslide overnight on Whidbey Island.

Island County Sheriff Mark Brown said no one was hurt, but one home was destroyed by mud and debris when the slide happened in an area near Alderwood Street and South Fircrest Avenue just after 4 a.m.

“It’s a pretty massive slide,” he said.

Brown said a relief center for displaced residents has been established at a nearby community center.

It was not clear exactly what caused the slide, as there was no rain overnight in the area.

Check the link for pictures. For once the media didn’t exaggerate. It was a major slide.

Wow

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We’ve all heard how China is “investing in green energy,” and if we don’t do the same and subsidize companies over here, we’re going to be left behind and be dependent on foreign technologies.  So $535M goes to Solyndra, and it’s down the tubes, not to mention:

Amonix ($5.9M)
Energy Conversion Devices ($13.3M)
Nordic Windpower ($16M)
Konarka Technologies Inc. ($20M)
Evergreen Solar ($25M)
Raser Technologies ($33m)
Beacon Power ($43M)
Range Fuels ($80M)
Ener1 ($118.5M)
A123 Systems ($279M)
Abound Solar ($400M)

This list is not complete, and there are many other “green energy” companies with government-guaranteed loans that are struggling, but I found this fascinating:

China’s Suntech in Bankruptcy Proceedings

It came as no surprise today when the photovoltaics manufacturer Suntech, the world market leader in recent years, filed for bankruptcy in China. The company was well known to be in serious financial trouble and has been under investigation for having spent the equivalent of almost US $700 million for bonds that probably are fraudulent, to provide financial collateral for solar projects in Germany. Last week Suntech forfeited on a US $541 million bond, and the company’s chairman, Shi Zhengrong (photo), a scientist widely admired the world over as an innovative entrepreneur, had to step down, as speculation centered on whether the Suntech’s municipal sponsor, the city of Wuxi, would step in to save it with some kind of bailout package.

The news, however expected, is nonetheless, stunning. In recent years, Suntech led the pack of low-cost Chinese PV makers who laid waste to commodity manufacturers in Europe and the United States, making life impossible for innovative startups like Solyndra in the U.S. and Germany’s Q-Cell, the world market leader when Suntech first emerged as a force to be contended with. But then there was sharp push-back from the United States and Europe, which imposed trade sanctions after their manufacturers complained the Chinese were “dumping” PV modules at below production costs. It now appears those complaints were well-founded, as the Chinese have run up huge debts that they cannot pay back, reportedly from selling their product at a loss. As the old joke goes, for only so long can you do that and make it up in volume.

Looked at another way, the Suntech collapse appears to be a case of a technology revolution devouring its own children. According to Keith Bradsher of The New York Times, who made his reputation as a technology and business correspondent covering the troubled U.S. auto industry, “China’s approach to renewable energy has proved ruinous, financially and in terms of trade relations with the United States and the European Union. State-owned banks have provided $18 billion in loans on easy terms to Chinese solar panel manufacturers, financing an increase of more than tenfold in production capacity from 2008 to 2012. This set off a 75 percent drop in panel prices during that period, which resulted in losses to Chinese companies of as much as $1 for every $3 in sales last year.”

Suntech itself is believed to owe its Chinese creditors upwards of $2 billion.

Read the whole thing.

Get this through your head: This is not CAPITALISM. This is what happens when governments try to INFLUENCE THE FREE MARKET.

Quote of the Day – Robb Wins Edition

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The Winnah – from Sharp as a Marble:

Again, here’s a key illustration that these people think we’re too stupid to make the right choices, yet think the government (full of the same people who cannot make good choices) is up to the job after being chosen by the very same people that cannot make good choices.

We are being lorded over by people who cannot properly use Twitter, couldn’t boil water without a 12 page PowerPoint document and a governmentally Licensed Dihydrogen Monoxide Joule Application Specialist, or even have the most cursory comprehension of basic physics much less economics. They are not only stupid, they are dangerously so.

First runner up, however, goes to Tam:

I don’t have a problem with the idea that there are certain people who need to be dragged out behind the barn and Ol’ Yellered. The guy who shot up the theater in Colorado? Or what’s-his-face in Norway? That’s The Guy. He admits to being The Guy. Those guys are wasting precious oxygen that paramecia could be using to evolve.

If society wants to get all squeamish in those cases, then hand me the claw hammer and I’ll go in there and administer 28 ounces of Estwingazine intracranially and we’ll be done after you pass me that Handi-Wipe.

Some days picking just one is hard.

So I Bought Another Rifle

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I decided to pull the trigger, so to speak, and purchased another Remington 700 – this time a .300 Winchester Magnum.  This one is also a 5R, but it has a 26″ fluted barrel and a Bell & Carlson stock.  All the metal is finished in black Cerakote.  It’ll be a couple of weeks before I have it in hand, but it looks a lot like this one:

photo Rifle.jpg

photo Stock.jpg

photo Barrel.jpg
I’m no wimp, but when I go to the range, I like to SHOOT, and .300WM exceeds my shoulder capacity after ten five rounds, so I have to put a muzzle brake on it.  Looks like there’s plenty of meat at the end for threading.

What say the Hive?  Any recommendations for “Best Muzzle Brake for a .300 Win Mag”?

Oh, and my original 5R is going up for sale.  I’m only going to keep one .308, and that’s going to be the M25.

UPDATE:  Three nibbles on the .308 already!

UPDATE II – 3/29:  I’ve got a buyer!

Quote of the Day – Inside Higher Ed Edition

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These sentences have absorbed and rewarded my attention for days on end. They are a masterpiece of evasion. The paragraph is, in its way, quite impressive. Every word of it is misleading, including “and” and “the.”

This is from a piece discussing a new 2010 book by discredited history professor Michael Bellesiles.  In particular, it refers to a paragraph in the promotional material for that book.

Seems that Bellesiles rubs off on his publishers, too.

The linked piece, “Amazing Disgrace,” is a pretty comprehensive review of the Arming America scandal, or as he terms it l’affaire Bellesiles, and worth your time.

Especially the last couple of paragraphs.

(h/t to Irons in the Fire for the link.)

Glock Perfection

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Say Uncle linked to a Brietbart piece, ABC’s ‘Nightline’ Takes Aim at Glock Handguns in which ‘Nightline’ really hammers on the meme that Glock (the manufacturer) is eeeeeeviiilllll.

Something I noted though – I recently received a complimentary copy of Paul M. Barrett’s Glock: The Rise of America’s Gun from the publisher for review. I’m way overdue on that review (and honestly, others have done that far better than I), but I noted throughout the Brietbart column that it seemed that whoever did the ‘Nightline’ hit piece had read Mr. Barrett’s book, too. Used it as an outline, almost. When Barrett details how Glock would allow police departments to trade in their old service weapons for a discount on new Glocks, and then would sell those weapons to wholesalers, I could read an undercurrent of anger at how Glock was “putting guns on the streets” – especially when they took older Glock models (with pre-ban “high-capacity” magazines) in trade, thus illustrating the absurdity of the 1994 AWB. The ‘Nightline’ piece expands on that anger.

I’ve met Paul Barrett – he attended the Gun Blogger Rendezvous a couple of years ago, trying to gin up enthusiasm for his book. He seems a nice guy and a good investigative reporter, but I thought at the time that his book would be used as ammunition for the anti-gun forces out there, and I believe it has been.