SOTU Reaction
Category: Uncategorized
Quote of the Day – Thomas Sowell Edition
The 2020 Iowa Caucus is a Disaster
And yet these people want to run OUR HEALTH CARE.
They had THREE YEARS to implement whatever changes they wanted to improve the system, and what did they get? A clusterfuck.
I seem to remember the Obamacare website took about three years to develop, too, before it was rolled out to similar results. How much did the Iowa caucus disaster cost the DNC?
The memes are funny, though:
Inflation, Revisited (Again)
So in August, 2014 I ran by my favorite Merchant O’Death’s place of work and picked up some powder. They’d just gotten in a shipment of about a hundred pounds of various types (still no Unique – which at that point should have been renamed “Unavailable”), and I’d had him set me aside a bit: three pounds of H110 and one of Accurate 4064.
Remember when powder was around $20 a pound? Yeah, so do I. Four pounds of powder set me back a little over $116 including tax.
Ouch.
In 2007 I did a post on the basics of reloading with a list of recommended materials. After my 2014 bulk purchase, I revisited my list and checked the price increases. I ran across that post looking for something else, and thought this would be a good time to do it again.
Originally I recommended the Lee Anniversary Kit, which consisted of their Challenger “O”-press, powder measure, powder scale, reloading manual, priming tool and (most) shell holders. It was $89.99. That particular kit is no longer available, but the current one is the Challenger Breech Lock Anniversary Kit, which at $126.99 $146.99 contains:
- Lee Breech Lock Challenger Single Stage Press
- 1-Breech Lock Die Bushing
- Lee Large and Small Safety Prime
- Lee Cutter and Lock Stud
- Lee Perfect Powder Measure
- Lee Chamfer Tool
- Lee Primer Pocket Cleaner
- Lee Safety Powder Scale
- Lee Powder funnel
- 2 oz Tube Lee Resizing Case Lube
Next up came dies, and I again recommended an all-Lee lineup:
Carbide .38/357 4-die set: $30.99 $41.99 $48.99
Carbide .45ACP 4-die set: $21.99 $41.99 $47.99
Steel .30 Luger 3-die set: $20.99 $30.49 $33.99
.22-250 3-die set: $24.99 $30.99 $33.99
.243 Winchester 3-die set: $24.99 $30.99 $33.99
.308 Winchester 3-die set: $24.99 $30.99 $33.99
.30-06 3-die set: $24.99 $30.99 $33.99
.30 Carbine carbide 3-die set: $30.79 $38.49 $43.99
Next up was lube. The Lee kit above has their lube, but I recommended a can of Hornady’s One Shot spray lube. For the sake of economy, I’ll leave it off this list again.
I recommended a steel dial caliper micrometer: Still $25.99 It went up a dollar to $26.99
I recommended a Hornady universal reloading tray: $4.79 $8.99 Also a $1 increase to $9.99
In the article I stated that a minimum of TWO reloading manuals should be on hand. The Lee Anniversary kit had one in it originally, but not now. The Speer manual at that time cost $26.99. Last time it was $29.99. Now it’s dropped to $27.99, and the Lee manual has dropped from $21.99 to $19.99.
Then there was powder and primers for all the calibers we were buying dies for. Powder is per pound, primer pricing is per thousand.
IMR 4064: $18.99 $25.87 $29.99 and again out of stock
Winchester 296: $17.99 $21.60 also $29.99, but now they have it.
Winchester 231: $17.49 $21.04 It’s really jumped up to $28.99, but it too is back in stock.
CCI Small Pistol: $21.99 $26.99 $32.99. That’s a big price jump.
CCI Large Pistol: $21.49 $31.49 $32.99 – not so big a change.
CCI Small Rifle: $22.49 $31.49 $32.99 again.
CCI Large Rifle: $22.99 $31.49 $32.99! At least they’re consistent.
And then there was case prep, cleaning and miscellaneous:
Iosso Case Cleaning Kit: $14.99 $16.79 up a dollar-twenty at $18.99
I originally suggested a primer pocket cleaner and chamfer and deburring tool, but those are included in the Lee Anniversary kit.
Safety Glasses: $8.99 $4.49 $4.99. Still a bargain.
So in 2007 all the materials you’d need to start reloading for eight different calibers, with the exception of projectiles, was $542.76. In 2014, $702.12, an increase of 29.4%. In 2020, $787.78. Powder has gone up 45% over 2014’s prices, but at least you can find it. Primers have gone up about 8.5% on average – and THOSE are readily available, too. Dies have increased by about 10%. Overall, a 12.2% increase, but according to this inflation calculator, $702.12 in 2014 is equivalent to $758.57 in 2019, or only a 1.3% increase. Since 2007, $670.82 in adjusted dollars, or 17.4% since then.
I’m STILL glad I didn’t record bullet pricing. I don’t think I want to know how much THAT’S gone up.
Quote of the Day – Instapundit Edition
From this post:
Were White Nationalists Really Planning To Attack The Virginia Gun Rights Rally? According To Police Records, Not Exactly. “Firstly, the group decided not to actually go to a rally. They also decided not to start any violence. They planned to wait for a race war to start, as voice recordings show, and then join in.” So basically their take was the same as the media’s.
Analysis: True. And SAVAGE.
Did You Ever Wonder…
…why we red-necked, knuckle-dragging, gun-hugging, bible-thumping, cousin-humping, racist, sexist, misogynist, homophobic, Islamophobic Neanderthals with low sloping foreheads won’t vote Democrat?
These guys do:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dvalDyYHEY]
Wait until November. Who’ll be laughing then?
UPDATE: The RNC has (timely for a change) responded, and done it well:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuzfmxSvnD0]
Quote of the Day – (Formerly) Great Britain Edition
From Sultan Knish’s A Tale of Two Englands via Instapundit:
The child rapists did not believe that their actions were wrong under Islamic law. And they weren’t.
The Manchester City Council and the GMP just accepted this reality as they have accepted it so often. They buried the minutes, shut down the investigation, and walked away from the screams of the girls.
They did it for multiculturalism, integration, and community relations. They did it for social justice.
We know that no real action was taken because the girls were troubled. They didn’t matter. And their bodies and lives could be sacrificed for the greater good.
The real tragedy is not that the rapists didn’t understand it was wrong. It’s that the UK no longer does.
The Sky is ALWAYS Falling
Fifty years of Failed Eco-Pocalyptic Predictions
What do they all have in common?
- Actual proof isn’t necessary because by the time we have it it will be too late to fix
- The only solution is central planning by a world government run by our intellectual superiors
- People who oppose this are “deniers” who should be shut up at any cost
- There are too many people anyway, and a mass die-off would be good for the planet.
In other news, the glaciers in Glacier National Park that were supposed to be gone this year are still running strong, and Michael Mann lost his defamation lawsuit because he still wouldn’t release the raw data he used to produce his infamous “hockey stick” global temperature graph.
Unintended Consequences
A recurring theme at Quora in the gun discussion is “what makes America different from the rest of the world when it comes to gun control?”
Well, this for instance:
Virginia gun sales dramatically increase in 2019: ‘I didn’t think I would ever be buying one’
Pullquote:
66-year-old Ida Wright decided today was the day she was going to buy her first hand gun. The grandmother of eight says growing crime, and now fears of gun restrictions by lawmakers, convinced her that it was time to make the purchase.
“I didn’t think I would ever be buying a gun, but things are changing so drastically,” Wright says. “If we don’t protect ourselves, who else is going to protect us?”
Wright isn’t alone.
Not by a long shot. (Pun intended.) RTWT.
Now I don’t know where Ms. Wright lives, and it’s entirely possible that crime there IS growing, but nationwide it’s been dropping for a couple of decades and is now at levels not seen since the 1960’s.
But that’s not the Media Narrative™. They’ve been trying to frighten people into supporting “gun control” but instead are promoting gun ownership. Gun sales have repeatedly set records for the last ten years. The media tries to convince us that fewer and fewer people are purchasing more and more guns, but the facts don’t support that.
Quote of the Day
