Category: Uncategorized

I Love Numrich Gun Parts!

Remember my 1917 Enfield? (Manufactured by Winchester in 1918!) Well, at the last AR15.com shoot in Casa Grande, it stopped ejecting reliably. Turns out, the ejector wasn’t. It’s supposed to be spring loaded, but it was obvious the spring was a goner, and as a result, the ejector wouldn’t hold its position. Well, Numrich Gun Parts to the rescue! One ejector for the 1917 Enfield for $12.85 is on its way with just a few clicks of a mouse. Hopefully it will get here before next Sundays John C. Garand match at the Tucson Rifle Club. It would be tough to get off 10 rounds in 70 seconds if the rifle doesn’t eject.

Man, a part for an 86 year-old gun purchased in Arizona over the internet from a vendor in (spit!) New York, at 7:00 PM Mountain time.

What a neat time to be living!

Two Very Interesting Links from Coyote at the Dog Show

In the first, it appears that there will be some outstanding varmint shooting in the Boulder area if common sense finally overcomes the bunny-hugger mentality there and allows people to control prarie dogs on their own damned property. Seems that Boulder’s rodent-friendly policy is creating prairie dog boomtowns. Money quotes:

Heeding concerns of animal-rights activists, Boulder has been relocating prairie dogs to the greenbelt for years to protect them from extermination. Now the city that took the lead in controlling human population growth is bursting with prairie dogs.

No one knows exactly how many are out there. But one University of Colorado study indicated prairie dogs are living at a density of more than 27 animals per acre in the greenbelt, compared with between four and 14 per acre in undisturbed prairies.

—

“We never went as far as the city went,” said Boulder County Commissioner Ron Stewart, who oversees 70,000 acres of county open space. The county does not accept prairie dogs from private lands.

While the county exterminates prairie dogs on open space in isolated cases, it mostly traps the excess animals and sends them as living kibble to ferret and raptor programs.

It’s “more in the natural scheme of things that prairie dogs are the food for a number of raptors,” Stewart said.

—

But nature is likely to do the job (of reducing populations) — sooner, rather than later — through plague, (said Bryan Pritchett, the city’s wildlife biologist).

Plague rarely jumps from prairie dogs to humans, but it could leave a lot of dead rodents around,

—

David Crawford, of Boulder-based Rocky Mountain Animal Defense, vows to fight any effort to kill prairie dogs in the greenbelt or anywhere else.

“We’re going to do our best to see that not one of them gets harmed,” said Crawford

Yes, I know that nobody’s going to allow shooting anywhere near occupied buildings, but this is the kind of idiocy that results when people go into full bunny-hug mode.

The second link is about the Brady Center giving Wyoming an “F” grade in “gun safety.” Read the whole thing, but the conclusion Swen draws is absolutely correct:

This leads me to suspect that the Bradys are concerned with keeping us safe from guns, rather than safe with guns — that ‘gun safety’, as they use the term, is just gun control by a different name.

Yes, and I’ve said that before myself.

I’ve gotta add Swen to the blogroll. (OK, that’s done! – Egad! He had me blogrolled already!)

Hillary Joke

Heard this morning on the local Clear Channel AM news/talk radio station:

Hillary gets elected President. In her first night in the Whitehouse, she is visited by the ghost of George Washington.

“How can I best serve the people?” Hillary asks George.

“Never tell a lie,” says George.

“Hmm…,” says Hillary, “I don’t think THAT’s gonna happen.”

The second night, Hillary is visited by the ghost of Thomas Jefferson.

“How can I best serve the people?” Hillary asks Tom.

“Listen to the people!” his spirit advises.

“I don’t think so,” says Hillary.

On the third night Hillary is visited by the ghost of Abe Lincoln.

“How can I best serve the people?” Hillary asks Honest Abe.

“Go to the theater,” Abe says.

Probably an old, recycled joke, but a good one!

Last Michael Jackson Post, I SWEAR

Know why no one’s seen Michael Jackson for a while? Because he went to see his plastic surgeon. Seems he’s worried about being in court with everyone staring at his (irrepairable) nose, so he went to the doctor to do something about it.

“Doc,” said Mike, “do something, ANYTHING to draw attention away from my nose!”

This was the result.

Brains Full of Mush

This week’s New Blog Showcase from Truth Laid Bear includes this little piece from Esmeralda of “word gets around” who asks:

I don’t know exactly how much it costs to go to Mars, but I’m sure it’s a lot. Is it right to spend so much money on going to space when it could be used elsewhere? Like in Ethiopia where they might be facing another famine. I know it’s a simplistic question. For a start, money can do a lot, but it is not the solution to everything. Anyway, even if raising money is difficult, knowing who to give it to & how to spend it is just as complicated. That doesn’t stop me wondering, why don’t governments do more to help people who are in trouble (not just in Ethiopia) instead of going to Mars?

—

I think that there’s a difference between research for things like medicine, and space exploration. Some research has to be done, if possible, regardless of what else is going on in the world. With other research, it’s less clear. I don’t know much about these things; I just feel that it would be a good idea to sort Earth out before going to other planets.

Her commenters pile on:

Couldn’t agree more… apparently this Mars mission is costing something like US$800 million.

These trips to Mars, and the whole man-on-the-moon thing fascinate me, but it’s nice that I live in a rich country where I have enough to eat and even enough for a computer etc etc. What about all these people, everywhere, who are never going to get to see pictures of Mars?

Yeah. I agree entirely.

—

I too agree. It is more than just a waste of money. It is a question of values, or rather lack of them.

However there must be intelligent life out there, otherwise they would have contacted our sick societies.

—

You tell em Esme, No we really cannot have both, unless one believes in alchemy, or right-wing BS.

How can a sane, empathetic populace waste time, money, resources on such inanities when so much suffering goes on among people and other sentient beings on this planet?

Perhaps the greedy powers that be wish to distract the brain-washed with ever more bread and circuses.

Let’s see, one commenter who is glad (and possibly ashamed) that (s)he has enough to eat and a computer while others do not. Ok.

Another commenter hates the U.S. (and possibly the world, but I think more likely just the U.S.) and our “sick societies.”

A third bitches that our populace isn’t “sane” or “empathic.

Let me see if I can answer her questions. Why should we go to Mars? Because the future of mankind is not on this planet, it’s out there. And the sooner we start, the better. The argument that we should spend our money saving Ethiopia and other nations with severe problems is the argument that the entire world should be made uniformly miserable – just so it’s “fair.” I’m sorry, but I’d rather we forged onward and dragged everybody along into prosperity after us. That method has worked far better than top-down imposition of “equality.” Investment into directed scientific research to solve real, identifiable problems does wonderful things for our economy – particularly when the results of that research aren’t stamped “secret” and hidden in vaults because the research was done to build a better weapon system.

As to ‘sort(ing) Earth out before going to other planets’ – if that attitude was the historical one, the New World would never have been discovered by the Europeans. (Yes, yes, I know. That’s the ideal alternate history of the Left.) But then there wouldn’t have been a migration out of Africa into Europe, either.

And we’d all be living in Ethiopia.

All 5.5 million of us.

Quote of the Week

Via Mad Ogre, off the CZ forums:

“I’m a Caucasian Christian male between the ages of 18 and 65, I can’t legally be offended.”

As Mad Ogre said, painfully true.

Doing “Good” vs. Doing RIGHT

I found this link somewhere, and I apologize for not being able to credit the source, but here’s an interesting article on the folly of recycling that I felt ought to be read more widely:

Recycling Programs Cost Central Florida Residents

When Central Florida began recycling programs years ago, it sounded like a win-win situation. We were protecting the earth and saving money. But, instead, a Channel 9 investigation discovered recycling is like throwing money away.

No, it isn’t “like” throwing money away, it IS throwing money away.

It’s just about a daily ritual. You throw that plastic drink bottle in the recycle bin and you’ve done your civic duty of recycling. And after everything gets sorted out and shipped off, your city or county gets paid for each ton delivered. That adds up fast, right?

“Our material coming into this plant has probably tripled,” says Debbie Sponsler, Orange Co. Solid Waste.

Last year, Orange County sold its recyclables for $56,000. The problem: it spent roughly $3 million to pick it all up.

Wow! What a wonderful idea! Lose over $2.9 million in a year! Isn’t government efficient?

And we want these people in charge of our healthcare?

“We look at it more as it’s something we’re doing for our residents, and for the county,” says Sponsler. “We don’t do it to make money, we do try to cover our costs.”

Really? And a net expenditure of fifty-two times more than income qualifies as “try(ing) to cover” your costs?

Yes, you are the government, where a budget in that has only a 6% increase rather than a 15% increase is said to have suffered an 8.5% cut.

And that’s where you come in, again. The county adds a fee to your garbage bill to cover those costs, almost $3 million worth.

Surprise! It’s not saving anybody a dime!

In St. Cloud, city leaders were spending $220,000 a year on recycling, but getting back just $19,000.

Hell, they’re models of fiscal responsibility in St. Cloud. That’s only a 10:1 ratio.

“No, [we haven’t made any money off recycling]. It’s always been [a loss]. We’ve always been on the losing side,” says Ray Tobey, Superintendent of Solid Waste.

The curbside pickup program is now shutting down.

But will there be a reduction in the garbage bill?

Didn’t think so.

And, when we checked with several cities in Central Florida, we learned many admitted to either losing money each year or barely breaking even.

So why do they keep doing it? Not for the cash, but to keep landfills from filling up.

But there is real debate about whether we’re running out of space. In fact, one study concludes that all the trash America will generate in the next 1,000 years could fit in an area 100 feet deep and 35 square miles.

And while environmentalists say that’s a lot of land, others say, put it in context of the whole country. And, in fact, some communities are opening up landfills and inviting other places to truck in trash just to make money.

Get into an airplane. Fly at 20,000 feet in a circle of 25 miles radius from the center of any city, look down at the ground, and tell me that there are NO suitable places to put a landfill.

But in the end, regardless of debate, recycling is about doing the right thing, proponents say. After all, almost one-third of what we dump in those bins is now getting re-used, and countless jobs have been created.

Those are big benefits to that ‘save the planet’ plan, as long as you don’t mind picking up the bill.

Right. Jobs created by taxing people and redistributing their wealth through the wonderfully efficient hands of government, to process materials that are cheaper to manufacture new, and would produce jobs if “recycled material” wasn’t MANDATED by the very governments that waste taxpayer money forcing people to recycle.

It’s not the “right” thing to do. It’s environmental do-goodism. That is all.

This Guy Gets It

Rich from Shots Across the Bow has an outstanding post up on “…(W)hy I’ve decided to arm myself after 40 years of going unarmed.” Money quotes:

Because until now, I’ve had very young children in the house, and the risk/reward calculation said it was better to rely on the law of averages than to a gun. Crime is fairly low and I live in a safe area. The chances of something happening where I might need a gun were very low, so the value of having guns around the house was also very low. At the same time, because I had small children in the house, there was also an appreeciable risk of a real tragedy. In my opinion, the reward (increased ability to defend myself and my family), was outweighed by the potential danger (a child getting ahold of a gun). Add to that reasoning the steps needed to make a gun at home safe from a child (unloaded, trigger-locked, and locked away) and the gun would be virtually useless in an emergency situation.

Excellent logic.

Last week, I started a discussion on my personal philosophy. In the process, I started thinking about the implications of some of my basic assumptions, particularly the first one, about maximizing freedom. Freedom carries a price along with it; responsibility. If I want a small, unobtrusive government, then I have to shoulder much of the burden of my own existence. I’m responsible for earning a living, paying my taxes, paying for my medical care, and so on.

I also must shoulder at least some of the responsibility for my own protection.

OUTSTANDING! Given all the pertinent information, he has made the right decision for him!

Read the whole thing.