Quote of the Day – Rachel Lucas (Once More!)

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It’s 10:50 p.m. in Turin and if I stay on the internet and see one more poll like this CNN one that has Obama tied with Romney, but with a +11 Democrat sample – which is 57% higher than the advantage Obama had in 2008 – then one of my carotid arteries will spontaneously hemorrhage. It’s not that such polls are right and therefore scary, it’s that they are so unfathomably insulting to human intelligence that key biological systems self-destruct to protect the cerebral cortex from irreparable damage secondary to what we in the medical field call WTF NeuroParalysis.

Rachel at her best.

Insulting to human intelligence?  The media knows its audience, Rachel.  It’s been playing to them for decades.

UPDATE:  I had the day off for personal reasons, and driving around between appointments, I tuned into the Rush Limbaugh show for a change just to see how histrionic he would get on this last day before the election.  He kept hitting the topic of the polls, the polls, the polls!  It’s a tie!  Obama’s ahead!  Romney’s ahead!  It’s too close to call!  He made largely the same point that Rachel does above, pointing out the (obvious) skewing, generally buried several paragraphs down in the poll reports.

Paraphrasing, he said something along the lines of “I thought this close to the election the pollsters would be more interested in being right than in trying to influence the vote, but I was wrong.  What are they going to do when Obama loses big?”

I shouted the answer back at the radio:  Blame it on voter suppression and CHEATING.  They’ve been screaming about voter ID being “voter suppression” for months now, and the Democrats always accuse the Right of what they themselves are doing, so you can bet your ass they’re going to scream that the election was stolen by voter suppression and fraud.  I just hope Romney wins, and by a big enough margin to overcome their cheating.

Interesting Data Point

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I have the day off, and during a spare few minutes I decided to run over and visit my favorite Merchant O’Death.  I noticed a sign I hadn’t seen posted before, and asked about it, then asked if I could blog about it.  Their response, “It’s there for public consumption.  Go ahead.”  So I shall.  The sign in question:


What’s the deal?  About 80% of the guns that come back due to reliability issues are not due to gun problems, but ammo problems.  The customer is advised to pick up a box of PMC or CCI or anything on the shelf not from WalMart, and try the firearm again, and then if there are still function problems, then bring it back.

The overwhelming majority don’t come back.

Doing a little Violence Policy Center Research™ (a Google search), I turned up a few links looking for “WalMart ammo quality,” like this thread from Cheaper than Dirt’s Forum from 2009.  Excerpt:

I recently talked to a shooting range owner about this issue. He told me they had noticed more issues with ammo bought at Wal Mart (misfires) than ammo bought at other retailers. He had heard the the major U.S. manufacturers actually set aside ammo that wasn’t perfect (i.e. discolored) to sell to Wal Mart at a discounted price. This person’s info is generally accurate so, who knows? — “Speed Biker”

The next few replies were in defense of reputable ammo manufacturers and their quality control, and that’s what I’ve found over most of the web, but I like this gunshop, and I trust the guy behind the counter when he tells me that they’re seeing people have a lot of trouble with Wally-World ammo not functioning well (FTF, FTE, misfires, etc.)  I don’t know if this is a recent development, influenced by the massive ammo orders placed by the federal .gov, or what, but I found it interesting that it was such a problem that they felt they had to put up a sign to preemptively stop “warranty” repairs that weren’t, in fact, warranty repairs.

Anybody have any similar stories?

German Gun Control

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Seems to work over there as well as it does everywhere else:

Perverted gynaecologist who kept sick photos of his patients also owned nearly 1,000 guns

Police have discovered a gynaecologist was storing nearly 1,000 guns as well as keeping photos of his patients’ private parts.

The medic, Dr Christian Koller, stored the pictures in hidden cupboards and safes in his Munich office and apartment, alongside machine guns, rifles, pistols and thousands of rounds of ammunition.

The officers were conducting a raid on the surgery after former patients made a complaint of malpractice against him and were not expecting to find over 700 guns.

Police say the doctor – who has surrendered his medical license – told them he was an ‘obsessed collector.’

‘He has a collector’s licence to keep some of the weapons as historic firearms but nothing on this scale,’ said a police spokesman.

His junk-on-the-bunk picture actually qualifies as an “arsenal” for a change!

There look to be several select-fire and full-auto weapons in there, too.  I see only sixty or so guns in that shot, so there has to be 10x that many we haven’t seen.  Obviously enough to get the Daily Mail editor’s knickers in a twist, since “over 700” and “nearly 1,000” are separated by, oh, about 300. 

Author Unknown

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Probably Major Caudill, USMC (Ret.):

We’re the Battling Bastards of Benghazi,
no fame, no glory, no paparazzi.

Just a fiery death in a blazing hell,
defending the country we loved so well.

It wasn’t our job, but we answered the call,
fought to the consulate, ‘n scaled th’ wall.

We pulled twenty countrymen from the jaws of fate,
led them to safety, ‘n stood at th’ gate.

Just two of us, ‘n foe by th’ score,
but we stood fast to bar th’ door.

We called for reinforcement, but were denied,
so we fought, ‘n we fought, ‘n we fought, ‘n we died.

We gave our all for our Uncle Sam,
‘n Obama didn’t give a damn.

Just two dead SEALS, who carried the load,
no thanks to us, we were bumps in the road.

Quote of the Day – Higher Education Edition

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(M)ost school systems are run by people who think that a four year degree in literature is a wonderful thing, and I do, too, but the country is kept running by people who know temperatures and pressures and torques and amps and volts and combustion characteristics and other things that don’t fit in the average sit-com. Yes, there are some colleges offering these things, but there are also a lot of people who picked up the skills on the job. — Mostly Cajun, Ch-ch-ch-changes!

I graduated from college with a degree in what I call “nuclear basket-weaving” – a Bachelor of Arts in General Studies, my three areas of concentration (in descending order): math, physics and engineering.

This gave me a good technical background but no actual practical knowledge other than how to do drafting, back when it was still done with paper and pencil.  That did not make me all that employable.  I started off as a helper in an electric shop at $5/hr, back when the minimum wage was $3.35.  And remember, I had a four-year degree (after 5½ years of school)!  The bottom quintile of pre-tax income in 1986 was $14,300 or less.  I made less.  I did not tell them (nor did I feel) that $5/hr was beneath my dignity.  I said “Thank you, sir, you won’t regret this!”

That $5/hr job allowed me the opportunity to learn, and the stuff I know today I learned on the job. It’s made me very employable. I’ve been unemployed once over the last twenty-six years, and that was over Christmas of 2009. Currently, I get a call or an email from a headhunter about once or twice a month. That’s because I do know stuff about temperatures and pressures and torques and amps and volts and bits and bytes and words. Kids coming out of college these days? Not so much.  And the majority of the ones who do?  Foreign students who are likely to take that knowledge home with them.

My income now puts me on the ragged edge between the fourth and fifth quintiles.  Add in my wife’s income, and we’re solidly in the (bottom of) the top 20% of income earners in the U.S. as households go.

All because I studied stuff that makes me valuable to the people who produce wealth.

As I’ve pointed out previously, Mike Rowe has a lot to say about this topic that’s worth listening to.