Idea 437

The problem is that, in meatspace wargames such as at Ft Polk, there is an explicit trade-off between MILES gear that is utterly digital, or simulated munitions that possess real external and terminal ballistics. The digital gear supports extensive automated systems to characterize the armed engagement, at the cost of significant loss of authenticity.

The laser systems can also teach the wrong lessons. Lasers can’t penetrate drywall or foliage; bullets can. The laser vests, according to the RAND report, “equate concealment and cover, a dangerous lesson for ground forces who sometimes demonstrate a frightening ignorance of the difference between the two.” (The JRTC sometimes uses paintball-like “simunitions,” but they don’t have the information-gathering capabilities of the lasers.)

The solution would add the support for scalable automation (position, time, operator, manner of impact, option for umpiring or other mediation) to the physical entity of a moving, material, nonlethal bullet that will penetrate enough concealment (but not body armor) to drive the point home, like paintballs do.

How cheap are RFID tags nowadays?

Develop a plastic bullet containing an RFID and an impact-activated transponder.

• When the round is fired, it squawks a timestamp and position coordinates provided by the rifle.
  
• When it hits something, it squawks its identity and a timestamp.
  
• When it hits a trainee, the trainee's load rig (containing a compatible transponder) hears the identity, estimates how near the bullet came to vital organs, and barks out a hit, wound, or miss, and so forth. Even a bullet impacting a tree or rock in front of the soldier will register with the soldier's rig.
  

Develop a cartridge around that bullet, that either cycles the service rifle or cycles a training top-end for the service rifle.

When the ammunition is issued to the soldier, a transponder interrogates it so the supervising system knows which soldier is carrying it.

Without knowing much about RFID tags and their RF capabilities, I'm guessing that the location of a given tag or swarm of tags could easily be triangulated by a limited number of networked location-aware transponders. I'm also guessing that the tag can be interrogated in milliseconds. And that it can be powered by the acceleration of a small magnet through a wire coil, both packed comfortably aboard the bullet, so the tag gets an ample shot of DC both when it is shot down the barrel and when it bounces to a stop.

At the end of the exercise, golf carts equipped with transponders and vacuum cleaners scour the play area and sweep the spent bullets up, either for re-use or disposal.

Nothing in this concept is incompatible with the existing MILES gear. Both systems can overlap, and probably should, because the RFID-tagged bullets will not duplicate the exterior ballistics---the range and accuracy---of real rifle bullets. If they did, they would be real rifle bullets and carry the lethality of real rifle bullets.

Merry f^c%in8 Christmas to me and a cast of millions

This greets me in my work inbox:

You are receiving this e-mail as a secondary means to notify you that your personal information was among that stolen in the recent theft of Veterans Affairs electronic data. For more information please contact the Veterans Affairs contact center at 1-800-333-4636 or visit the VA Website at http://www.firstgov.gov/veteransinfo.shtml.

Maybe I'll have grounds to sue, inspite of being still alive and not depending on portable oxygen. But to sue whom? DoD? VA? SecDef? Congress?

Please view the project of dismantling the Social Security system not as an economic objective but as a matter of simple criminal justice. Our government practically requires us to create and maintain a vulnerability to identity theft to simplify their governance over us. In this policy this government is insubordinate to us.

The vulnerability is made even sharper and more prevalent, the exposure to risk greater, for persons who have served in her defense.

This is intolerable.

Weck up to Dave

Dave and I got some dinner the other night, had a great time.

We have differences: he's atheist, I'm a lapsed agnostic, for example, but we share a love for and commitment to the American West. We just had trouble putting our fingers on exactly what about the American West evokes that love.

And Dave, go for the Bresnan phone. It costs more than the Vonage, but it coexists much better with the pipe it's connected to.

David is only the second blogger I've made my way to meet, WalterinDenver being the first. But that might not count for some of you, because I met him before I launched WUTT!.

Big Sky

It ain't no fooling, this is Big Sky Country. I'm TDY at Malmstrom AFB, hoping to sip coffee with David MSC sometime in the next few days.

It's prettier than I thought it would be, though colder and wetter.

A lot is running through my mind as I write. So much I want to do. But my day job as dragon soldier and rest-of-the-time job as father really do interfere. Shameful.

KISS: I have a real and tangible animus toward the notion that things should be kept simple, Stupid.

Stateless places: Both a CSI episode and a Law and Order: Criminal Intent episode remind me of Bill Bradford's Liberty poll some years ago, demonstrating that the State's reach is by nature and of right ought to be limited.

f^ckerz r out of control

ATF has raided KT Ordnance, a maker of lawful 80%-complete firearm receivers.

This agency needs to be shut down. Baby steps would be OK but eventually they need to close their doors. The few agents in that organization that are worth a sh17 can find work in another agency where they are needed to, oh I dunno, find goddamned militant islamicists in the US?

JPFO asks rhetorically why KT was singled out. It wasn't because they were supporters of JPFO. It was because KT embraced JPFO's assertion that the ATFE is a rogue agency.

They can't let that go without comment, now can they?

Number Two

It is now official, a second gifted-talented kid inhabits our house: Boy.

The school district tested him and qualified him for their advanced program. God have mercy on them all. He starts K next year.

What will it take?

Does one need any further or better or more clearly-defined reason for the US Department of Defense to halt the use of the Social Security number as an identifying number, than this one?

This is an official announcement from The Enlisted Association of the National Guard, of the United States (EANGUS).

Theft of Veterans Affairs (VA) Personal Data

Monday, May 21, 2006. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has recently learned that an employee, a data analyst, took home electronic data from VA, which he was not authorized to do. This behavior was in violation of our policies. This data contained identifying information including names, social security numbers, and dates of birth for up to 26.5 million veterans and some spouses, as well as some disability ratings.

Emphasis mine.

Will we soon have some veteran, with the plastic tubes shoved up his nose to deliver his life-preserving oxygen, bitching to Congress about how his identity has been stolen, how his mil pension is now redirected to a meth lab on the other side of the Mississippi? How about a Korean-era serviceman's widow dumped on the curb because she couldn't make her rent payments, because her identity was stolen?

Will it have to come to that?

Arm up!

Today, ladies and gentlemen, is Patriots Day.

Fa bene

One of the Christmas gifts from years past I finally got around to trying: pasta attachments that mate to the massive frigging power-take-off on the premium stand mixer I got for my Sainted Wife whom I do not deserve.



That was fun. Amazing how two cups of flour turns into a patch of noodle dough 10 centimeters wide by 10 meters long (though only microns thick).

Bike'n'shoot

TCM and I met at the Bike'n'shoot. TCM, avid cyclist and dedicated shooter, placed.

Fûz finished without dying. He's the guy sucking wind on your right. TCM remains incognito.

Gas piston upper for AR15

File this under Noodling.

One repeated criticism of the AR15 design is its direct gas impingement action. Propellant gas is tapped from the barrel and led through a tube backwards into the receiver of the piece, and into the bolt carrier itself. The gas pressure works against a piston which is a rearward-facing surface of the bolt. The pressure builds between that face of the bolt and the internal surfaces of the bolt carrier ('directly impinging' upon the bolt), forcing them apart. A cam translates that force into rotation of the bolt, so its lugs disengage with their mating surfaces, the bolt unlocks, and the bolt carrier can retract, carrying the bolt with it.

The propellant gas passing through the bolt carrier leaves a mess behind, as a carbon buildup that has to be cleaned out, or it will build up to the point that the piece malfunctions.

The upside? Fewer parts and less weight compared to a firearm that contains this gas in a cylinder up front of the receiver, and uses the pressure to move an operating rod. In an indirect-impingement firearm, the operating rod moves the bolt carrier without depositing burnt-propellant crud in the receiver.

So the noodling goal is to improvise an operating rod that weighs the least possible and fits within the AR15 footprint--or a footprint expanded to what the market will accept.

Picatinny-rail forearms are the rage. A free-floating tube takes the place of the original AR15-type forearm nowadays, and Weaver-type rails are fastened to or forged integrally with the tube at 12, 3, 6 and 9-o'clock positions. Plenty of room exists within to contain a few grams of extra hardware.

The extra hardware consists of a spigot and an operating rod, fitting into a replacement gas block. The photo shows the first two parts and omits the gas block.



The spigot is up front and the op rod is to the rear. The spigot's rear section has an outer diameter that just matches the inner diameter of the op rod's frontward cylinder; the spigot's rear is male to the op rod's forward female. Cannelures are turned into the spigot's rear section to reduce weight and give the crud someplace to collect until the rifleman has time to take it out and clean it.

What the photo does not show is the yoke ("gas block"), the part that is fastened to the carbine barrel and is bored to take the spigot. The forward, thicker section of the spigot has keyways milled into it so it quarter-turns into the yoke to fasten there.

The yoke has a port bored in it so a hole in the barrel lets propellant gas out, through the port, into a matching port in the spigot. The spigot then redirects the propellant gas rearward into the op rod.

As the gas passes through the port, into the spigot, it enters the op rod's cylinder, filling it and pushing it rearwards.

A spring surrounds the rear tail of the op rod, and that spring compresses as the op rod retreats. The op rod's tail has the same diameter, minus x, as the original gas tube of the AR15, so it easily passes into the upper receiver and enters the bolt carrier key. The op rod tail pushes against the bolt carrier key, so when the op rod retreats, it pushes the bolt carrier key as surely as gas pressure in the tube would.

When the op rod retreats far enough, the rearmost face of the spigot is exposed, and the gas that filled the op rod cylinder can escape. No gas is introduced into the upper receiver along this route. The bolt carrier, having more mass than the op rod, keeps going rearward. The op rod runs out of gas, so to speak, and its return spring pushes it home again, back over the rear tail of the spigot.

The spigot guides the op rod's cylinder back home; only a millimeter or two of the op rod's travel will not be guided by the spigot, so there will be no need of a tube or rail to guide the op rod.

When the shooting day is ended, the operator can turn the spigot a quarter-turn or so, pull the spigot forward out of the yoke, and clean it off. The op rod will also come forward, through the yoke, and out the front of the carbine so its cylinder can be cleaned out. The op rod's cylinder's outer diameter is less than the inner diameter of the yoke's spigot passage.

Reassembly is reverse of disassembly.

All of it should fit within the confines of the modern Picatinny-railed handguard. Some propellant junk will accumulate within that handguard but that won't interfere with operation of the carbine. A toothbrush will get it out. Some tuning of internal surfaces of the handguard may be necessary to guide the op rod on its travel, and to buffer the op rod's return spring.

The challenges? First, to make the parts very light. If the walls of the op rod's cylinder are thin enough, they'll heat up in protracted fire so propellant gunk will burn off rather than build up. Too thin, though, and the walls will rupture. The yoke and spigot have to be kept light too. All of it will have to be steel rather than aluminum alloy, to resist the burning propellant gases.

Another problem would be the bowing of the tail of the op rod under firing pressure. If it flexes or bows too much it will bind against the hole in the upper receiver instead of shoving the bolt carrier rearward. Maybe the tail could be peened with flats so it will bow at more nodes but with less amplitude. This will be less of a problem with shorter-barreled carbines, such as the M4, because the tail will be shorter than that of the A3 rifle, with same diameter, thus stiffer.

My car is my property, continued and revised

Please let me clarify some points about this earlier post.

I do not support a law that explicitly establishes a right to have a firearm in one's car while on an employer's property.

I do support a law that establishes an automobile as a person's property, protected with the same Fourth Amendment rights as one's papers, effects, and home.

I'm still wrestling with the idea that one can enter a contract that requires one to surrender a civil right. I've been wrestling with that idea for decades and probably will continue to do so in my grave. It's for greater minds than mine. Maybe Jed is right, interfering here is an impairment of the right of contract.

Some of my concerns arise from how one can be held to "enter a contract" by buying a house or entering a business, or taking a job. To me, it's not a contract unless it is for a fixed beginning and end dates, among person or persons identifiable, with consequences for failure to meet the stipulations of the contract on all parties, and a means to terminate the contract. There is only one entity with whom I have actually entered an employment contract, and it did indeed demand the circumscription of some of my civil rights, but that's because it's the frigging US military. They are a different animal entirely from being a grocery bagger, newspaper carrier, or cable geek, and ought to be. None of those other entities ran a contract past me. In the case of cable geekery, they tried: headhunters told me those attempts weren't contracts and are unenforceable.

Taking a job with a papermill is not necessarily entering a contract. Agreeing to take that job does not equate to implicit consent for the papermill's ownership to search my car while it is parked on their property in the course of my working there. Union work may differ.

What would make a "gun-free workplace" more palatable would be law or jursiprudence like that proposed for a "gun-free supermarket". Business A is welcome to assert its right to property over the building and grounds of its business, such that employees or patrons are forbidden from being armed while on that property. Business A knowingly surrenders indemnity for violence that occurs there, and maybe their insurer will note that fact and charge premiums accordingly.

Business A must also bear some costs---not directly financial, as in fines, but operating costs, signage, storage---to make sure its employees and customers know their choice and can comply with it at the place where they cross that boundary between public property and Business A's private property.

Business B chooses not to establish such a policy, and Business B is protected by law from any suit holding it responsible for violence that occurs there, provided Business B is not the perpetrator. Please read the comments to the post I linked immediately above, they illuminate.

Absent this kind of law, we have recourse only to public pressure. PR has discouraged businesses who were weighing "gun-free" policies for their customers: Burt auto dealerships in the Denver area, for example, responded positively to a call-and-write'em campaign; I've heard that Applebee's did also.

But if workplace violence is as prevalent as some say (well, is it?), and workplace violence succeeds in spite of "gun-free" workplace policies (leave the "because of" argument for another day), then employees are at greater risk than patrons. What about them? Failing to protect employees' RKBA is, in my view, implicit acceptance of the principle that the presence of a gun causes crime regardless of the character of the people involved: 'It doesn't matter who you are, or who your co-workers are, doesn't matter how well I checked you out before I hired you. If the gun is there somebody might get hurt.'

Distinctions regarding what really constitutes private property take on new meaning here, and I stress them.

*******

Jed and I, and all five of my other regular readers, should be so lucky that someday the individual RKBA receives the respect and juridicial deference that are implied in this discussion. We are still trying to secure an uncertain and tragically disrespected RKBA in our own homes and on public streets; the right answers for RKBA within places of employment, worship, and commerce, at some presumed distance from the purely public sphere, depend on agreement that an individual RKBA exists. Such agreement cannot exist in a nation and at a time where mere possession of the instrument in private without State permission can be a crime, or in a city whose civic leaders or sworn peace officers can unilaterally call for the instruments' wholsale seizure.

Perhaps it is a sign of progress that our legislators and courts are now weighing the RKBA against other rights, without obvious intent to use that balancing act to short-sheet RKBA. Perhaps the RKBA can be defined, in part, from the outside in---where must it recede in importance versus other rights?

Piranhas in Cheyenne

HB78 failed last week, and HB46 didn't make it even that far. The local paper's editorial pages argued strongly against 78, though I doubt that's what did it in. NRA's emails suggested that it competed with other bills regarding what Wyoming would do with its revenue surplus, and lost; the website for the Wyoming legislature also listed at least two other bills in the House that aimed to liberalize concealed carry. HB78 just went the farthest of them.

As I have said in other venues, concealed carry is liberalizing and expanding rapidly, such that I predict in 10 years all but two States will offer shall-issue CCW permits at the most restrictive, and many will have permit-free carry like Vermont has always had and Alaska recently adopted. Those two hold-out States will be at risk of losing Federal monies because they do not allow uniform CCW for their own citizens nor reciprocity with other States' CCWs. What Wyoming failed to get in HB78 this year will be back, again and again, until it is law. Permit-regulated concealed carry leads the way and makes permit-free laws palatable, passable, and therefore possible.

And someone will always be unhappy with it, even with the very idea of it. Since Wyoming Tribune Eagle does not load much of its content online, I can point you to neither their editorials nor to the lettitors they spawned. As I receive WTE only on Sundays, I can't riffle through the back issues to recreate the dialog either. Their copyright feathers might also get ruffled if I OCR'd them for reproduction here.

But what little I see still shows stark and embarrassing illiteracy on the part of concealed-carry opponents.

In particular, one Roger MacDonald-Evoy seems to have jumped the shark, by misidentifying the Second Amendment as the States' Rights Amendment, and arguing that the Second Amendment is a State or collective right.

I didn't know that anyone had designated one of the articles of the Bill of Rights as a states' rights amendment per se---as a Federalist, I assert that a) States have no rights, merely powers, which were intended to be broad, and b) the Federal government's powers were enumerated---relying on just one article to set this principle forth seems redundant on the one hand, and pitiably inadequate on the other. But we Federalists, though outspoken, are scarce. Other Constitutional philosophies, and even unconstitutional ones, prevail.

Don't get me wrong, I like Mac-evoy, as he calls himself; I've worked a little with him, and he shares some of my tastes, such as Firesign Theatre and Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. He's a witty fellow, and I'm a little surprised and disappointed he didn't prepare himself better for one of the blogosphere's best-illuminated topics.

The letters to WTE's editor today lit him up, including one from HB78's original sponsor. Again, I apologize that I can't link to them, because WTE doesn't put their content on-line. Mabye Macevoy thought this would be a simple appeal to logic, no more effort or trouble than stepping gently across the swamp of irrational redneck gunlove. Instead, he has piranhas roiling the water up to his 'nads and no firm place to stand.

The employer's parking lot is his property but my car is my property

I disagree with Jed:

Any law which deprives a business of the right to control access to their private property, and the terms thereof, is a blatant violation of property rights. We cannot, and should not, defend gun rights at the expense of something so fundamental.

I'm not arguing for gun rights in this instance, but indeed property rights. My automobile is my property. The State has an interest in knowing what's in my car only so long as it is moving on a public road. They can require that my car bear identifying marks for several reasons, including the possible recovery of my property if it is stolen, as well as the enforcement of requirements to insure it for operation on public roads. The State can search it under (too) many circumstances, usually in connection with it moving on a public road.

I disagree that my property rights in my vehicle, and my rights in the other property my vehicle may contain, are conditioned by where that vehicle may be, whether moving or parked.

If I keep a piece in my car, and the car and the piece are lawfully mine, it's nobody's business whether I have a piece in it.

it's about LUUUUUURRRVE

Those rare times that I get to see HBO, it can still surprise and titillate.

And disturb. The teaser for this show suggests, at least to me, that it is aimed at religious fundies, and the kind of world the left thinks they'd like to build if they ever came to grasp the levers of political power.

Ha ha laugh oh that's funny he's got three conservatively-dressed Stepford milfs and he worries there's not enough of him to go around {it's not for every man!} ha ha isn't that just precious and the milfs fight over who's in charge and they have to work out a schedule where they pass him around like a bowl of Fritos y'know? salty greasy and corny

The live trailer included remarks from the producers, about how the show is not about polygamy, it's about LOVE. Ok sure. Sometimes a Frito is just a Frito.

How to get mugged in the sterile area of an airport

We are paying $8 plus for 24 hours of 802.11g internet access in the airport terminal. I may ultimately use about 10 of those hours, given last night's weather. But couldn't SBC sell their connectivity in realistic increments?

Who in an airport would order 24 hours of WiFi unless he's setting up a kiosk to sell fake Rolexes?

Could this law have helped Cory Maye?

From HB46, now passed out of Wyoming's House and headed to the Joint Committee on the Judiciary:

A person who uses force as permitted in W.S.
6-2-602 is justified in using such force and is immune from
criminal prosecution and civil action for the use of such
force, unless the person against whom force was used is a
peace officer, who was acting in the performance of his
official duties and the officer identified himself in
accordance with any applicable law or the person using
force knew or reasonably should have known that the person
was a peace officer.

Of course it always hinges on what a DA asserts that a person "reasonably should have known," and on how well a defense counsel can counter to a jury what that DA asserts. But would Cory Maye be on death row if this law had been in effect at that place and time?

The only loophole that I see in this bill is the 'applicable law' standard for how a peace officer must identify himself. Should shouting "police", even repeatedly and through a bullhorn, suffice?

Regardless, reforms like this one still don't address the root of the problem---the overuse of dynamic entry.

and on your right, the Bridge to Nowhere

I drove past the Clinton Library this afternoon. Wow.

It does look just like a gigantic aluminum-sided trailer.

now that's country

I just found a Jim Reeves collection. His He'll Have To Go reminds me of the satire treatment of same by Homer and Jethro. I'd kill to have that.

None of this Toby Keith sh1t. Friggin tin-foil cowboy hats.

Ooops

A chem detector rang the cherries with a false positive for nerve agent at the Russell Senate Office Building.

It could have been a cleaning lady spilling a large quantity of Simple Green. Some molecules that feature an ether linking to a glycol will trigger nerve agent detectors.

What I should have done in the first place

The scanner has been a Canon LiDE 20, bought at bargain-basement price at the BX on Golfball Prairie AFB a year ago.

The printer has been an Epson Stylus Color 740i, bought not long after we brought the G4 PowerMac home in '99.

A lot of water has passed under these bridges, in the form of emails to Canon's tech support to get their scanner to work on the Classic emulator on OS 10.2.8, then their upgraded drivers to run directly on OS X; emails to Epson to get their printer to play nice with a Linksys Ethernet print server; emails to Linksys to get their print server to play nice with the Epson.

It's been an expensive bargain and I'm not done paying for it. All I wanted was one multifunction printer/scanner/copier that runs on the home network with an IP address, and I can print to it from any of the menagerie of computers in the house.

The Linksys server has been yanked out and put in the box while I ponder tactics to return it for refund or credit. The Canon scanner is going to my workplace until we get our Sharp copier upgraded with a scanner and OCR. The Epson printer is perfectly mission capable.

But HP has found a place in our home. Their Photosmart 2575 connects directly to the home network. I installed its drivers on 3 machines---the PowerMac, a Win2k, and the Clandestine Blogging Platform's WinXP--and the only hitch I have is with printing from Mac Classic applications on the OS X emulator.

The support email is already sent to HP, with a $5 bet with any of my five devoted readers that they'll be unable to get that aspect of it to work. So I am holding on to the Epson printer, just to print from Mac Office 98.

Quote for the day

I have two replies when as a criminologist studying firearms issues I am asked would the world not benefit if there were no guns? First, 1200 years ago there were no guns. Yet, for excellent reasons, that period in Europe has been called the Dark Ages. Firearms are the only weaponry by which the weak can resist the strong. Their absence was characterized by oppression and massacre not peace.

Don Kates, quoted by David Hardy at Arms and the Law.

Kates's other reply is worth reading too.

Chun-bi!

We went for the Kia Sedona. USAA negotiated the price to about $800 over dealer invoice. The dealer had one equipped as we wanted, in the showroom. About 45 minutes after USAA told me about it, I called, brought over the paperwork, and offered the GMC for trade. They offered about what I expected. An hour or so after that, I drove the Kia home.

Mama-san very pleased. Very pleased.

Could I have done better? Probably, but I'm not terribly interested in knowing exactly how much better I could have done by dickering, haggling, and feigning attempts to leave the lot in disgust. During the testdrive a few weeks ago, the grizzled cowboy salesperson answered what questions he could, then just handed me the keys. "The gas gauge is near E," I said to him as I headed for Nationway. "You've got about 35 miles," he said. Them's balls. He let the car sell itself.

Well, sort of. He ticked off the warranty, the Michelins, the side curtains, the improvements over the 2005 model (thanks, Chaz, you were exactly right). But he was low-pressure like I've never seen. "We aren't going anywhere. Just give us a fair chance at your business."

Gawdddayahmm it's a 3.8L DOHC V6.

The hardest part about this car will be explaining to my UAW brother-in-law that I didn't buy (a) GM, (b) 'Murcan. That boy needs an exit strategy.

Damning with faint praise?

I was paid a compliment today, I think.

The lot of us were being bitched out, with some justification, and I sat and took it. I took responsibility for it. I was not leading, scarcely following.

Another of us later approached me and said she admired my ability to absorb the abuse.

Is that a compliment?

Making Swen's day

Swen weighs liberalization of Wyoming's self-defense laws.

FWIW, Swen, I didn't buy the leetle badge.

RFQ: blog software for inside the fence

I want to try an internal FOUO-only weblog for my organization. From what I have seen, AKO won't do it (Six months of watching my AKO site load "The weblog channel is coming soon!").

My immediate leadership is giving tacit support, and the DOIM will let me have space on a server. So which blogging application do I get?

Requirements:

• Multiple posters.
  
• Readers will have to log in to the site to read it. The admin (me) will issue userids and allow users to set passwords.
  
• If a post links to content outside the fence, the outside content's referrer log must not capture the location of my server. As WUTT!'s own Sitemeter log says, "blocked referrer." That sounds more like a function of DOIM's firewall than of the blogging application.
  

Is this even 75%-capable in Microsoft Office/Outlook?

Anyone else doing this in a green, blue, or purple environment? If so, what are you using?

Carshopping

Bill Quick is thinking aloud about buying a Prius (no link; he's moved to a new hosting service and I can't find his archives). This moves the holders of Chez Fûz to blog about our deliberations of a new offspring-unit transporter.

My initial druthers were hovering around the Dodge Grand Caravan, because I've rented or borrowed a few and like the passenger room. The sticker isn't too nasty either, though I'd hoped with weakness in the industry they'd try harder to stimulate sales. We test-drove one today and it behaved like I expected it. Barbaloot is just elated to be looking at a new kid-hauler. But a conversation a few weeks ago with a snake-eater led me to consider the imports.

So we stopped at the Kia dealer just a few blocks away. We are very torn now. More car, more airbags, more horsepower, a little less passenger space. Way less money. Way better warranty.

A tool must be weighed against what it will be used to do:

• Getting four kids about to swim lessons twice a week and Mass once a week. That includes one kid who needs no special seating, two in boosters, and one in a child seat with lap bar.
  
• Taking the child and Boy to get groceries once or twice a week.
  
• Three or four times a year, all of us to camping or a road trip to some scenic place.
  
• Maybe once a year, schlepping all of us to the Great Lakes to see grandparents.
  
• Three or more times a year, bringing lumber home from one of the bigbox DIY stores. Luggage rack will do it.
  

The majority of the miles will be in town. Compared to what the current vehicle did in Colorado, less highway and much fewer miles total per year.

Using USAA's comparison service, we considered a few other models. The model number profusion on Toyota Siennas discouraged me immediately. The number of Honda Odyssey models available was a turn-off too. The Hondas appear to be smaller than the Kia anyway, and their MSRPs were way higher as a class.

Disappointment: USAA's comparison service won't work on any platform other than IE 6 on Windows. God knows I've tried.

USAA's purchase negotiation service will also be interesting. "Give us the name and number of their fleet manager, we take it from there." The Dodge dealer people furrowed their brows when I asked them that. The guy at the Kia shop didn't know WTF I was talking about.

So Fûz's first reader poll!

Dodge Grand Caravan SXT, or Kia Sedona EX? Sorry, no fancy-schmancy drop-in poll in the post. Just leave a comment.

Arguments to buy American just for the sake of it will fall on deaf ears. If Detroit wants to sell to me, they have to compete the old fashioned way, price and features.

I don't do resolutions

But I do have a plan or two. They won't all be done this year.

• Closing off our basement walkup in a new Bilco steel door. The door's here, we need the enclosure around it. Pressure-treated lumber and smoke-tinted plexiglas.
  
• Get at least two bids for putting radiant hydronic heat into Chez Fûz. I hate hate hate forced-air heat. If energy prices are on a continuing upward crawl, if not an upward stair-step function, we'll recover the costs, estimated at $3 per square foot. We'll staple the PEX tubing to the underside of the subfloor (wreck out ductwork and acoustic ceiling to get at it), and heat both first floor and basement from each run. Would be awesome to run it all from two zones and a large water heater instead of a boiler. I'm groovy with using a strong glycol-to-water mix rather than straight water. I bought some books on designing these systems but they don't have the meat or I don't bring the mastery of plumbing potatoes. I'd like to know I'm not getting snookered by the contractor.
  
• With all of the space liberated by removing the forced-air furnace, I'll put a water softener (back) in. There used to be one, it was disconnected and stuck in a corner. The resin bed is ironed up. That can be fixed with a few bucks of chemicals.
  
• The main argument around here for forced-air heat is the relative ease of integrating air-conditioning with it. In this part of the prairie, I can't see air-conditioning being necessary more than two weeks out of the year. Better to me, active ventilation of the roof crawlspace. A 1600 cfm blower costs less than $100 and pennies to operate. I'll put it over the garage where the noise won't bother me. The problem: where to put louvers to let fresh air into that space? It's tight under the eaves.
  
• Laminate floor in dining room. We already bought the materials.
  
• Tile floors in kitchen, foyer, upstairs baths.
  
• Graywater system to catch laundry and shower water. There's a huge crawlspace under kit and DR, adjacent to all of the plumbing, where that water can be caught and stored. Getting that water to the rear lawn is a cinch. Front lawn will take some craft.
  
• A bat house. I'd fasten risers to the chimney but am afraid the wind will rip it down and trash the roof.
  
• A new offspring-unit transport mechanism for Mama-san. A Grand Caravan would be awesome in a turbo-diesel. Too bad that product doesn't exist.
  

New blasters this year?

Jeff at Alphecca asks what new blasters a blogger has gotten this year. Can't say that I have gotten any, though TCM has gathered a few.

I would like to get one of mine back, though, from a 'smith who doesn't reply to emails. She's Dierdre's sister Hermione.

This coming year (tomorrow perhaps) Firstborn will send her first .22 bullet downrange. A good pellet rifle will be in order if she gets the itch. Aside from that, I want no more guns, just time and a place to shoot them.

The problem isn't PowerPoint, it's how it is used

Twice in the last month I have been shortchanged in a course of instruction, by an instructor who chooses not to subject me to "death by PowerPoint. Let's go ahead and get our hands on the equipment instead, you'll learn more."

It would be forgiveable if the instruction were accompanied by sound handouts or preceded by comprehensive read-ahead material. A few block diagrams would help too. Instead I am explaining in whispers to colleagues what all this gear is supposed to accomplish and why, and learning little for myself.

I've cursed PowerPoint myself, in this very space in fact. But dammit, y'all, PowerPoint isn't the problem here. The lazy tendency to shovel a tech manual into PowerPoint, now that's a problem. Making your slideshows underinformative, oversizing them with raw digital photos, adorning them with MS's clip art, those are the problems. Fix them and slideshows won't bore people to death, they'll actually be informative and useful.

Both times, the instructors were contract employees for defense contractors. They represented the same company, in fact, though I suspect this is a trend and is much more widespread. Anybody else encounter this sort of thing?

Chicken or egg question

Barbaloot and I are watching one of my presents to her, the DVD set of Aeon Flux (impulse purchase at BestBuy).

First episode: Utopia or Deuteranopia?

Trever Goodchild mumbles his goals and means to himself as he completes his purge of competing high-level functionaries to consolidate his rule over Bregna. Among his means: "Total information awareness."

So my question is: was this work recut in the last year or so to add in that throwaway line referring to Admiral Poindexter's pet program, or were Peter Chung and the Aeon Flux writers more visionary (still) than I give them credit? Amazon lists the DVD collection in '95.

Do you own the data created incident to being eyeballed?

What if two vehicles are hustling along a rural road, doing low-80s in a 75-limit zone, and a Highway Patrol vehicle comes from the opposite direction, suddenly pulls over, reverses direction, and catches up?

The patrol car hovers behind the rear of the two vehicles for about 4 minutes, then passes, hovers behind the front-runner for a few minutes, then lights up and pulls the front-runner over?

Mama-san, passenger with me in the rear vehicle, asks "Why didn't he just pull the guy over instead of waiting so long?"

I, driver of the rear vehicle, replied "He ran the plates."

"Wouldn't he do that after pulling him over?"

"No, he wants to make sure he's not pulling over some psycho who'll try to shoot him. He wants to know whether this will be a one-unit stop, or a two- or three-unit. Bench warrant, multiple traffic violations, expired registration, Al Qaeda, you name it. Run the plates first, know what you're getting into."

Then the wheels were turning. He surely ran our plates too. Hmmmm, the patrolman was probably thinking, serviceman and his wife and kiddies. Nothing interesting here . . . The guy in the front tripped the radar. What about him?

Which makes me wonder: how many times have my plates been run, either by obvious marked patrol vehicles or air units, or by unmarkeds just weaving through busy traffic? What about when optical-character recognition technology is mated with radar camera units and fast, fast realtime connection to the databases, allowing hundreds of plates to be "run" per minute? The potential there for loss of privacy would be staggering. The anonymity of the herd would be gone if it isn't already. The consequences of minor errors, either in the tag records themselves or in the data pipeline between the camera and the DMV, would be enormous.

Johnny Law will assert that he has the power to use government-owned information and commerically-available technology to enhance the apprehension of lawbreakers. How can one object, unless one is caught redhanded and wriggling to escape? The syllogism: the innocent have nothing to fear, therefore the fearful are not innocent.

So how should the civil libertarian respond to this development?

I submit: assert that publicly collected information be owned by those who collect it, and the subjects of collection. If you run my plates (public information, my property interest in my vehicle, my payment of taxes to use that vehicle on public roads, the presence of my vehicle on public roads) with commonly available technology (a camera in the patrol vehicle or mounted to view traffic on the public road, plus OCR to translate the plate into registration information) the resulting data belongs to both the government, who collected it, and me, whom it is about.

The cops know when they collect it. For it to be of use to them for the purposes of law enforcement, they must collect date/time, location, observing officer, and so on---to be evidence it must meet evidentiary standards.

But I may not know that it was collected at all, let alone know the details incident to its collection. If the information's mine, even in part, I have a right to know that it has been collected, where, when, and by whom. If there's an error or fraud I have the right to challenge that piece of information that may be, or is asserted to be, about me.

So do I have a right to know every time that my plates have been checked against databases of vehicle registration, operator licensing, outstanding warrants, and so forth? Some would be surprised to find how often their plates are run, so to speak, though I wouldn't be.

If facial recognition becomes reliable, will my face be "run" with the same regularity? Worse, will my face be run even if facial recognition does not become reliable? Should I not have the right to know the data points are being created so at the very least I can challenge them?

Will the shiny sexiness of technology overwhelm such error, to the extent that a bad OCR on my plate or a bad facial match, be more credible than my wife's testimony that I was five states and two time zones away from the crime?

Here comes the Al-Qaeda Exception: Hypothetically, an Islamofascist mole operating in the United States will be driving about just like I do, occasionally breaking a speed limit just as I do. He can expect to have his plates run about as often. His plates, his operator license, and other governmental records incident to operating a motor vehicle, would be subject to the same level of scrutiny as mine are. But if he's a jihadi baddass, he's looking tactfully to see whether his profile is low enough. Is he being followed or observed more than the average guy?

Would his right to know how often his plates are run, tip the government's hand that he's being watched?

Which way would you rather have it, gentle reader?

• Everybody, and I mean everybody, is entitled to know every time the government checks his public appearance against a database---even if that might tip off undercover operatives that they are being watched? Or,
  
• It's none of your business how often your plates are run. Al Qaeda is (all) the reason (we need).
  
• Only the suspected jihadis suffer diminishment of their right to know how often they or their public records are nudged. Oooops, every swinging d1ck has about 5 (or 10, or 40) "hits" a year, so we have to let some of his hits through, let him see them, or he'll suspect something. Problem is, the gummint at various levels will never be good enough at lying to falsify that kind of record plausibly. This option will certainly fail if tried (we've organized crime as an example: "Federal marshals are so far up my ass I can taste Brylcreem"). For practical purposes, disclose all hits or none.
  

Please answer in the comments. No similarity between this post and the NSA intercept story is coincidental. How you answer probably describes your opinion of the intercept orders.

First Thanksgiving with a convection oven

This was our first Thanksgiving with a convection oven. After frantic internet searches of how to roast a Thanksgiving turkey in one, I concluded that it would take maybe a little less time than a conventional oven would, that we'd positively adore the result, and that we'd depend on trial and error because of our altitude above mean sea level in the beautiful flyover country of Cheyenne.

With a meat thermometer, we'd still be disaster-proofing ourselves. Okayfine. A thirteen-pound critter stuffed, rubbed with paprika-laced olive oil and scattered with fresh parsley. Before:



Four hours and forty-five minutes later at 375, with foil over the breast and legs, and the meat thermometer in the stuffing showing 180:



Yes, delightfully crispy skin, moist breast meat. But still almost 5 frigging hours.

Endorsement

I support the Fiscal Watch Team Offset Package.

Details here.

stuff at the other place

Post up at the Senate campaign blog.

Please take one, they're free

Witnessed somewhere in Fauquier County, Virginia.

Friday ferretblogging

Scooter.

Damage may be undone

Update on the situation:

Belkin's USB 802.11g adapter was available at a good price. It installed and fired up instantly.

Then I downloaded a new WiFi driver for from Averatec, installed it, and removed the Belkin. Now my on-board WiFi works again and I have a second spare adapter.

Pain in the ass but we're operational again.

Update: A bud bought the Belkin adapter. I'm back to just one spare. Shall I travel with it from now on?

What's missing??

OK, normally I blog about gun gear or CCW or training (I think that sums up my entire blogging career, actually) but today I'm gonna' get a bit more personal. I'm starting to feel as if there are things --significant things -- missing from TCM's life. Two things in particular have been nagging at me: combat and women. (And, yes, I believe there's a distinction...)

I've never been in combat. In fact, I haven't been in a fight since the sixth grade. When it comes to violence and hostility, I'm a master at avoidance, deterrence, and de-escalation. But part of me thinks that I'm overdue for a break in that trend. As I'm sure many of you do, I keep up to date as to the goings-on in the Middle East. All politics of the situation aside, I see what is obviously a grueling fight between our Boys in Camo and those who would like to kill them. To the grunt on the street, I have to believe it's that simple: him or me. And in a way, I'm envious. I spent 15 years in the Air National Guard and the closest I came to combat was being on-call for three months during the lead-up to Desert Storm. Yawn...

It is said that prostitution is the oldest profession. Perhaps, but what about soldiering? (What gets more ink: the history of prostitution or the history of war?) I'm sure that soldiering has changed little in the thousands of years its been practiced. And yet I feel as though that aspect of being a man, being a soldier in combat, has passed me by. Does combat change a man? For the better? For the worse? What does it feel like to fight another man to the death? How did the Spartans accept the notion that their defeat at Thermopylae was imminent? What went thru the minds of the soldiers that fought to a bloody stalemate at Antietam? How sweet was the victory for the Russians as the last desperate pockets of Nazi resistance in Berlin were finally crushed? Millions upon millions of men in history have known the answers to these questions. I do not.

Let me just say that I have no bloodlust and no romantic illusions about war. I have no doubt that combat is just as ugly and gritty and horrifying as many of those who have been thru it say it is. But I'd like to know that for myself, to experience that primal behavior firsthand, to understand it in terms that my mind has formulated based on personal experience. I'm especially curious as to how I'd act. How well would I perform under fire? Would I freeze? Would I crack? Is my situational awareness as good as I think it is? Would I remember and, more importantly, employ the training I've received? In short, would I "walk the walk"?

I've posed such ponderings to close friends and once they've realized that I'm serious, their answers have been remarkably similar: get in the fight somehow. Unfortunately, it's probably unrealistic to even consider such things. Sure, I've had training but nothing even remotely approaching AIT or even Marine boot camp. (Air Force, remember...) At 40-something, rejoining the ranks is mostly out of the question. Even in the unlikely event that I landed a mercenary personal security gig, could I really perform my job?? Getting yourself killed because you're ill-prepared is unfortunate. Getting your charge killed is unprofessional. Getting your buddies killed is unforgivable.

So what's a "wondering warrior" to do? How do these questions get answered?

One confidante suggested getting involved in anti-piracy activities. That might work if I wasn't terrified of large bodies of water. But the idea still has merit. Unlike the tenuous "keeping the world safe for democracy" mandate that drives our current involvement in the faraway deserts of Afghaniraniraqistan, anti-piracy is apolitical, malum en se kinda' work. No moral dilemmas to keep one awake at night. The pirates are most likely to be un- or poorly-trained. Their tactics would necessarily be limited and predictable since any extreme measures -- ie, sinking the target ship -- defeat the entire purpose of their enterprise. Unless the pirates adopt paratrooper tactics and/or submarines, any fighting would essentially occur in only two dimensions. Overwhelming numbers would be their only advantage, an advantage that could easily be negated thru superior firepower. Seems simple enough.

But then again, I've never been in combat so how the hell would I know?...


Then there's the second missing thing: a woman. As much as I hate to admit it, TCM has been without a woman for almost two years. Being alone isn't always a problem, being the busy, independent, and occasionally self-centered guy that I can be. But, again, I feel like I'm missing out on something. Something that the rest of the world takes part in every day. Something the rest of the world seems to take for granted.

Historically, relationships have presented yours truly with numerous difficulties. I've gotten better at them, though, since I've learned how to step "outside" of any conflicts and look at things impartially. (Not easy, by any stretch, but do-able...) I was unprepared for marriage when I tied the knot at 24 with an equally unprepared woman. We stayed married for twelve years. Our disfunctions remained dormant as we fought side-by-side thru countless non-marriage-related battles. We were a hell of team as long as we had a common enemy. However, once we were both out of college, working well-paying jobs, and focusing on the future, things got easy. Too easy. Without those common enemies, our marriage got stale and fell apart. As did the few relationships I was involved in after the divorce.

Except the last one.

The Little Chinese Girl (aka, LCG) was the one that got away. The relationship found me when I wasn't looking for it. I won't say it was a match made in heaven but it was good match, nonetheless, and we got along pretty durned well. (And, damn, she was cute!!) We had our differences, of course, but we also had enough in common to at least have good pillow talk and even better dinner conversation. We had complimentary talent sets, too. She was the idea person; I was the problem solver. We used the opportunity to improve our partnership skills: how to conduct a fair fight, how to negotiate and compromise, how to support one another, and how to listen and make sure we were being heard. We parted amicably once we both realized there were some serious gaps in what we each wanted for our futures. I had it good with LCG -- I knew it then and I know it now. I did almost everything right with her and we're both better for what we had.

And I miss that.

I miss having the interaction of another person in my life. I know how to deal with myself and my quirks. (Well, most of them...) Being with another is what's missing. I miss the companionship and the conflict and the commiserating and the sharing of Sunday morning breakfast. Life -- just like a relationship -- brings about a swirling river of difficult sacrifices, unexpected complications, and competing demands. At least in a relationship, there's a woman on the other bank of that river!! I've long ago thrown off the notion of blissful abandon, where nobody says the wrong thing, where nobody gets their feelings hurt, where nothing goes awry. That's the stuff of Hollywood and the (pulp) literary world. I'm much more pragmatic about love and relationships at my semi-advanced age. A healthy relationship should be equal parts romance, individuality, and mutually-beneficial business arrangement. To make it all work requires effort, optimism, patience, and occasional mumbling to oneself in the basement. And I won't truck a woman who's not willing or able to reciprocate. (Speaking of trucks, ...)

That's not to say I'm a perfect catch myself. Like I said, I have my quirks. I've been known to focus -- nay, obsess -- on a problem well beyond the point where it stops being funny. (I'm an engineer and, like a cop, I'm not paid to lose...) That said, I have Short Attention Span Moments that are the stuff of legends. When I'm in that mode, a 10-year-old with ADHD could beat me in a staring contest. I have a gun collection that's awfully difficult to explain. I prefer two wheels to any other form of transportation. I occasionally allot copious amounts of "alone time" for myself. This is especially true when work gets stressful. I'm an early bird.

But it's not all bad. I have my good points, too. I try to take care of myself -- emotionally and physically -- and avoid bad influences. Most of my friends are of sound character and won't elicit the dreaded "I never want to see him in my house again" conversation. I'm always where I say I'll be and I come home every night that it's logistically sound to do so. As much as I use them, I hate computers and I'm rarely found fiddling with one "just for the heck of it". I kinda' know how stuff works and can usually fix it if it's broke. I have all my hair.

So, with all these endearing qualities, you're probably asking yourself, "Why doesn't this guy have a date for next Friday??" Well, I've been asking myself this same question for a while. I know the answer. It can be stated -- but not explained -- in one word: exposure. I'm just not around any women. I don't get any exposure.

Take my job (please...) I write software, in a basement, surrounded by Y-chromosome-types just like me. My pastimes are heavily male-populated: shooting, four-wheeling, bicycling, and motorcycling. (I once joined a bicycle racing team with the goal of meeting women, only to discover that there were just two types of women on the team: married or lesbian. I kid you not...) Even my "solo projects" -- woodworking, reloading, electronics tinkering -- don't lend themselves to female involvement. I've considered taking up a hobby that would have women in the same room but there are always repercussions to that. "TCM, why don't we go ballroom dancing anymore??" Sorry, but I'm not gonna' feign interest in tennis or cajun cooking just to get a date. That's all the world needs: another phony. Fuz once recommended the ubiquitous internet coffee shop as a place to meet women. A reasonable suggestion which I admit I have yet to pursue.

I've tried on-line dating with little success. A few years back (before LCG) I met a woman on-line but she turned out to be a poor fit. It took longer than either of us expected to discover the mismatch and it was a difficult break. I recently tried the on-line thing again but it proved futile. Put simply, the women wouldn't respond to my e-mails, which is quite demoralizing. I spoke to a woman who was trying out on-line dating and she said the whole experience is very different for women. They are typically inundated with e-mails and their challenge is to weed out all the man-chaff. She admits that she's probably tossed more than a few good candidates into the recycle bin simply because she didn't have the time to scrutinize the sheer volume of e-mail. I can only hope that this was what happened to me. It's either that or my e-mails weren't as interesting / clever / charming / attention-grabbing as I thought they were.

Just in case "third time's the charm" is for real, I'm getting ready to try on-line dating again. I need to get a new photo and re-work some of the profile text. I'm in no rush at the moment since work is gonna' be pretty crazy for the next three months. I went to a new doctor a few months back and the last question on the three-page background questionnaire was, "What is your current form of birth control?" I wrote-in my answer: "Working 80-hour weeks." She read that and enjoyed a good belly laugh. If I can make a 45-year-old married mother of three laugh like that, I guess there's still hope.

Ciao!!

TCM

Stop the raid on Social Security

Sign the petition.

HT Jonathan G at ChicagoBoyz.

National Air and Space Museum

We got to goof off today and celebrated it by standing beneath a static display of a Soyuz mated with an Apollo.

Undoing the damage

I should have known better, but I installed XP service pack 2 on the newer Clandestine Mobile Media Access Platform. It whacked my wireless adapter.

Kudos to both Geek Squad and Averatech's free customer support. The wifi still doesn't work yet but I have a Ghost backup that I can restore if just removing SP2 doesn't bring it back. If this doesn't work, I'm getting a USB wifi adapter at BestBuy tomorrow cuz I'm out of town for a while.

Next clandestine blogging platform might as well be a Mac if Windows is going to keep hosing me this badly. Wonder whether Apple will ever ship Powerbooks on AMDs?

Idea 842: Internet radio for real

We kept Googling for a way to pull radio station streams off the Internet and hand them to a conventional stereo system; we were rewarded for our patience.

The term I meant to look for is digital audio receiver, which covers a multitude of devices that have either an Ethernet or a WiFi input, and component audio output. Most of what I found were devices that depend on a computer you already have on your home network, so you can pull your MP3s or iTunes stored there over the home network to a stereo system with the power and fidelity to rattle your windows.

These devices need an application installed on the computer to direct the audio output over your home network to the device. As cheap as $49 if you are willing to stick with Bill Gates's abominations, from the various flavors of crippling DRM to the distasteful and permeable Windows itself.

Pay a lot more if you want Sony to give you a DAR with more features and flexibility, but Brother, beware that rootkit.

In this respect, to me, digital audio receiver is a misnomer. The computer is the receiver, the player is just a stream interface between it and your stereo.

I need no access to the MP3s on my computers---got that already on a satisfactory standalone device. I don't subscribe to iTunes or Rhapsody or suchlike either. What I'm hurting for is realtime streaming of the AM stations or hosts that this here brick shanty and its surrounding rolling prairie and electric windmills block out, or the FM stations that I read passably in the car but come in fringy at home.

Call me anachronistic, but a fixed, cabled digital communications medium should provide better service than a mobile analog one.

What I had more in mind was a stripped 'puter, with stripped browser, that connects to various radio stations with an interface borrowed from WinAmp, independently accessing the Internet through the home network. The user can browse for the programming by category or content, or artist name. All the other puters in the house can be shut down, or busy doing something else.

Hell, load the player's control panel as a webserver on the player, and use a Palm Pilot or Windows handheld, to IR or Bluetooth or WiFi into the player. Once at the control panel, seek a station, program, or tagged content ("what's the talk radio world saying about 'Sam Alito?'"), or history ("who the hell was I listening to at 0300 from Des Moines last Friday?").

If you're so into Glenn Beck that you subscribe, you might be able to load your login credentials into the player so it can listen live directly from Glenn's site, or let you browse his archived material.

If Nullsoft marketed a player like this, even if it served only the same content WinAmp could access (including the video), for around $75, I'd buy one and even hardwire it to my router. This player could probably run on the Palm OS itself, needing no disk, just some flash memory and lotsa buffer.

Suffice it to say the market hasn't yet gotten where I want it, but they're getting close.

Update, 20Nov: CabinetMan asks, "Why don't you just recycle an older notebook computer?" Cuz there's no money in it.

There's no good way to spin this . . .

There is a passage from East of Eden where the less-favored son is scolded by his father, for investing in bean futures in advance of a certain war that would demand beans. Something about how ghoulish it would be to profit from the misery and death of others.

My IRA jumped about $6 grand in two months, those very same months being the impact and aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. I'd have to dig into the details of the funds that provided most of the ooomph in that period, but it's the most dramatic fscking jump in that IRA I've seen since I rolled three 401(k)'s together to form it.

Yeah, yeah, post hoc ergo propter hoc and all that. But it occurred during a period when one would expect the profits of virtually every sector of the economy to fall. This was a time when everyone predicted dire consequences for the markets because the US economy just had a chunk of flesh bitten out of it. Counterintuitive is the word that came to mind.

We're not talking about a huge amount of money here, though it constitutes most of my life savings left over from the dot-com bust.

Would there be so much kerfluffle over oil companies price-gouging if most people in my generation held that kind of position and realized that kind of gain? Adam Trask be damned---we'd become rich by gouging ourselves. Cost myself a couple Jacksons a month out of my wallet but watch my IRA grow by as many Clevelands? Gouge away.

This suggests to me that if it were this easy everybody would be doing it everybody understood this, and moved their investments accordingly, they'd be competing for those investment vehicles intensely, driving the average cost to purchase said vehicles up to the point where schmucks like me wouldn't bother. But that's not the nature of markets nor of risk, is it?

Flyover Country is good for AM radio

Just figure: frequencies measured in the hundreds of kilohertz will propagate very well over the prairie and fragment (not be received well on consumer equipment) in the mountains. As I drove home from work this evening, the amply-laminated Prairie atmosphere of Flyover Country was throwing to my car's spindly antenna the programming from Las Vegas, somewhere in Iowa, Dallas, and Minneapolis-Saint Paul.

This is a richer bounty than I enjoyed in my youth as Super CFL tempted me from Chicago during my roller-skating winters.

My sadness is that I haven't the AM receiver to capture it in my own home. Only in my car will the radio catch it. The Onkyo at home won't even pull in KNUS from Denver, through the Terk antenna. So I lack my fix, developed over the last two years of drivetime driving, of Bill Bennett in the morning and Hugh Hewitt in the evening. Glenn Beck is incisive but not that incisive. The local hosts in Cheyenne aren't incisive at all, except for one counter-criticism of the Kelo decision.

Just figure II: is there an internet device that pulls broadcasters in and offers them to my home radio receiver? In that case it isn't good for AM radio per se. But it's great for those talk-show hosts and broadcasters who stream their shows over the Internet. I Googled last night for "internet radio component audio" and came up kinda dry, but I remember such devices, which I considered extravagant at the time but in retrospect now seem almost sensible over a broadband connection, offered at a store staffed by DeeDee who could be cute?

What we had to explain to Firstborn

AMC gave us the remarkable gift this evening, of having to explain to Firstborn what was meant by Dr. Lao in The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao. She was grokking it rather well.

Better than her understanding of Joint Committee hearings on oil company windfall profits.

So note well: if a 9-year-old can divine the meaning of a Silent-era made-for-TV movie but not grok a Senate subcommittee hearing's intent, the fault is not with the made-for-TV movie.

O, the weird things one will see on C-SPAN at oh-dark-thirty

Frightening it is to see Ted Stevens of Alaska sucking up to people who don't need be sucked up to.

Pete Domenici doesn't fare much better either.

Lo dark days are these that Republicians must summon from their depths cloaked apologists for the Free Market.

I'll be damned

We went to a picnic yesterday. A nearby lake offered catch-and-release trout. Boy tried his hand. As I stood with him, he cast and reeled in, over and over, catching nothing on his wormed hook but stringy moss. Every time, as he felt that little resistance to the reeling in, he shouted excitedly, "Dad, I caught something!"

About the hundredth time, after all the other kids had given up and left for another picnic event, he shouted again. OK, what this time? A boot? A soda can?

He reeled it in, and the rod actually bowed toward the water.

Then the line began to dart back and forth across the water. I'll be damned.




I helped him pull it close, shot the photo above with my phone, then rinsed my hands with water from the pond and took it in my hands and laid it on the dock so he could see it. A fourteen-inch speckled trout. I didn't keep it out of water long, it was bleeding all over and starting to get listless.

No fisherman am I, I didn't know how to get the hook out. Boy was ecstatic. I lowered it back into the pond and kept a grip on the line, then called a bud, who ran out, verified the measurement, and was about to show Boy and me how to free him. Just then, the trout bit through the line and was gone.

That made Boy's day. And mine.

where does it all come from?

A friend of a friend told me that most helium is separated from petroleum products. It can be isolated from the atmosphere too, but the petroleum process is more plentiful and cost effective.

At the time it seemed to me that helium would promptly race to the surface and dissipate, probably even find a way to escape the Earth's atmosphere, in just a few million years after the Earth condensed. How would any of it still be hanging around, even deep in pockets of the Earth's crust?

A bit of nuclear physics we are learning this week. The mineral-helium question bubbled back up to the surface, pun intended.

As radionuclides decay, one of the decay products is the alpha particle. When it gets the chance, it rips two electrons from any other atoms nearby---it needs to slow down first, of course, because it is ejected from the decaying atom's nucleus--and in so doing it becomes the noble gas helium.

So geologist types: is most or all of the helium available now created from alpha particles emitted by other decayed mineral nuclides, and how much new helium is being created there? Or is it mostly residual helium created in the last nova that gave us the heavier elements, which we are drawing from a finite supply?

Wondering

Let's say I have a diesel-powered vehicle, and I work an agreement out with local fast-food places to take all of their waste vegetable oil and convert it to diesel fuel for my vehicle.

If I get a load of peanut oil from a Chinese restaurant, will the exhaust from burning that fuel put my peanut-allergic neighbor into shock?

The Cabinet Man Goes to Gunsite...

...again.

Anyone that knows me well knows that I'm a Big Fan of Gunsite. Gunsite provides -- arguably -- the finest firearms training available to civilians in the USA and, quite possibly, the world. (For you non-silly-villians, don't worry. They train police and military folks as well.) I first went to Gunsite in 2003 for their Pistol 250 course. From day one, I was hooked. My instructor was none other than Louis Awerbuck of Yavapai Firearms Academy and SWAT Magazine fame. The Pistol 250 course was grueling and demanding. Balancing speed and accuracy was a constant and seemingly contradictory requirement. By the end of the 5th day, I was exhausted, humbled, and covered in BandAids. And I was delighted!! I was a better pistol shot. I mean a lot better. I cannot think of any other five consecutive days of my existance in which I learned and improved as much as I did then.

(Note to posers and wannabe's: Gunsite is neither cheap nor easy. If you just want to pad your resume or collect training certs, go elsewhere. Gunsite will eat alive those who aren't serious about learning...)

So, it had been a couple of years and I'd been working up a good Gunsite jones. So last spring, I enrolled in Carbine 223, Gunsite's introductory course to the AR-15. It does for the carbine what Pistol 250 does for, well, the pistol. They recommend Pistol 250 as a prerequisite and that's indeed a good idea. There are some basic assumptions made about the students' backgrounds and those without Pistol 250 will have some catching-up to do. Now, being the "I'll do it my way" kinda' guy that I am, I decided to take Carbine 223 with -- are you sitting down?? -- an AK-47. The course description mentioned 7.62x39 so what's an AK freak supposed to do?? Well, while I don't regret taking the AK, the course is indeed geared towards the AR-15. (Of the 20 students in my class, 18 ARs were being used, my AK and a Springfield Armory M1A SOCOM being the only exceptions.) The instructors weren't entirely familiar with AK but I give them credit for doing their best to incorporate it into the lessons.

Unlike Pistol 250, the Carbine 223 class started kinda' slow. The first day and a half were spent on the mandatory safety lectures, basic carbine operation, and 50/100/200/300 yard sight-in. Had someone had asked me what I thought of the course at lunch on the second day (Tuesday), they might have gotten rolled eyes. But the slow pace didn't last long. We moved to the square range and started the school drills: 1.5 second offhand head shot from 25 yards, 2-second offhand center-of-mass "double taps" from 50 yards, non-standard response drills (failure to stop, "2 to the body, 1 to the head", and carbine-to-pistol transitions), and 100-yard standing-to-kneel/squat/sit timed shots. Countless repeats of two shots from 200 yards in 15 seconds standing-to-prone were practiced. We shot moving targets. We shot obstacle courses that required different shooting positions to engage targets at varying -- and unknown -- ranges, including a shot from inside a dog house!! We shot on steel. We shot at night. We shot a walking course with metal targets out to 200 yards. We performed house clearing. I was starting to get tired. And loving it!!

On the last day (Friday), "final exams" were given: a full run of the school drills. I did OK but I thought I shot better on Thursday. (The exact same thing happened to me during Pistol 250...) However, I seemed to catch my second wind during the shoot-off. The course of fire for the shoot-off was pretty simple. There were two steel poppers to engage for each round: one at 100 yards, one at 200 yards. The 100-yard popper was shot first followed by the 200-yard popper. The 100-yard popper could be shot from any position but prone. The 200-yard popper could be shot from any position. The catch is that a position change must be made between targets -- even if you'd like to shoot both off-hand. Each shoot-off round started from standing, low-ready. (For each round, I shot the 100-yard target from the "Viet Cong squat" position and the 200-yard target from prone.) Two shooters shot at the same time on their own pair of targets. The first shooter to hit both of their poppers won the round. Each person in the class shot 6 rounds. I did really well, connecting 12 times for 12 shots. (That is, if I remember it correctly -- it goes very quickly!!) Unfortunately, I only won 4 of the 6 rounds. A Marine staff sergeant and an Oklahoma police officer each won 5 rounds and shot against each other in the final. The Marine prevailed. Semper Fi!!

I was awarded a Marksman grade, from the possible grades of Completion, Marksman, Marksman I, and Expert (in increasing order of Total Badassness). I kinda' feel like I shot better than Marksman but with all of the excellent performances from the police and military students (which comprised nearly half the class), it's quite possible that I did not shoot in the top 50%. I'll admit that when I had to choose between speed and marksmanship, I chose to make a good, solid hit. I wasn't the fastest guy out there and that probably didn't help my grade. (For the record, I wasn't the slowest shooter either...)

I won't say that I learned as much as I did in Pistol 250 but I still learned a lot. Mostly breath control and trigger control. Gunsite teaches the "empty lungs" method of breath control in their rifle classes which, as much as I tried, I never became comfortable with. I hated the asphyxiated sensation I got from it and it forced me to unnecessarily rush my shooting. Since it didn't seem to improve anything for me, I reverted to my old (bad?) "half-exhale" routine for the last two days. (Probably the only time that Gunsite advice didn't wear well with me.) I'll give the technique more opportunities when I head to range next time. The course's main instructor, Bobby Schneider, hammered home the "press to hold, release to reset" mantra for trigger control. Skeptical as I was, it worked as well for fast shooting as it did for slow fire. When I found my groups turning to patterns, it was usually because I'd starting
slapping the trigger again. Stick to the basics, practice the basics, and win with the basics.

As I mentioned earlier, the course is definitely geared towards the AR-15. Mechanical drills like tactical reloads and failure clearing are all based on the AR. I had to improvise a few of the steps since the AK uses a paddle-type mag release and doesn't have a bolt lock-back. I don't regret having taken the AK but, in hindsight, I'd probably take one of my ARs if I had to do it over again. That said, aside from awkward manipulation during the machanical drills, the AK performed admirably. Granted, I showed up with an upper-tier AK with a red dot sight and not, say, a cheapo WASR-10 and the dreadful stock AK sights. (Let's not forget that I was using the wonderful Cheetah ammunition as well, about which I can't stop raving...) My AK was consistently hitting center-of-mass at 200 yards, occasionally with better groups than the ARs. My 300-yard work was on par with the rest of the class. The only problem I had during the entire week was when my scope mount loosened Thursday afternoon. Other than that, I had zero malfs -- the rifle, mags, scope, and ammo performed flawlessly.

Various notes:

1) For all you gearheads, here's the kit I used:

Rifle: Bulgarian Arsenal SLR-101
Scope: Aimpoint CompML2
Mount: K-Var KV-04
Mags: a mix of Bulgarian waffle polymer and Romanian steel
Flashlight: Surefire G2 Nitrolon
Flashlight mount: Tac-Star Universal Barrel Mount
Cheek rest: D&E Scope-Eze (Brownell's P/N 946-102-003)
Pistol: Glock 22 in .40 S&W
Vest rig: all Blackhawk
Vest: Strike Omega MOLLE (37CL36)
Rifle mag pouch: Strike M4 Double (37CL03)
Pistol mag pouch: Strike Double (37CL09)
Holster: Omega VI (40QD02)

I "designed" the vest rig myself. I love Blackhawk gear but their off-the-shelf vests are very, shall we say, busy. I didn't want all those gee-gaws. Truth be told, I was ready to go with one of those OTS vests, but changed my mind at the last minute. Prior to my departure, I had been practicing with the vest I'd planned to use and found myself getting tangled-up in everything. This was further compounded by lack of Arnold Schwarzenegger-style upper-body strength: I just could not do a weak-side mag change. The SLR is not a light rifle and trying to keep it shouldered with my right hand during a mag change proved challenging and painful. I devised a rather quick strong-side mag change routine, much to the chagrin of the Gunsite instructors. I cobbled-together the vest that I took to Gunsite around that routine. The rifle mag pouch ended up on my right side and the pistol mag pouches on my left, about where they'd been for Pistol 250.

Tac gear specific to the AK is rare. (Untapped market, folks. Anyone paying attention??...) My sling was a Rube Goldberg concoction that consisted of a standard 48" AK sling (too short) lengthened by a steel motorcycle helmet lock cable and attached to the rifle by a minature carabiner. It looked disgustingly Amateur Hour but worked pretty damned well, noise discipline notwithstanding. I kept the AK mags (loaded one per pouch, as opposed to two for the AR) "bullets up" and pointed towards center. This made for the fastest speed loads but still required a good tug to get the bottom plates past the pouch's elastic retainer strap.

There's always a big debate concerning gloves. Fortunately, I practiced a few drills before I left with and without gloves. I could run the AK just fine with my (very thin) Uncle Mike's gloves. However, I couldn't get a good grip on my Glock with them. Hmmmmmm.... What to do, what to do?? Well, I wore one glove. On my left hand. And only so I wouldn't get burned by the AK's various exposed hot spots. Besides, wearing a glove on my right hand would have covered up all the BandAids, the official Gunsite badge of honor.

The equipment list for Carbine 223 lists elbow and knee pads. Rather than the "tactically-proper" Blackhawk stuff, I just brought some cheapo Rollerblade knee pads which worked just fine. I neglected to bring my elbow pads and, given the amount of dropping-to-prone that we did, I wish I had. The reason I didn't is that I've shot with the plastic-faced elbow pads before and the plastic slides around on more surfaces than you might think. And sliding around kinda' defeats the purpose of being prone. A smarter solution would be to bring some of the cloth elbow pads. Something like what a volleyball player might wear seems to be the best solution.

Other stuff I couldn't have done without:

MagLULA: great little toy, saved lots of pinched thumbs and split fingernails

Maxpedition RollyPoly "dump pouch": didn't have it the first day, bought it in the Gunsite pro shop. Good purchase.

CamelBak: 'nuff said. OK, that wasn't enough. My 10-year-old bladder froze overnight and I (like an idiot) tore the opening trying to brute force it. After saturating my backside in 40-degree weather, I bought a new bladder in the pro shop.

(BTW, I spent less than $70 in the pro shop, quite possibly a Gunsite record!! The pro shop is a dangerous place if you have a credit card. They stock only the best kit. Their prices are fair but good stuff ain't cheap!!)

I didn't spend money on a range bag. Instead, I used a rubber-bottomed, heavy-duty tool bag I picked up a few years back at Home Depot. I paid maybe $30 for it and it was perfect!! I saw no range bags that looked sufficiently durable for under $75. Mine held 400 rounds of 7.62x39, 100 rounds .40 S&W, ten 30-round AK mags and four Glock mags. There was even a little room left over.

But the best thing I brought to Gunsite was my ATV. Gunsite is a big place and we did a lot of jumping between ranges. I stayed at Gunsite's campground and having the ATV allowed me to keep the truck parked and still be mobile. I loaded-up the ATV Sunday night and pretty much left it loaded all week. I had room for my aforementioned "range bag" full of mags and ammo, my gear bag, my lunch cooler, two rifles, and all the BandAids I needed for the week. I highly recommend an ATV for people who have one and plan to drive to Paulden.

The basic rule for gear still stands: train like you fight. If you're a cop or a soldier, bring and wear as much of the gear you're issued as you can. The Marine that won the shoot-off wore his exact kit as if he were in the field. He was even given permission to bring his service weapon. Three-round burst is pretty cool!! That said, he did not wear his k-pot nor his body armor. We silly-villians are forced to guess what we might need. Do I need just enough to chase away an intruder or do I plan to hold off wave after wave of blood-thirsty zombies?? (Personally, I planned around the hope that any surviving zombies will retreat after I decimate the first wave...) Choose your gear accordingly.

2) Stay in the Gunsite campground.

The reasons go on and on. First, it's cheap and convenient. It's located on the "compound" and is only a few hundred yards from the classrooms. They have running water, bathrooms, showers, grills, fire pits, a microwave oven, a washer/dryer, an ice machine, and a pavillion with picnic tables. The campground fosters a "family" environment, with people from different classes getting together to discuss courses, instructors, and just about anything firearms related. While I was there, I met an alpaca rancher from Alaska, a Greek security guard, a truck-driving couple from Florida, and a Marine officer stationed in Hawaii. From these folks, I learned about karambit knives, weapon retention/take-away drills, how to completely disassemble a Glock, how an Aimpoint still works just fine with its front lense cap closed (if you shoot with both eyes open, that is), how to party with hookers in the Far East, and the broad scope of human generosity and shared meals. You just can't get that kind of interaction by sequestering yourself in a motel 45 minutes away.

3) Bring an AR

Yeah, I know. I was warned. But, hey, I needed to find out for myself. I plan to take the Carbine 556 course -- the advanced course -- next year and I'll take one of my ARs. (It's not like I'm totally pig-headed and, well, because I'll hafta'...) In the interim, I'll practice the AR-specific mechanical drills that I didn't get to do with the Kommie Karbine. There were a wide variety of ARs at the course and they all seemed to run pretty well. Most shooters had 30-round mags but those with 20-rounders didn't seem to be handicapped in any way. A few hardcores stuck with iron sights and the rest had either Aimpoints or EOTechs. I know of no optics failures. What I really, really, really want for my AR is a Trijicon TriPower. Trijicon teased the market with these things last year but they were ultimately vaporware. I guess a few were sold but Trijicon went back to the drawing board with them. They claim they'll be available in 2006 in their redesigned form. They got my hopes up once -- they better get their act together next time. There won't be a third foolin' of old TCM...

4) Be prepared

Start by getting into shape. This is a good rule in general but it applies double to Gunsite. I started lifting weights in the spring but had a big (working overtime related-) lull about a month before the class started. And it showed. The course is physically demanding and I know if I hadn't been even marginally prepared, I would have suffered for it. I did a lot of bicep and shoulder work which paid off nicely. However, one thing I didn't plan for was spending hours at a time with a heavy AK tac-slung across my chest. It took a toll on my lower back and a few (hundred) extra reps on the hyperextension machine might have prevented that. My current aerobic condition sucks (literally) but fortunately there weren't many opportunities to get short of breath. Learn how to apply BandAids with one hand.

One thing I was tempted to do that I don't recommend is getting the video of your course before you take your on-site course. "Why not, TCM??", you ask. Well, you'll watch the video and go thru the drills. And there's a good chance you'll think you're doing something right when you're really not. Then when you plant two feet on the range you need to un-learn your bad habits, which is significantly harder than learning them correctly to begin with. The videos are great but relegate them to "refresher" status.

Well, that's enough writing. I'm tired of typing and you're probably sick of reading. I'll depart with one comment. Get training. Most, if not all, of the readers here own guns, just as I do. When I took Pistol 250, I was shocked at how much I didn't know before I took the course. A person could have thousands of dollars worth of weapons but without training, they're worthless. Better to have $3000 worth of training and a $100 gun than a $3000 gun and $100 worth of training. Get quality training. The expensive guns can come later. Give Gunsite a try. It's neither cheap nor easy but it's worth it. Get some!!

TCM

We get some winter

A first taste of winter has brushed our fragile palate in Flyover Country. I took the first warning seriously last night, and today watched the skies and the thermometer as we unpacked boxes and such.

Just before dusk we were rewarded.



Barbaloot's mum was skeptical about our moving here from Colorado. As she read our local paper, she harrumphed: "Eighty percent of your county's roads are unpaved. Maybe that's why you don't have a State income tax in Wyoming."

Well, Grandma, a good number of those roads are called alleys, which by design remain unpaved in Flyover country. The rest are traveled only by pickup trucks, which do not care whether they cross pavement or dirt. And I'm quite happy to pocket the dollar difference.

But this evening as I stepped out to the sidewalk to take the photograph above, I felt the same comfort in a snowy evening that I've felt back East, watching big fat flakes tumble among pine boughs. It's what I imagine it must feel like in Switzerland or some of those World War II movies where the fighting has moved to the mountains in Germany.

I like the image and the feeling, and I share it with my few devoted readers. Though in this case it is no pine bough but a very big silver maple.

OK, now back to unpacking.

BOOOO-ya

I'm beginning to really enjoy Jim Cramer's Mad Money. His politics probably would disgust me but he gets naked capitalism.

Hey, big spender

Has the President considered that his approval ratings may be falling because of, rather than in spite of, his throwing money at Katrina relief?