I said it would happen again and here we are. Six people were shot last Thursday in a Northern Illinois Lecture Hall. I've said it before and I'll say the same here. A "Gun Free Zone" is nothing but an easy target. We don't even have a motive this time.
I'm not going to repeat my earlier statements, it just puts me in a foul mood. I'm only going to offer a rhetorical question.
When was the last time there was a killing spree inside of a police department or a gun store? What we need are more "Gun Guaranteed Zones."
I have a summertime hobby named a motorcycle that eats up free time like a bad habit. What I did not have is a hobby to chew up the boring hours between winter and spring. The price of ammunition has been going up steadily for the last 8 months or so. I used to buy boxes of .45acp for around $8, now you can hardly touch it for less than $16. Naturally, I'm not going to stop shooting, so I began reloading ammo a few months ago.
I'm still working on making up for the initial investment, but we're getting there quickly. It's a very relaxing, methodical hobby. Doing something repetitive with my hands after a long day at work in front of a monitor, while listening to music, or watching a crappy old movie.
Aside from cost, the other payoff is that you can tailor a cartridge to your firearm. The target below was 5 rounds shot from about 40 feet freehand out of my Springfield 1911. I wish I'd have shot one with some factory loads for comparison. I can put a full magazine into one of these targets at that distance, but they're all over the paper, not centered this well. The load here is a Speer 200 grain semi wadcutter bullet with 7 grains of Accurate no. 5 powder.
Just for fun, here's some 230 grain cast lead bullets in nickel cases that I picked up cheap at a gun show, these don't group nearly as well as the wadcutters, but they do make it look like I'm getting ready to go werewolf hunting.
If you read this blog, or know me, you know that I work in IT. If you know anything about working in IT, you know that we in the field are privy to some of the most asinine questions and comments in the workplace. Desktop computers have been prominent for what, 15 or so years now? If you work in an office, you should know how to use one by now.
I don't mind intelligent questions about problems that the average computer user would not know about, that's what I'm here for. I do mind when a person goes out of their way attempting to convince me that their parents were direct relatives.
Yesterday, after spending 45 minutes (no exaggeration) trying to explain the difference between "Reply" and "Reply to All," a frustrated user under my blanket of support dropped a bombshell that left me speechless. This person's co-workers and supervisor had been growing tired of being spammed with unnecessary email from the user and asked me to step in. I tried every explanation I could think of to no avail. The final, frustrated reply to my efforts?
"I just don't see how they can expect me to know about computers. I'm just a secretary, it's YOUR job to know how to use these things!"
If I were a mechanic, would it be my job to know how to drive her car? This mentality would put a crimp on many professions. A carpenter's job would never be done. He'd build a house, then have to stop back several times a day to open the front door for it's occupants. Doctors would write a prescription, then have to help their patients find the proper orifice in which to insert the pill. I shudder to think about what a plumber's life would be like.
"How was work today, honey?"
"Terrible. Mrs. Johnson called today. She had chili for dinner last night."
I stopped this morning to fill up evil carbon producing commuter machine and witnessed the violation of a personal pet peeve on a grand scale. Out of eight vehicles at the gas station, four had windows covered in enough frost to completely inhibit any kind of visibility. Most of the drivers appeared to have hosed enough washer fluid on the windshield to limp down the street to the gas station and one had scraped a tiny peephole to be used for navigating down the 45mph section of Ohio Route 82 that runs past this particular fuel station. There were two drivers whose cars had either been running long enough to melt the evidence from their vehicles or spend their nights parked in a garage and two that had clearly taken the time to remove the frozen matter enough to properly avoid their fellow roadgoing companions.
This morning, it was a brisk 7 degrees Fahrenheit in Cleveland. I understand that cleaning the ice from ones car is an unpleasant affair, but how hard is it to start the engine and allow the defrosting ducts to do their work? In weather around 20 degrees and down, oil gets thick enough that starting a car and immediately driving away significantly increases wear on the engine, so it's not like you are burning fossil fuels purely for personal comfort. It takes my wife's car about five minutes of idling at frigid temperatures to reach about 75% of normal operating temperature and another two or three for the defroster to clear the windows.
Are a few pints of gasoline really worth the risks involved in careening through the morning traffic unable to see?
As a fairly new homeowner, my ears perk up when I hear the word "foreclosure." Lately, they've been perking so much that it's giving me a headache. Here is today's contribution to my cranial discomfort.
Let me set the record strait and say that I certainly do have sympathy for the people losing their homes in this "crisis," especially those with children. The problem here is that many folks financed a home with an ADJUSTABLE rate mortgage at what looked like a great interest rate at the time. Now, interest rates have gone up, and the lenders are ADJUSTING the ADJUSTABLE rates on these mortgages.
My wife and I purchased a home in April last year. As every homeowner knows, part of the process is shopping around for a mortgage. I remember speaking to the first bank I inquired with over the phone. Getting approved for the loan wasn't difficult, as my wife and I both have decent credit. The loan officer told me that we could get a fixed rate mortgage at 6.25% or an adjustable rate mortgage somewhere in the 4.5% ballpark. Being my first experience with this sort of loan, I responded something along the lines of "Adjustable as in the rate could increase in the future?" The reply, of course, was "Yes, but it could also go down." Some quick mental subtraction tells one that there is not much room for a 4.5% interest rate to decrease. On the other hand, there is quite a large expanse between 4.5% and 100% and beyond. Common sense reared it's ugly head and we went with a fixed rate. At the time, I didn't think that the decision was all that hard. Apparently, there are a large number of people who would disagree.
I've heard the "we didn't know any better" argument, but that doesn't to much for me. If you can't be bothered to do some research about the most important purchase of your lifetime, then you deserve what you get, says I. Spending a small fortune (to me) was scary. I wanted to find out everything I possibly could. A fast google search showed me that I could even get legal representation to help me decipher all of the small print, if I was willing to pay for it.
To summarize: If you're going to borrow a wheel barrow full of money, do some homework. In the end, nobody is responsible for what happens after you sign on the dotted line except for yourself.
Anybody still reading this thing? It's only been half a year since I've updated it, my how time flies. I found myself becoming so sick of paying attention to the world that I started focusing most of my attention on ignoring it. Well, hang on to your hats, my three and a half loyal readers, because I'm back and I'm pissed.
Today's topic of discussion is "Change." I can't open a newspaper or turn on the TV without having to listen to some half wit politician spewing rhetoric about how we need "change" in this country. I'm still trying to find out what specifically these candidates want to make different. I hear the word the most from our two leading Democratic candidates for the 2008 election.
They say they're going to "change the economy and then say that they're going to "change" health care by providing socialized medicine. The tax increases necessary to enact the latter is doubtless to create a situation supportive of the former, but certainly not in a good way. I read in the news that these two promise to "change" the situation in Iraq, "change" social security (which the Democrats broke to begin with) and "change" the illegal immigrant problem.
I have yet to hear from either Hillary or Obama how they plan to accomplish any of this. Neither candidate possesses the experience to make me comfortable with even maintaining the current state of the nation (which I do not believe is as bad as they'd like you to think), let alone making any changes to it. They've served a few terms in congressional office, Hillary a bit more than Obama. That's it. Hillary has said that her time in the White House with Bill and his cigars counts, but she has also said that she didn't have all that much to do with the affairs of the nation during those years. Which is it? Obama has even fewer claims to fame, but at least he has been around long enough to get involved in a real estate scandal.
I currently plan to vote Republican in the upcoming election. I will vote for the candidate of choice of the first person that allows me access to their residence, bank accounts and credit cards and all other personal information in order to make a "change" in their life. Any takers?
I came across this story via StumbleUpon today. I haven't blogged much all summer and it looks like a good way to kick things off.
I call bullshit. First off, this thing doesn't even resemble a proper gun. The trigger is on the front grip, which basically hoses everything a seasoned shooter is used to. If you hold this with your right hand at the back, and left hand in front as would a right handed shooter, then it can be aimed naturally, but the trigger must be pulled with the left hand. Changing hands means that the trigger can be pulled with the right hand as a shooter is accustomed, however it requires that aiming be done left-handed.
Quoted from the site:
"Great, this is what we need. Children with guns learning how to aim and shoot. Then we can sit back and wonder what is happening to our country with kids killing kids......what's next? Could we make it squirt blood, too?"
This thing doesn nothing to teach kids how to aim and shoot a firearm and I'm not even going to touch on the impracticality of a video game controller that shoots blood at your TV set. Case in point: Below is a video of a player using the Wii Zapper.
You can see that he's holding it at his side and following the cursor on the screen with his eyes as he aims the "gun." He is not sighting down the barrel such as you would with a real firearm.
This next video shows the use of a real firearm from the user's perspective. Notice that there is a little thing we like to call "recoil" that forces the user to properly handle the gun in order to keep it under control.
Clearly, the two are very different, so no we are not teaching children how to "aim and shoot." If these parents are so concerned about the state of their children, why not think about raising their kids themselves instead of relying on society to do it? My favorite quote from the article:
"I think it's irresponsible for Wii to come out with a controller that looks like a gun so kids can play games simulating shooting. What kind of message are we sending as parents when we buy these things for our kids?"
They make it sound as though a man in a black suit is forcing them to buy a Wii Zapper and give it to their children. Want to send your kids a message? When I was six years old, my Dad took me into the back yard and handed me an old single shot .22 caliber rifle and a handful of hollow-point ammunition. He set up some jugs filled with water a few yards away and taught me to aim and fire. When I finally hit one of the jugs, it exploded all over the yard. Of course, being six years old, I thought that was the coolest thing ever. That was when Dad set the rifle aside and gave me the gun speech. There are are only two rules regarding firearms that anyone needs to know. You always treat a gun as though it were loaded, and you never point it at anything you don't want to blow up all over the yard. By 10 years old, not only did I have an impressive armament of air guns to complement my .22, my brother and I were also free to roam the woods behind our house with them. Not once did we shoot at each other or anyone else.
This all boils down to teaching children about responsibility. Video games and toy guns don't turn normal children into crooks and murderers. Parents who are too lazy to spend time with their families and teach them about responsibility and consequences do.
