CCAW

CCAW posted the anti-Wojcik flyer to Scribd, which is a free document hosting service. Let's hope this gets out there in time!

More P-B Comments

The American Hunters and Shooters Association is a bunch of lying, left-wing assholes. How disgusting that the P-B would publish this shit. AHSA has no credibility in among real gun owners.

The NRA is a moderate group. AHSA is a sham organization in league with the Brady bunch. If you want REAL pro-gun folk, check out the Gun Owners of America.

wamps: Right on with this comment - "The 2nd Amendment is NOT about Hunting!" 2A/RKBA is how we protect the rest of our rights from an increasingly hostile government!

cajred: The 2nd Amendment is the most important one in the Bill of Rights, and I would vote solely on a candidate's 2A record. Unfortunately both Obama and McCain are not friends of gun owners.

Maverick: I AM packing, if you know what I mean!

neo1: Gonna need guns if Obama wins, too -- for the 2nd American Revolution....

P-B Article on Wojcik

The Post-Bulletin apparently published an article on the Progressive Majority (the scum fucks—PageRank that!) support of Wojcik's City Council bid. My remarks:

Mike Wojcik says, "...it is sad that my opponent is trying to link this endorsement to partisan ideology." Marcia Marcoux has not tried to do this. The people who know Mike and/or oppose him noticed and rightfully tried to point it out. Marcia has been nothing but respectful to Mike despite his attitude, and hasn't made any negative statements about him that I've seen or heard. Obviously Mike has been making a lot of negative comments about Marcia regardless.

Mike did not disclose his affiliation previously. Furthermore, it's reasonable to assume that if an organization supports a candidate that, should that candidate be elected, the organization will expect something in return. It's illogical and unreasonable for Mike to say that partisanship shall play no part in his campaign. This is a blatant conflict of interests, and if he really is so concerned about ethics (as someone who knows Mike, I can say that he has no business talking about ethics whatsoever), he would've run without Progressive Majority's partisan support.

The only ethical thing for Mike to do now is to resign his campaign. But that'd be too much to expect from an ambitious, aspiring politician, wouldn't it?

To bloggin: The endorsement wasn't on Mike's website until recently; after he was "outed," I think. The Progressive Majority link was uncovered in mid-September via a Google search. (And no, it wasn't me that posted it to P-B, but I wish it had been!)

And:

To schmittts:
"...this just smells like a hatchet job at the request of the incumbents [sic]."

Wait a second, the P-B published an endorsement of Wojcik and you suggest that this afterthought was a smear? If the incumbent had the clout to instigate a smear, then for sure her opponent wouldn't have gotten the backing of the paper! Sorry, your conspiracy theory logic doesn't fly. Truth of the matter is, the media will publish anything they think will attract them eyeballs. Worked, didn't it?

Regarding individual activists, why would that be news? An individual helping a campaign is what happens normally. What isn't normal is a concerted effort by a large political group to alter supposedly non-partisan local politics and provide significant organizational support and training, which is the purview of decidedly partisan political organizations.

2nd American Revolution

So I was checking out this video I found on YouTube by this black guy going off on liberals. I don't like McCain, but I like this guy's arguments.

On his favorites list was a video by a guy imagining what Thomas Paine would say about our current state of affairs.

Although that video was about peaceful dissent, there was another video about non-peaceful revolution. That one is fucking awesome. Partway through they show the cover for Unintended Consequences. I might have to buy their CD.

DNS

According to /. comments:

DynDNS
FreeDNS
Dynect

CrossLoop

Walter Mossberg reviewed the CrossLoop service in the 9/25 WSJ Personal Journal. I'll have to check it out again when they have a version for OS X.

.50-Cal Uppers for AR-15

I thought I'd linked these here before, but they don't turn up in a search, so here they are.

Several companies manufacture "uppers" for AR-15 rifles. The nice thing about AR-15 uppers is that they don't require an FFL to purchase, so even if the ATF is conducting illegal recordkeeping of firearm transactions (they're not supposed to retain that documentation except in the case of NFA items), there's no way they would know. That is, unless the manufacturer itself is reporting sales. The general idea isn't for criminal action on the owner's part (.50-cals have never been used in criminal activity), but rather that if a .50-cal ban occurred and confiscation were attempted, one wouldn't have to yield to the government's illegal actions. Just because the government makes a law doesn't mean its right. The existence of "jury nullification" is legal evidence of that.

Anyway, here are some selections:

• Advanced Long-Range Systems LLC's ALS 50 BMG: single-shot bolt-action, 33-inch barrel, 35 lbs (upper only)


• Safety Harbor Firearms' UltraMag 50: magazine-fed bolt-action, 29-inch barrel (19-in and 22-in also available), 15.5 lbs (upper only)


• Serbu's BFG-50 (Big Fucking Gun, get it?): single-shot bolt-action, 36-inch barrel (22-in and 29.5-in also available), 32 lbs (upper only)


• Bohica Arms' (as in, "bend over, here it comes again") FAR-50: single-shot bolt-action, 36-inch barrel (16-, 24-, and 30-in also available), 25.5 lbs (upper only)


• Ferret50's eponymous conversion: single-shot bolt-action, 36-inch barrel (19-in and 29-in also available), weight not listed


• Ligamec Corp.'s Ultralite50: single-shot bolt-action, 29-inch barrel (18.5-in and 22-in also available), 12.2 lbs (upper only)


• Watson's Weapons' .50 BMG Upper: no details on website (there are more details about the carrying case than about the upper itself!)


• L&G Weaponry's .50-Cal Conversion: single-shot bolt-action, no further details

Placenta

Some people do interesting things with their kids' placentas. In the end, we left ours at the hospital, partly because Sachie didn't know what to do with it, and Sachie's mom thought it would be too grotesque to stick in the freezer. (Plus, we don't yet have a deep freezer.) Maybe with the next one we'll have a plan.

There's a company called LifeBank that will store the cord blood and optionally the placenta for later use. The service is pretty spendy, though, so you have to be fairly loaded to even consider it.

MSI Wind

Hmm, there was a /. link to an article on getting OS X installed on the MSI Wind. $480? I'll have to give it some thought.

Hack A Day & Business Card Web Server

Hack A Day seems like a cool site to scope when one has time. A recent article on how to build a business card-sized webserver was slashdotted.

Insulation

Searching for the foam insulation my neighbor was using under the siding she replaced (unfortunately I forgot the name), I came across a Dow site on various building materials. They have a number of foam insulation products for various purposes. Home improvement has a lot of choices to consider, especially in the area of materials.

Cultured Stone

In the Think Bank "Swap & Shop" there was a post advertising "River rock cultured stone". I wasn't sure if this was a brand or not, but a quick search turned up an Owens Corning company called Cultured Stone. They make the River Rock type of "stone veneer". I rather like the ledgestone designs.

Fujitsu to sell to WD?

CNET had an article relaying the Nikkei report from last night.

Here's my commentary:

Fujitsu only makes mobile (2.5") and server HDDs. The 2.5" space has been getting crowded lately: HGST, Toshiba, Fujitsu were the main players, but now Seagate, WD, and Samsung have joined in and snapped up market share. It's inevitable that one would have to bow out.

WD doesn't really make server-class drives -- although they claim to, they're still 7200 RPM SATA, which is decidedly NOT a real enterprise model -- so acquiring Fujitsu would bolster their efforts in enterprise and eliminate a competitor in mobile. Sounds like a good strategy to me as long as they can capitalize on the server business.

However, merging corporate cultures is painful, as survivors of the HGST/IBM and Seagate/Maxtor acquisitions can attest to.

Incidentally, Fujitsu is denying the Nikkei rumor...for now:
http://pr.fujitsu.com/jp/news/2008/10/2.html

Name Tools

My cnet RSS feed pointed me to an article on Usernamecheck, which tipped me off to a service called BustAName. The latter takes several keywords, generates various combinations of the words, and looks up domain name availability. Could be useful.

Absorption Refrigerators

While reading up on propane, I found out about absorption refrigerators, which use heat in the refrigeration cycle rather than a compressor. Apparently the technology was invented in the '20s (and that PR whore Einstein was co-named on a later patent), and is in use in some applications.

I dislike compressors because they're noisy, so silent operation is very attractive. Dometic makes refrigerators for RVs that use the absorption method. As a plus, they are typically "dual fuel", electric and LPG. Unfortunately, they're quite expensive relative to their size: $600 for the smallest non-portable model (BigDiscountRV).

Typical Democrat Response

So why is it that when Democrats get their hand caught in the cookie jar they respond with indignation rather than the shame they should be feeling? Take this piece of shit Charles Rangel, for example. A Republican would've been crucified for tax evasion and/or "violating the public trust", but Rangel says he did nothing wrong. U.S. citizens must by law pay U.S. taxes on all income regardless of source, worldwide. That includes income on rental houses in the Dominican Republic. Even corporate slave like me knows that, and I was liable to the IRS for those taxes. A scumbag legislator like Rangel should have to pay 10x in penalties because "ignorance of the law is no excuse" (the quoted text is sarcasm, but the preceding is not).

A Mommy Story

Katie was telling me (in IM) about her fiance's sister-in-law has a blog called "A Mommy Story". Somehow the subject of "mommy blogging" came up.

What's weirder is that I dated a girl Katie's fiance dated, and went out a couple times with a girl Katie's fiance's brother dated. I'm glad I'm not doing that anymore....

Random Articles

SSDs lackluster
Lights out for fireflies?
Chrome easter eggs

DRIcore

Daren was installing this DRIcore subfloor in his basement. Sounds like a great idea. The only problem is the impact on ceiling height, compounded by the necessity for any in-floor heating to go on top of the subfloor. However, this is probably a necessity for having flooring in the basement.

Kill Chavez

Die Chavez! Die! Die!!

Look at that picture—something's seriously wrong with the guy. He needs a cruise missile in the ass.

Or let me shoot him. I'll do it.

.50-Cal Ranges

Finding ranges where one can shoot .50 BMG is problematic. There are at least a couple in MN:

Oakdale Gun Club
Gopher Rifle and Revolver Club

There's a range nearby that might allow .50-cal, though I have yet to find out. Byron Sportsmen and Conservation Club's website is rather meager and references several PDF files, none of which seem to be accessible.

Concealed Carry Info

Apparently packing.org no longer exists. Some forum posts pointed to the following replacements:

usacarry.com
carryconcealed.net
handgunlaw.us.

Project Vote Smart

I'm not sure about this site, but it could be a supplemental source of information.

City Council

The downside of democracy is that stuff like this is possible:

Rochester MN 2008 Election Primary Results (Post-Bulletin, see Olmsted County)
Challenger tops incumbent in Ward 2 primary (Post-Bulletin)

I know Wojcik personally, having worked in the same department for five years, and I would emphatically not want him as City Council rep from my ward. The Mt. Fuji incident comes to mind when he talks about ethics and responsibility.

I'm shocked that he actually made it through the primary. The incumbent Marcia Marcoux had better get started campaigning! And I think I might have to help her out.

Democrats looking to get laid

I guess this is why they don't promote abstinence? (This is sarcasm, as I'm not particularly prudish when it comes to sex, I just think Democrats are illogical in general and like to take jabs at them.)

This is kind of like how Democrats tend to be the ones who go crazy and shoot people, not Republicans, which is Dems are against gun rights: they know their own tendencies.

HGST Rochester's "Black Monday"

The horrid news that HGST is terminating the internal channel mission was vaguely reported in the local newspaper as simply being "hardware design team" layoffs.

Stealing Wi-Fi

Link blog post #512—a nice "round" number.

There was a post on c|net about how stealing Wi-Fi in an airport is bad. I agreed with the following comment.

I agree, this sort of unauthorized use of Wi-Fi on a continuing basis is theft. Quite clearly the service is made available for the purpose of making a profit, and so circumventing the system constitutes stealing. Kind of like phone phreaking; while it's cool to figure the ins and outs of the technology, going much further past demos is hard to justify. This thing called ethics says just because you can doesn't mean you should.

Now I would change my reaction if we're talking about an unprotected signal coming into my house. It's my airspace, and if someone is broadcasting something I don't want at me, then it's their problem if I decide to take advantage of it. The law is dead wrong in saying that that is theft. If I chuck an iPod into someone's open window and they decide to keep it, it's not theft since I put it there. (Actually, it's my bad for throwing stuff into their space, and they'd have a right to be upset.) Decoding a signal is more marginal ethically. I'd say it's "half theft" in that as above, the user is stealing service, but it's also half the broadcaster's fault for polluting the PUBLIC (outdoor) airspace with their private signal, in contrast to the private airspace within the airport. With publicly shared things like frequency spectrum, there are gray areas abound.

NFA Gun Trust Lawyer Blog

This "NFA Gun Trust Lawyer Blog" might be useful, I'm not sure. The bit about an NFA trust looks inspiring.

Unlawful Armed Force

An article on CNN claims:

Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch said there was "mounting evidence that Russian and Georgian military used armed force unlawfully during the South Ossetian conflict" and it emphasized that this "highlights the need for international fact-finding missions in Georgia."

What the hell does "unlawful" mean in an international military context? How can anyone say that with a straight face? Forcing someone's notion of "international law" upon the world is farcical to say the least. Put another way: Whose law was broken? The reason people fight is because they can't resolve things peacefully, and no law can be applied to that.

The Geneva Convention wouldn't mean a damn thing if the aggressor who violated the rules were to win. Such laws are only used as a pretense for the winning nation to justify their actions upon the loser. "War crimes" is a nonsensical term—there is no crime in war, only the will of the victor over the vanquished. Nuremburg after World War II was a farce in that punishing the losing generals was some application of authoritarian law. No way: The Allies extracted vengeance and had to apply the shield of "law" to make up excuses for their actions. The Allies rightfully won (although the Allied leaders were minor tyrants in their own right), and still they felt they had to apply a bit of decorative color to the war's end. Well, the winner writes history, always.

This whole conflict with Georgia and Russia is a case of he said, she said—who knows what exactly happened out there. What we do know is that Russia is not to be trusted. The wounds of the Cold War run deep, and just as China longs to rule Asia once more, Russia longs to again be the dominant power in Europe. Where such ambition runs rampant, war can never be far behind.

GPS Map for Japan

I thought about buying a GPS prior to this last business trip but decided against it. It'd be cool, but an unnecessary expense.

Garmin apparently allows downloadable maps, and one company produces a GPS map for Japan. The one with routing information, version 2.0, costs more than the one without routing info, version 1.2.