RIFLEMAN'S JOURNAL - MARCH 2010

Your charitable donations are deeply appreciated!

Still unemployed. As usual, I don't want to reenter the workforce. Especially in this godsforsaken sheeple-infested state where competence appears to be considered a social disease.

In the news, commentary on the Chicago SCOTUS McDonald case from Charlotte GRE, Seattle GRE, LA GRE (following-on to yesterday's media bias), and GraphJam via SeeEmilyPlay.

Speaking of media bias, the audience is voting with their remotes, and the opposition is getting desperate.

Cleveland GRE reports on RKBA's rising profile.

How many times have I needled those free-expression, anti-censorship, pro-privacy types who voted for Hussein because Bush was teh 3vi1? Again I ask, HOW'S THAT WORKING OUT FOR YOU? Doofuses.

Just a couple weeks ago I said this nation was founded by "anti-government extremists". History lesson. LA GRE's second column today meshes with that; the servants need to be put back in their place.

Fort Smith GRE has a story tragically similar to Suzanna Hupp's.

NRA BoD elections approach. I'm still on the EPL plan so I'm not a voting member yet, but Codrea is, and asks some pointed questions of the Lairds of Fairfax.

Pournelle has more on government health care.

Generally speaking, cops are violent sociopaths lacking in self-control or a sense of right and wrong. They should be removed from society, in the name of public safety.

Sink the Island, chapter CMLIII.

Several times I've commented on a natural disaster here having a miniscule death/injury/damage toll, while a comparable disaster abroad wipes out tens or even hundreds of thousands, because a free market makes for a vastly and variously higher standard of living than any other system, particularly government control. Stossel has a graphic example.

If you're looking for a bit of partisanism, this graph on unemployment rates is fascinating.

THE HOLY GRAIL IS FOR SALE.

Yes, my lottery-fantasy CNC business would offer reproductions. Technology reduces costs. Once the capital investment in technology is made, put raw material in one end, tell the computer what you want in the middle, and from the other end receive Mass Quantities of Excellent Affordable Product. It's not a Posleen Forge, or Shlockiverse Fabber, but one can see it from there.

I don't know if this link will last, but I'd donate to that cause.

Quotes o' the Day.

I'm listening to the archived copy of yesterday's Gun Talk, and halfway through the third hour is a report from Utah about their Firearm Freedom Act. Several states have passed or are pushing similar acts, the general flavor being that firearms and related products made in a particular state, which never leave that state, are exempt from federal regulation and damnfoolery. The guest from Utah pointed out a larger issue - FFAs are vehicles for states to, through precedent, more generally get the federal government's nose out of states' business, and businesses. I hadn't thought of that. I'm still wondering if the Commerce Clause shouldn't just be kicked out of the Republic's Constitution altogether. Government must be restrained, and the Commerce Clause has historically been a weak link in the binding chains.

Related, comparable local issues from Cleveland GRE and Denver GRE. Hello?! "Supreme Law of the Land"!? Unstable freaks in black robes....

Meanwhile, self-soiling cowardly bigotry in Seattle, and a fun quiz.

Albuquerque Libertarian Examiner rants on thuggish-thieves-with-badges. How can those scum look at themselves in the mirror? For the past decade or two at least, no one really becomes a cop to help people. That's not what it's about, anymore. I understand many jurisdictions have removed "Protect and Serve" from their vehicles.

Encroachment is a real danger. Pay attention dammit!

SPACE! EXPLORATION! Just last month I commented on Tam's comments on NASA and government funding of space programs. Now the Libertarian Examiner has stepped in it and is getting roughed up a bit in comments.

(From the sidebar ads at Tam's site I saw this and LOL'd.)

More on the Chilean quake, and the difference between free-marketry and thirdworldism, from Jovian Thunderbolt, IBD and WSJ.

Pournelle rants on 'crats.

Tam snarks on the degeneration of comic books. Click through to the Washington Times article for lame spin from Marvel.

Your Tax Dollars At Work! Not really - not yet - but as previously stated, the line between satire and genuine moonbattery is thin and blurry.

Most laws are bad, and most of the rest don't work. Making something even illegal-er doesn't stop it from happening, nor does punishing the people who aren't causing harm. Unfortunately we have an overabundance of Javerts, who don't have the decency to throw themselves into the Seine.

McDonald updates & commentary from Boston GRE, LA GRE, Seattle GRE, St. Louis GRE, Outdoor Life, IBD; Codrea's National GRE raises a small point but a sharp one. Meanwhile here is a facepalm moment, and more seriously, Yuri boils down what the hoorah is about.

More spittle-flecked bigotry from SPLC. And remember they're piping that sewage right into the badgethugs' morning briefings.

Nuke the Island into Fiery Oblivion. 1984 was supposed to be a warning, not a *&^%$ INSTRUCTION MANUAL! And we are heading that way.

Feminism... might have had noble ideals for about thirty seconds before the Iron Law overcame the movement. Now it's just an excuse to bash anything with an XY chromosome. Here is the truly feminist Quote o' the Day: "I gave my wife a pistol for Valentine's Day a few years ago. I don't know what says 'I Love You' better than 'Please protect yourself.'" I gotchyer "empowerment" right here. So why is NOW anti-gun? Hmm?

Re: cops & guns, Michael Bane (scroll down past the McDonald stuff) raises a valid point about Glocks and safety. The problem is, cops fire fewer rounds in qualification, in a year, than I do in a typical weekend for competition (in which I usually do Quite Well Actually). They don't know which end the hot stuff comes from. See also the introduction to item #5 in the latest VCDL Alert: "Whenever a Fairfax County police officer comes to the campus, he'll be wondering why everyone around him is diving for cover. After all, he is a person with a gun." That's meant as satire but I'm serious: The officer is far more likely, either negligently or sociopathically, to do actual harm with it, than a college student who attends the local bowling pin shoot every month. Law enforcement officers are a public safety hazard. Peaceable armed citizens are not.

:-O

Just :-O

More MSM bigotry via LA GRE and Codrea.

On the subject of bigotry, who has the biggest tent?

HEINLEIN QUOTES, particularly this one.

Illinois sucks a tiny bit less. But not so's you'd notice.

Fort Smith GRE has two articles on his local badge. The words sound good, but do the regular cuffs-and-nightstick gang get the message?

Kinda related to my question, it's all about the revenue. "Protect and Serve" who again?

And as long as we're talking about badgethugs, they certainly do stick together. Oddly though, they don't seem to look too close at each other's backgrounds (note the third comment, from Straightarrow).

Stossel on prohibition.

Here is a powerful, personal story of reason overcoming emotion.

The Nuge rants on Obamacare.

DeMarce's The Tangled Web is aptly titled, with minutiae of religious sects and medieval law and significant characters all over the place. Not much action.

Speaking of books, I've read a few by aviation writer Barrett Tillman, who I later learned is a Gunsite alumni. Here's his latest.

Very late last night early this morning, more Story splorched onto the keyboard. You might soon see something I didn't write years ago. But speaking of writing, I tediously (I still don't have much bandwidth) downloaded this 12-part video and finally got around to watching it. The point that struck me the most was, "Have something to say."

As long as we're talking SF, Russian whiz-kid builds Gauss rifle. From the description, not field-ready (remember the Japanese LMG which had a little oil brush for the cartridges? Or Pedersen's original lubed-cartridge design?), but who in the matchlock era could have imagined the Queen?

Not to forget ecofreakiness.

And just plain freakiness. All we want is to be left alone. The other side is doing what they accuse us of. It's happening so often now one has to legitimately wonder if it's not coincidence.

McDonald Stuff o' the Day from Reason and Seattle GRE, featuring the Quote o' the Day: “...the only people ‘hurt by the city’s handgun ban are those obeying it’.”

Then right below it is another, the Uzi Tactical Pen from CampCo. It has a sharpened crown to not only injure an opponent but to capture a DNA sample for later identification. "The UZI Tactical Pen is another one of the tools that every police officer should keep in his arsenal for those times that he needs to expect the unexpected." So according to CampCo cops are supposed to go around stabbing people. And suppose they don't clean it properly from one stab to the next? Corrupted evidence at best, and possibly a life-threatening disease for the victim. It's Us vs. Them, and Us didn't start the split.

St. Louis GRE has an update on Firearms Freedom Acts.

Codrea shines a light on discrimination in New Jersey.

DC GRE has an update on Starbucks.

Free-market education now. Before it's too late.

Boycott airlines. Satire, sure, but for how much longer? Drive, or make a deal with a private pilot who's going that way.

Mm-hm.

Uh-huh.

All you privacy-conscious cybergeeks? You were warned. Some of you were doing the warning at one point, why are you so silent now?

Excellent post from Breda: Be Not Afraid. Now that's promoting the Cause.

Cruffler sends:

He also sends:

Just wanted to let you know - today I received my stimulus package for 2010.
It contained two watermelon seeds, cornbread mix, and 10 coupons to KFC.
The directions were in Spanish.
Hope you get yours soon!

No I'm not employed yet, and the money is getting thin.

And I'm still so distracted I missed the whole show, I'll download the .MP3s later.

Meanwhile, yet another reason to abolish government schools and switch to free-market education.

LA GRE continues examining the relationship between citizen militia and government forces.

A good start.

Compared to America, everywhere is the Third World.

Cops can't even protect themselves, why should we trust them with our lives?

More analysis on 14A incorporation, including potential unintended consequences.

Government healthcare. Oh hell no.

See also more examples of might-makes-right, shut-up-and-do-as-we-say from Massachusetts, DC, Ohio and Virginia. Abetted by lying elitist bigots in MSM.

Quotes o' the Day: "[G]iving [Congress] a distinct and independent power to do any act they please which may be good for the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please. Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them. It [the Constitution] was intended to lace them up straightly within the enumerated powers and those without which, as means, these powers could not be carried into effect." - Thomas Jefferson, Opinion on a National Bank, 1791

"Obviously there is no need of fighting to overcome this single tyrant, for he is automatically defeated if the country refuses consent to its own enslavement: it is not necessary to deprive him of anything, but simply to give him nothing; there is no need that the country make an effort to do anything for itself provided it does nothing against itself. It is therefore the inhabitants themselves who permit, or, rather, bring about, their own subjection, since by ceasing to submit they would put an end to their servitude. A people enslaves itself, cuts its own throat, when, having a choice between being vassals and being free men, it deserts its liberties and takes on the yoke, gives consent to its own misery, or, rather, apparently welcomes it." - French judge, writer, political philosopher Etienne de la Boetie (1530-1563)

"Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions." - James Madison

"People often ask me why I left the Soviet Union. The real question is: How is it possible so many Americans ask such an absurd question?" - Svetlana Kunin

Why I don't go to movie theaters anymore. If there's something I absolutely have to see, I can find it at the library or on the 'net.

Practicing the double-action trigger. Srsly I have a callus on the second joint of my right index finger. Not everyone uses the same technique; I use Henry Bowman's trigger-cocking, in which the tip of the finger touches the frame, which some will rightly equate with a flaw Riflemen would call "dragging wood". Try different things, and get lots of dry-practice. If you can hit, it doesn't matter how. IIRC Cooper had a similar philosophy regarding position shooting in The Art of the Rifle; let the student find a position that works, that produces hits, even if it's not the one in The Manual.

Wait what? Government takeover of student loan industry? Am I reading that right?

"Today's rules of racial etiquette are not reciprocal. Whites are taught to respect blacks, but blacks are not taught to respect whites." And they call us racist.

More on McDonald.

Political Correctness kills. Disarmament kills. It killed worthy soldiers at Ft. Hood, and now it's killed another. Michael Z. Williamson - who is a US military veteran - in his Freehold of Grainne series, particularly The Weapon, made the case for having all soldiers armed at all times in all places.

Healthcare rant. If thieving, destructive government would get out of the damn way and let doctors do their jobs, costs would plummet.

Here's another from Tam: "The problem is that the .gov acts like there was strong encryption on the Constitution and they don't have the right key to read it."

And: “Government Health Care is not about health care; It’s about Government.”

Census...

Nuke the Island into Fiery Oblivion.

I've mixed feelings about this. OT1H it's wide open to being Acorned, but OTOH I just linked a rant about Big Brotherism and National ID. :(

Media bias, Chapter CMXCIX.

A twofer from Seattle GRE, Government Schools and demagoguery. More on Starbucks from LA GRE.

Gaining a little ground in Colorado.

Guns in church.

BATFU and airsoft.

Excellent socio-cultural rant.

"Gosh," I thought, "I wonder what that could be about?" So naturally I looked and found the expected:

Uh huh.

Guns at Work, also seen from the other side of the counter.

Speaking of yet another massacre in Africa.... I'm thinking of a precedent. Starts with an 'R'. Anyone?

No pitchforks, no torches... yet.

Progress in Arkansas?

The other day there was a report about a 6-year-old being suspended from government school for pointing his fingers like a gun. Now I learn the Department of Education is buying short-barrel shotguns. More shotguns. To go with the ones they already have. Torches. Pitchforks. And maybe some rope.

Speaking of rope, I've a good idea where it can be applied.

Census. What's the point of being accurately enumerated if the Chicago machine is going to fudge the numbers anyway?

This is where we're headed.

Related to most of the above, Quote o' the Day from a leftover space in Shotgun News: "(T)he whole history of mankind proves that so far from parting with the powers actually delegated to it, government is constantly encroaching on the small pittance of rights reserved by the people to themselves and gradually wrestling them out of their hands until it either terminates in their slavery or forces them to arms, and brings about a revolution." - Luther Martin, delegate to the Philadelphia Convention, March 28, 1788

I repeat: Government must be restrained. By every means.

In lighter news, nice work if you can get it. Sigh.

Take a closer look at that last link. Those are just the ones he had time to post since yesterday. (It appears that one out of every six cops is a child-molester.) Out of gods-only-know how many he gets every day. Out of how many don't even get reported? Police are the single greatest threat to public safety in the world today. Anyone still wearing the badge is evil by definition. They're on the wrong side and they are the wrong side.

This is symptomatic of a larger issue.

Codrea has more on the Department of Education's shiny new street-sweepers.

On a different level, legislative peril in Ohio.

This is how, and why, it's supposed to work.

And Part IV.

Except it's really not funny anymore. They're actually like that.

More data on BATFU and airsoft. The entire bureau should be dismantled at bayonet-point.

While we're there, let's also dispose of TSA. (And Boycott Airlines.)

Massachusetts still sucks, with maneuvering on McDonald and Heller.

Lies and hysteria from VPC. One would yawn if their bigotry weren't being enforced by thugs with badges.

Media bias, Chapter MCXI.

I must escape Oregon. For reasons very similar to Svetlana's.

Meanwhile, on the healthcare front.... If it was just them we'd rejoice, but they're using a Dirty Bomb and the fallout may be impossible to clean up.

And the GOP just ain't grokking.

Speaking of Trek, snicker.

Skimmed over most of DeMarce's 1635: The Tangled Web. I couldn't find much action and it was frankly tedious. In fairness I'd just read Ringo's latest (he built the freaking Death Star with available, if bootstrapped, technology) so my perception may have been skewed.

Working on Part V of Aurora. Not much action there either, in fairness, except by historical-backstory implication. I'm learning to write.

"...[B]ecause they were unable to defend themselves." And note, the MSM article describes this child-abuser as a police retiree.

This may not meet the Constitutional definition of Treason, but it seems awful damn close.

"Only the most delusional still believe in our government."

Tom Hanks, revisionist? Think before buying DVDs.

"After America, There is No Place to Go."

DIY UAV? There's another article in the latest SGN, also from Knob Creek, on aerial shooting, targeting small RC aircraft. This sport has evolved over years and the current models use styrofoam construction, on which GPMG fire has little effect. Hmmm. All sorts of subversive possibilities arise. For example I'm sure someone can figure how to boost the range on one of these (though 200m is pretty good already). Pan & tilt even!

The Rule of Law has failed. Also.

A couple click-throughs from WoG:

Israel anti-RKBA?

Take your Wiki with some salt.

New GRE, Parkersburg.

Sigh. Will I ever get back there?

Ummm... doesn't the Kel-Tec RFB use forward ejection? Sooo... isn't putting a Picrail right in front of the ejection port a really bad idea?

HOO-AAH, somehow I got my wireless keyboard working again! Now if only the thing had an off-switch to prevent unintended use. But for $24, bundled with a mouse, from BigLots, what more should I expect?

The Lairds of Fairfax.

It's a comin'.

Motivator o' the Day. Compare & contrast. (The last paragraph of Kopel's article seems to contradict itself.) Related, hypocrisy - us peasants shouldn't defend ourselves, but the badgescum should be armed to the teeth. "Protect and Serve" who? And it's been that way for a long time.

Another reason to move to Wyoming. Note the State Seal - WY was decades ahead of the rest of the world in women's rights. So naturally MSM paints them as misogynistic rednecks.

There is a difference between "peaceable" and "law abiding". Most laws are bad and most of the rest don't work.

It's not funny because it's true.

"If public servants can ban guns, they can make the rest of the nation easy prey for looting."

Update on Seattle parks ban.

St. Louis GRE examines mandatory age restrictions. (But Illinois still sucks.)

Revisiting yesterday's hypocrisy, note recent comment by RSBL: "...an encounter with the police could mean your death, even if you've done nothing wrong." So why are these homicidal-freaks-with-badges still running around loose, let alone being paid with our taxes? Could even Kafka have come up with this one?

Codrea looks at the Tea Party.

The parasite class. Money quote, too literally: "...the ratio of workers to retirees has shrunk from 41:1 in 1942 to 3.3:1 in the mid-2000s."

Why we are angry. Stop poking the rattlesnake.

Who's "racist"?

"...so-called Founders...."? That is just... beyond words.

If you're writing SF, get the science right. And don't just look at the pictures. I have one suspension of disbelief, one: FTL technology. No artificial gravity, no forcefields, no teleportation. I've taken for granted great leaps forward in energy production, management & storage, materials science, and even nanotechnology, but there's eggheads actively for-real tinkering with all those things for the past few decades already. -Recall my saying I had to go back and rewrite the spin-gravity 'cause I read the equation wrong. Somewhere - probably Grumbles from the Grave - I read that Heinlein, in 1947, before the invention of personal computers like the one you are using right now had been imagined even by him, plotted an orbit for one of his stories on a big piece of butcher-paper laid out on the floor. (These days I'm sure there's an Excel template for it and BTW I am still looking for a programmable universal calendar....)

A reader recently sent a link to a webcomic I hadn't read before, and I'm slogging through the Sluggy-esque archives. In the third panel of this strip is the Quote o' the Day. -And a prescient metaphor.

Permits are infringement.

There is a difference between "peaceable" and "law-abiding". We're not hurting anyone. All we want is to be left alone.

More from Codrea on the Tea Party.

Stossel speaks as he finds.

Craaap, two slots free in the library hold queue and four books to put in them, sigh. ....OTOH only the Honorverse is in the system yet.

We are all so screwed.

Related, still reading the Freefall archives and this is just tasty.

Because, this sort of thing is becoming far too common.

Meanwhile in Virginia, never trust a cop of any kind, because none of them trust any of us.

In the larger sense, all these reports are related, like this one on Thought Police. (Click through for the Reason article.) I must escape Oregon. But I'm down to the Ramen layer in the cabinet again.

Related to that, this right here is one of the mental blocks I have about returning to the workforce.

Aurora Part VI. I'm including a lot of background and Weber-esque datadumps because I have some vague notion of having this story work as a standalone.

Speaking of eggheads tinkering with stuff for real....

Japanese artists + American writers (would) = teh awsumm. I said that. Long ago.

Speaking of teh awsumm, totally awsome eagle pictures need no excuse.

On which topic Seattle GRE snarks as Seattle looks for a new chief badgethug.

Who's racist? Not this man. Take a look at this cartoon again. Can ya do the math?

Related, who's anti-Semitic? Me, I'm a card-carrying member of JPFO.

Speaking of doing the math, it adds up like this: "...this November will be a bloodbath at the polls if there isn't a literal one before that." And: "...[N]obody thinks it is coming except the people preparing for it."

Most laws are bad and most of the rest don't work.

From Dr. Pournelle: "The nation seems to be determined to invest a very large part of its capital in pensions for public employees. What the return on investment will be is not obvious." For this I should go back to work and do my taxes and fill out the census form? What's my motivation?

I repeat: Permits are infringement.

Having read Unintended Consequences, and much else, I was aware of the March of the Bonus Army. Were you?

The rule of law has failed.

Who won the Cold War?

The other day I mentioned RC aircraft and do-it-yourself unmanned-aerial-vehicles. And now we have this. And if it can carry a paintgun it can carry some other kind. -Never mind legality, the whole gang has abandoned the rule of law. "... it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government...." Whatta they gonna do, require permits to visit a hardware store? "The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers." All these statist thugs scrambling to keep the lid on are only hastening the day it will blow off.

Hmm. Not CMP legal but.... I do wonder how they closed the magazine well, and if the standard M1 trigger group with floorplate will fit.

Yes there will be more Aurora, and yes I have an idea where it's all Going (though it may be a bigger story than I can write). Writing is like shooting: You can't get good at it without doing it. Years, or weeks, from now I may look at it and cringe, but for the moment I'm being all creative-like.

Those who support disarmament, by definition, support racism and violence.

Looking at reports like this, one could easily conclude - from an ethical sense, never mind useless laws - that killing a cop would not count as murder. It's a civic duty and a public service to destroy diseased, violent, out-of-control animals. These days, most such wear badges. And I ain't talking about the back-seaters in the K9 units, though of course we can lump them in too. The law enforcement community is a danger to public safety and must be removed for the good of society.

Idaho sucks less.

Hollywood sucks more.

Via Michael Bane, custom 1911 grips. Including SNAAAAAKE.

FRICKIN' LASER BEAMS!!!!1!!11!!! And Active Camouflage.

Speaking of media.

Mexico is just... wrong.

Disarmament kills. But who is viewed as a threat?

Ayoob interviews McDonald.

Without these guys, we don't eat.

How to feed the Queen in the field. Now if only I had one in 7.62x51mm... and if only I weren't incomeless and broke....

Speaking of money, if you like my story Aurora, here's Part VII and charitable donations are deeply appreciated! Srsly I gots bills.

Speaking of writing SF and designing starships, readers of David Weber's Honorverse may be aware of the Great Resizing. I'm trying to avoid that embarrassment. Here is a free online cube-root calculator (Windows Calc doesn't seem to have one). In the story thus far I have an Adamant class light cruiser, 161 meters long, 37 meters greatest diameter in a slightly wasp-waist profile (I have a mental image and a crude sketch, but I'm no illustrator), 11,000 metric tons deadweight mass under normal load, full military complement 152, merchant complement after extensive refit currently 10, later to expand to at least 11. I arrived at these figures first by pulling them out of my butt and then by smooshing them up against the specifications of various US Navy warships, especially nuclear submarines, which have some things in common with spaceships. Modern SSBNs actually come very close indeed to Aurora's specs.

Now I've written that Aurora has been refit with four main cargo holds, each with a capacity of 1.4 Standard Kilotons. That unit of measurement comes from the current maritime term, based on 100 cubic feet, or 2.83 cubic meters, as an estimate that most cargoes which take up that volume will weight about one ton - which I can't tell if it's English or Metric but it's close enough for writing with. (An American ton is 2,000lbs, a British Long Ton is 2,240lbs, a metric ton is 1,000kg; the latter figure equals 2,205lbs and eventually those few percent add up but I'm ignoring it and presuming that everyone who matters is using metric in the 2350s AD.)

So! I have four holds, each with a capacity - for now - of 1.4kt based on a fictional update of the aforementioned maritime shipping formula. Each of these has - for now - a volume of 3,962 cubic meters, which is certainly not to be rounded off to four cubic kilometers, which would be four million cubic meters, no that's not what that means. But how big is such a space really? On each side? Had I made a monumental Weber-esque blunder already?

No I hadn't. I'm no mathemetician or geometrician, but the free cube-root calculator (which I knew the net would provide) indicates a cube, with a volume of 3,962 cubic meters, is only 15.8 meters on each side. Now obviously you can shorten one dimension and elongate another, and then add curves which I know there are formulae for but I'm not going to bother with them at this point, to determine a shape, with that volume, which would fit in your hypothetical starship. So I learn I made a lucky guess, and the very crude sketch just got some more detail. If anything I probably underestimated Aurora's capacity, and may have overestimated her mass and density by a great deal but, she was built as a warship, with weapons and armor and sensors and machinery and crew quarters and whatnot crammed all through her and little space left over for a shipment of Alexandrian neoprawns (and them's good eatin'!) so I'm leaving the numbers as they are until I find someone to help me draw up some shiny blueprints.

They have utter contempt for the law. Why should we respect their decrees?

Bigotry and backpedaling in Tennessee.

Speaking of bigotry, MSM's lies couldn't be more obvious. Yet millions of (voting!) sheeple believe them.

Sigh.

Reader points out:

BTW, a cube root function comes right in the Windows calculator if you use the scientific version. Which I was using....

You find the x^3 key. Then you type your number into the calculator. Then you check the Inv (inverse) box and hit the x^3 key. Cube root. D'oh.

Same will work on the square (x^2) key but you have to use a different sequence if you use the programmable power (x^y) key.

More math: A maritime "net ton", on this planet, in this century, is calculated as 2.83 cubic meters. A cube of that volume is 1.414475... meters on a side, which is 1,414.475... centimeters per side, and contains 2,830,000 cubic centimeters. Water is the key to the entire metric system: One cubic centimeter of water at 4°C (originally 0°C, which is also the freezing point) masses one gram. So this hypothetical Standard Ton, if filled with water, would mass 2,830 kilograms, or 2.83 metric tons, or about three and a quarter American 2,000lb tons. Now take my aforementioned 15.8m cube and stretch it and squash it to fit a particular hull - I really should make a sketch I can post - and yeah, I can cram four of them into where Aurora's crew compartments and original military galley used to be.

Aaaand I'm working on a sketch in MSPaint. Captain Danner's Corona is, let's say, somewhat larger than a Chevy Suburban. Which is only 5½ meters long by 2 wide by 2 high, in most versions. The Type 208 shuttle is about the same size as a Corona and three of them fit in a Patrol-standard Small Craft Bay, which are prefabbed by subcontractors and slapped onto or into any decent-sized ship in the fleet, like building the old WWII Liberty Ships. Fiddling with the hull dimensions I already had, I came up with a craft bay being 18m square and 4.5m deep, which means the 539JR model-year Corona could be twice the size of a Suburban and you'd still have room for three of them.

And here is your first look at the ship. I had a different arrangement in mind for the craft bays but it didn't work out on the electronic graph-paper. The small craft usually carried would be tail-boosters, if not always tail-sitters, designed for atmospheric entry and operation like NASA's Space Shuttle; they'd be arranged parallel to the ship's long axis so they could take the thrust on their own thrust axes and not be smooshed. For scale, the NASA Shuttle is almost exactly as long as Aurora is wide, and an F/A-18 Hornet fighter would just barely not fit in the craft bays. The image was drawn at 8 pixels per meter and the little guy in the bridge is 15 pixels tall. The Hornet and Shuttle clip art was found around the web and I guesstimated how much to shrink them in MSPaint. It took me a few hours to do this, but now I have a much clearer image of the ship to work with.

I had no freaking clue what an Adamant class actually looked like until a couple weeks ago. And I've been writing about them for ten years. I'm also thinking 11,000 tons is too little mass for a big armored interstellar warship, and according to this extraordinary useful site it is, so I'm rewriting her mass as (another number pulled partly out of my butt) 31,000 tons, which means my estimate of cargo capacity should probably also triple, and I'll need a Lesser Resizing of my own in other segments of the story.

The World Sucks

It would appear Obamacare has passed and the last shreds of the Constitution have gone up in smoke. There are wider implications. Additional commentary, insight, and snarks from:

Coordinated Illumination
Dr. Pournelle
Patriot Post vote roll call - Wyoming's reps at least voted Nay. OR & WA went as expected.
Correia
Stossel
Newbius ("We now stand Absolved.")
IMAO ("The public execution of Democrats?")
Day by Day
Hope 'n' Change
IOtW - too many to link individually.

Me, I can barely drag myself out of bed. A couple months ago the universe crapped on me personally and I still haven't shaken it. Now it's crapping on the whole country. What's the damn point?

Related, reader sends:

Remember, remember on 2nd November
Healthcare treason and plot.
There is no reason
that healthcare treason
should ever be forgot.

And keep preparing ammunition, just in case.

Quote o' the Day.

On the civil rights front we have this from the Canadian border. Who won the Cold War? This is what a police state looks like.

In Lighter News

USMC buys more 1911s. And not for target matches. 99 years old, and the guys who kill terrorists and blow up their stuff for a living can't find anything better. All Hail Saint John.

BTW Serenity is half as long as Aurora, and Millenium Falcon is, depending on source, a couple meters shorter than NASA's Shuttle. Both have more "handwavium" than my ship does, like artificial gravity, inertial dampeners, forcefields, etc.

Doing more work on Aurora's grav-rings. 10 meters wide, 37 meters diameter, minus some for fiddly-bits like the hull, it comes out to over 1,000 square meters floorspace, times two rings, divided by eight equal sections, roughly 140m², 1,500ft², each. -Dude I think my hovel is smaller than a single section. Each section is, or can be, subdivided into, let's say, up to five individual passenger berths. The Captain gets a section in the forward ring all to himself of course; the aft ring is for passengers and sections are configured variously, 1st Class, 2nd Class, etc. (There are additional freefall-only quarters in the main hull, which only have weight when the ship is thrusting. If a passenger wants weight otherwise, he can pay for it.)

They're about 4½ meters thick, allowing for machinery and lifeboat stuff and the cables and tunnels they extend on, yet leaving enough headspace for most sentient beings to stand upright; when retracted flush to the hull, they rotate up to 3rpm. That means, if my math is right, and rounding off some, that the inner surface, at that rotation, is moving 1.4mps, 4.6fps, 5kph, 3.1mph, relative to the 28m/92ft diameter central hull. So a spacer can enter the vestibule, watch the inner surface of the ring rolling by, push off and grab on without losing body parts, and without requiring the grav-ring to be extended further into the hull, risking structural weakness, in order to get a slower rotational speed to grab onto (hence the wasp-waist profile) (the Adamant class is not meant for atmosphere or planetfall, that's what the small-craft bays are for). For a while I was thinking of an interface, a second ring inside the first geared to move at half speed relative - see Heinlein's "The Roads Must Roll", with moving sidewalks in bands of different speeds, people stepping from one to another to accelerate and decelerate - so people could increase their angular velocity by steps, but if my math is right here, a good spacer can just suck it up and jump. Whee! The rings would be retracted, braked and locked when maneuvering, as for combat or docking; or when the ship is thrusting on her main realspace engines, when "down" would be toward the stern (like the fusion engines in Niven's Known Space, especially before Humans gained artificial gravity from the Kzinti and hyperdrive from the Puppeteers; pre-FTL, he had us zipping around on Bussard ramjets at most of c, taking years between stars). Aurora's rings would be spinning during longer periods at dock or in orbit; or for days, weeks and months in hyperspace Transit (remember how long it used to take to cross the Atlantic). With the sections extended, the rings could rotate slower for the same weight, or even greater weight depending on how far they were extended (simple algebraic equation for determining artificial gravity by rotation).

The image has been updated.

But the World Still Sucks

More cops wiping their backsides with the Bill of Rights. Of which document Patrick Henry was a major proponent BTW.

Likely related, from further down in the above Seattle GRE column, and from Denver GRE, something smells in Denver.

'Twould be nice if we could all pull in the same direction. Sigh.

And then there's lying murderous SCUM WITH BADGES who should be hung from streetlights in public view.

And who are always getting new, tax-paid toys with which to brutalize peacable citizens.

[tap-tap] Is this thing on?

Didn't I. Tell Ya.

Who's bigoted?

In Lighter News

America. F@#% Yeah. (Ref.)

This is not Aurora, but she'll do for a start.

The Muse has fallen silent again. But perhaps not for as long, this time.

But that's not what we have now because

The World Sucks

as illustrated by another Quote: "Make no mistake, the shotguns being acquired by the IRS and even agencies such as the Dept of Education are meant for us. "

Codrea vs. GOP vs. Tea Party.

Our healthcare system is falling apart already. Note first comment. (Remember the Examiners put the oldest comments at the bottom.)

"Pragmatism and negotiation have failed miserably. "

Government makes things worse. Always.

"I have just heard that the White House is excluding children who go to private or Catholic schools from the White House Easter Egg Hunt. I find that an interesting message. One wonders if Obama's children will be granted an exception." Scroll down for: "...we already live in an educational Dark Age, and it's getting worse, as we forget that we once could do things in schools that we now believe are impossible." See also Stossel.

What's the point?

It's all about control.

In Lighter News

Open Carry in Missouri?

Those of you who don't reload can still get money from your brass. But in these times, who's not reloading?

Yuri sends KittehZilla.

They're still out there. I'd like a dozen, to hand out as party favors.

Speaking of Enumerated Powers. I've bookmarked that one for later study.

Fusion... can be achieved a few different ways. One of them may not be as difficult as previously thought. Now you get government out of the way of the eggheads, slap on a profit motive (the Only Motive for Everything Evar - "Cui Bono?"), let the thing evolve for a couple hundred years, and you've got 31,000 tons of Aurora pushing 7g. As for an SSTO minivan, put something like this in the same oven and just let it cook. Who in the horse-and-buggy era could have imagined our interstate freeway system? Or even a Segway?

As for funky aeronautic designs, even I had never heard of most of these.

New feature, Jump to the Latest Entry. As I edit the HTML file you're reading now, I cut-n-paste the previous entry's codes and edit them appropriately. I've added this link to the very top, and the appropriate tag will be in the latest entry for each month, until the month ends, when I'll take it out altogether and put it in the new month.

The World Continues to Suck

More cops who are capable only of theft and destruction.

A really good movie is the original, 1981, Milius-directed Conan: The Barbarian. The sequel, Conan: The Destroyer, was mostly horrid. But there was one scene, when the group of protagonists is escaping from the antagonist's stronghold and there's an Evul Monologue^tm and the Cimmerian growls, "Enough talk!" - and whips out a dagger and flings it into a villain's vitals. That was a good scene.

Outright, deliberate persecution. Abetted by yet another lying cop of course. Is there any other kind?

If you can possibly manage it, get your kids out of government schools. Before they're murdered by even more sociopaths with badges.

Speaking of government schools. "Special privileges for the cronies, slop for the middle class." Free-market education now. Before it's too late.

Parasites. Why should I give them more of my blood? That was found via WRSA, which has the Image o' the Era. That's what it's all about.

And in that vein, cops or violent home-invading thugs? Difference, there ain't none. And they should be treated the same.

Speech Hate. Just another weapon to some. Who's bigoted?

This isn't funny. People will be killed.

This is beyond bizarre. And it's why some Israelis helped the Founders in my story.

In Lighter News

Is MSM finally getting their noses rubbed in it?

Thoughts on building an AR. There's the mid-length upper I was contemplating the other day. Not the rear sight I'd've chosen though; for the Queen, I lock the windage and go up and down on the elevation a lot, and the sight he chose is just the opposite. Even his alternative requires a tool for adjustment. Probably I'd get a detachable A2 carry handle, or at least the handle-stub A2 sight - I've seen them listed in SGN for under $50.

But really I'm broke. I can make rent, and probably the utility bill if I juggle accounts, but that's it. I'ma need another $100 for internet and car insurance within the next ten days.

The World Sucks More Every Day

Again with the destruction of military surplus brass? WTF?

Anti-rights hypocrisy, Chapter MCCXXXIV.

And other kinds.

Marlin is closing!??!

WTF is going on in Wyoming now? Apparently the honcho of WyoSSA is the author of Neither Predator nor Prey, a novel touted some months ago on WRSA and Sipsey St., but now the same guy is going all Lairds-of-Fairfax on another WY RKBA group?

"Don't they know that the peasants are supposed to just lie there and take it?" Me, I'm rapidly running out of things to lose. So are millions like me.

Correia rants.

Some astronauts wax warmfuzzyglobalist, at least with a camera in their face, about how, from space, the borders disappear and we all become one big happy collective. We got some nose-rubbin' for ya.

Who's racist?

Uh huh.

&^%$# taxes. At least e-filing is getting easier, and it's now free for Oregon and several other states through TurboTax.

#$%^&* census. The answer is "One". STFU&GA.

In Lighter News

Are we gaining ground?

15 Years of Gun Talk, this Sunday.

More on the bayonet.

Yuri & me get linked! SMLE fan needs to post more. ;)

FRICKIN' FUSION ROCKETS!!!!11!!one!!

The Muse spoke again in the small hours and Aurora Part VIII is now available, and I've a direction to go for Part IX. I have Larger Issues brewing and roughly outlined but it may take some time to get to them. If you are entertained pleeze consider a charitable donation 'cause I got bills to pay and no income at present. Look look, I'm Providing New Content!

This is why I designed a Republic with Citizens and Subjects, with a process for moving from the latter to the former. -Works for Switzerland.

Hmm, measuring interstellar distance.... The terms "light year" and "parsec" are both based on Sol III's orbital period. Now consider: I'm writing about an interstellar civilization, with FTL travel and communication, but still dominated by Earth-descended Humans. All the computers we use, also use seconds as a measure of time - a 24th Century wristwatch automatically adjusts for the day/night cycle of whatever planet you're on, but also still keeps Monticellan/Republic time, which is counted in seconds, even the bits that don't add up (tempus gratis, the leftover slop-minutes adjacent to midnight - that's what computers are for). So how about, instead of "ly" or "pc", we measure interstellar distances in megaseconds, millions of seconds? There are 31,536,000 seconds in a Terran year - okay, not counting leap years and precession and a bunch of Naval Observatory stuff not necessary to the story - so one Terran-based light-year is a bit over 31.5Mls. Hmm? Yes, the second is also extrapolated, from Earth's rotation, but is also expressible as an objective scientific/mathematical value based on a universal physical standard translatable across any bug-eyed-beastie's system of measurement once we agree on which numbers to use. Which is also what computers are for.

The World Sucks

Bigoted, unstable freaks in black robes. It's not about guns, it's about control.

And revenue. The biggest street gang in the world wears tax-paid uniforms.

W. T. F? NRA vows to oppose RKBA pol? For this I'm making EPL payments?

Who's racist?

I had the idea for New Israel years ago. I'm finding it more justified every day.

"Hypocrisy" is too weak a term.

Meanwhile, reader sends the rise of the Sturmabteilung. Let's us just do a little compare-and-contrast here, and slap a little speculation onto the end:

"I, (name), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God." - United States Armed Forces Oath of Enlistment

"Ich schwöre bei Gott diesen heiligen Eid, daß ich dem Führer des Deutschen Reiches und Volkes Adolf Hitler, dem Oberbefehlshaber der Wehrmacht, unbedingten Gehorsam leisten und als tapferer Soldat bereit sein will, jederzeit für diesen Eid mein Leben einzusetzen." - Die Vereidigung der Wehrmacht auf Adolf Hitler, 2.8.1934
"I swear by God this sacred oath, that I shall render unconditional obedience to Adolf Hitler, the Führer of the German Reich, supreme commander of the armed forces, and that I shall at all times be prepared, as a brave soldier, to give my life for this oath." - The Wehrmacht Oath of Loyalty to Adolf Hitler, 2 August 1934

"I swear this sacred oath, that I shall render unconditional obedience to Barack Obama, the Leader of the Global Community, supreme commander of the armed forces, and that I shall at all times be prepared, as a brave soldier, to give my life for this oath." - Coming soon to a third-world dictatorship near you?

Parse those oaths very carefully. See which comes before what. "Commissioned officers of the Ready Reserve Corps shall be appointed by the President and commissioned officers of the Regular Corps shall be appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate." Why? "The purpose of the Ready Reserve Corps is to fulfill the need to have additional Commissioned Corps personnel available on short notice (similar to the uniformed service’s reserve program) to assist regular Commissioned Corps personnel to meet both routine public health and emergency response missions." And what constitutes an "emergency response"? Maybe a Reichstag Fire or Gleiwitz Incident? Maybe we're all tinfoil-hat paranoids. Maybe it won't happen here. But if it does, don't say you weren't warned.

In Lighter News

Marlin's not "closing" closing. But still gah.

SMLE fan rants.

Evidently, in flyover country, a real problem is feral hogs. They breed, they eat, they destroy. And they're challenging targets.

(Bacon....)

Hysteria losing ground to reason?

As for flexible displays rolled up in wristwatch-sized handputers, yeah, they're working on those too.

I expect many of my readers to be sufficiently versed in American history to be familiar with CSS Hunley, the Confederate vessel which was the first submarine to sink an enemy ship, ever. I did not know the Union had their own, of similar concept, which did not see battle. Apparently Alligator was also the first use of the Snorkel for submarine operations, which most people think was a 20th Century German invention (it's officially credited as Dutch). How 'bout that?

Part IX is under construction and will probably be up tomorrow evening. Haven't written myself into a corner yet....

The World Sucks

Codrea has more on military brass destruction.

Who's got homicidal urges? And Who's bigoted?

Sipsey Street is on top of the recent Feeb raid on "militia" in Michigan. "Civil Cold War", we've been having. Get ready for it to heat up.

In Lighter News

Protection, in Arkansas, for those exercising the unalienable human right of self-defense.

SMLE fan posts!11!!!

Aurora Part IX. If you are entertained please consider a charitable donation!

The World Sucks

Cops just can't stand the idea of anyone but them having any kind of power. As far as they're concerned the peasants can all be robbed, raped and murdered with impunity - often by the cops themselves.

One of the arguments badgethugs use to denigrate we, the armed citizenry whose actual work is taxed to pay for their gang colors, is that we lowly peasants don't have their traaaaaiinning in such things as "conflict resolution". What "resolution"? The first thing the scum do is bully and threaten and intimidate. If that doesn't work they call backup and dogs and armored ninjaboys. The first tool they reach for is a taser or nightstick or automatic rifle. They don't "resolve" anything, they beat it into submission with the force of Almighty Government and the blatant threat of summary murder. They lie and falsify evidence to support their charges as a matter of course. The Founders of this once-great nation would turn away in shame from the degenerate state of submission we've allowed ourselves to fall into.

Meanwhile the administration continues alienating allies and persecuting citizens. Tie-in there to the Michigan "militia" thing, and more such from Seattle GRE.

Again with the American-guns-to-Mexico lie Codrea has been covering for many moons.

More bigotry of the "only flintlock muskets" variety. A years-old Oleg photo says it all.

"The sad fact is politicians and bureaucrats at every level (national, state, and often local) have assumed a level of arrogance and mindlessness that insulates them from those who voted them INTO power." And there we are, right back at the 1770s.

WTF is wrong with Montana voters?

And how screwed are we? Pretty darn screwed.

Early review of HBO's The Pacific. Yeah I won't be rushing out to buy the DVDs.

Speaking of DVDs. Is there an emoticon for facepalm?

I see Larry Elder ain't dead. Used to listen to him before the local station bumped him - he coined the term "republitarian". Unfortunately there is no good news for anyone to report.

In Lighter News

Today is the 99th birthday of the M1911, the Best Fighting Pistol Evaaarrr. And the Marines are buying new ones. All Hail Saint John. See also.

A good part of Part X is done, but I want to expand it some before posting it. Maybe later tonight. Please consider a charitable donation! One very generous reader has sent enough for the internet and insurance bills but the food is running low.

And here it is. It'd be cool to make a webcomic out of this but I don't have the illustrating skills.

The World Sucks So Much

Notice how this section always seems to outweigh the other. It's a good thing I never acquired a taste for intoxicants. (Couldn't afford them anyway....)

Oh look, even more censorship and intimidation from government.

The Lairds of Fairfax. [facepalm]

Disarmament kills.

What's really happening in Michigan? Who's a threat? Who's violent?

Oh I think we all know who has the greatest potential to mass-murder peaceable citizens. Even Dr. Pournelle has taken notice, and it ain't nowhere near his usual bag. -Heeeey, I get it, it's collective bargaining! The police unions want more paid vacation! Just remember, peasant, when one of your loved ones comes home brutalized or murdered for making a furtive movement, their attacker was only following procedure. YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK!

There's a reason the First Amendment came first. I'm not forcing anyone to read this at bayonet-point. If you don't like it, shut up and go away.

And now behold my excerise of Free Speech: Jew-hating-bungler-in-chief.

I don't always agree with Michael Savage - he's no RKBA purist, maintains a blind faith that law enforcement officers are not by definition evil, and has at times displayed, shall we say, an incomplete understanding of the rest of the Bill of Rights. But there's one position of his which is undeniable: Liberalism is a Mental Disorder. The article - which has nothing to do with Savage, I was just reminded of his tagline - also has examples of the Self-Destructive Jew, whom I've smacked upside the virtual head with this keyboard before.

In email SMLE fan points out another reason to read Baen books. In comments Kratman himself expresses disappointment with his own first novel, and certainly he's grown as an author since, but if one slogs through the stylistic foibles you can see where we're headed and it's a Bad Place.

Speaking of Bad Places, we're in one already.

In Lighter News

If you want real space exploration, get government out of the way. Actually that's being worked on a little.

Arizona moves toward Alaska Carry. Sort of - still some places where a permit would be required, but still an enormous leap toward restoring the Constitution if it passes.

Even MSM can't spin it.

Got the rent and utilities paid, and a 15lb sack of potatoes for $2.48 - I've been poor before; they go with the cheap tub of margarine, and a bottle of garlic salt & a can of black pepper both acquired years ago. (The microwave oven is the single greatest invention in the history of bachelorhood.) Aurora Part XI is in process - one more crewmember to introduce - and pretty soon the timeline should jump up to where Part I left off, seven years after the acquisition of the ship, and then there'll be More Stuff Happening, if the Muse continues to cooperate. Charitable donations continue to be deeply appreciated!

Speaking of writing, since I've also brought up Terraforming in my story, I figured I should read Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy, starting of course with Red Mars, 1993.

Will the World Ever Stop Sucking?

The odds don't look good. There are so many stories I hardly have the stomach to read, let alone link, and I have my own problems.

More on the Hutaree from Anchorage Libertarian Examiner, Conservative Examiner (note that last; guilty until proven innocent, violated for mere words), St. Louis GRE, Investors Business Daily (in their half-hearted, hand-wringing metrocon way), and of course Sipsey Street who points out, via the Wall Street freaking Journal, infiltration by a government agent provocateur. What's that saying from the 60s? The campus protestors could always identify the informant from the Federal Bureau of Incineration because he thought torching the ROTC building was a good idea.

Codrea's keeping an eye on DC, while Seattle GRE takes a broader look at the bigotry.

Speaking of bigotry, more on Chicago and flintlocks.

Laughably ignorant bigots.

"I thought they were on my side." No, they really weren't. They haven't been for decades. They are the wrong side.

The border is still a problem. But what's the solution? More police power? That cure is as bad as the disease; "Protect and Serve" has become a sick joke. Military? Maybe - they're supposed to kill people and break things, that's what they're for. And from what I can tell, those guys actually read the Constitution instead of spitting on it.

In Lighter News

Seems like Iowa almost got Alaska Carry. Maybe in another legislative session or three.

Another new thing I've put forth in my story is regeneration, either direct-cellular or partial-cloning-and-microsurgery. That's being worked on too.

Solar power may be about to get a lot cheaper. I've said it before: When energy gets cheap, so does everything else. This is most strongly to be desired.

Your charitable donations are deeply appreciated!

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