Shall Not Be Questioned – Page 743 – The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …

Good Things About Vacation

Some things I’m enjoying being on vacation:

Waking up when I feel like it.
When I do check into the office, I can do it in my underwear.
Mimosas. I generally don’t drink before dinner, but Bitter made Mimosas on Christmas, and we’re making them again tomorrow for New Years Eve. Starting the day with a buzz is a good way to start the day!
Time to think about the house, something I normally don’t have time to do. I’m determined to get a working master bath before January is over. I’m looking at a Neo-Round model from MAXX, their economy Advanta neo round base and walls, plus the Intuition doors. I figure I can do the installation, and Bitter can do the finish work.
Not paying as much attention to blog matters. I’m definitely on vacation this week. That’s why it’s all been Google alerts and not anything I’ve had to think about.

One of these days I’ll have time to get back into shooting again. I’m still trying to hit a match at least once a month, but lately that’s about all I have time for, considering I also have officer duties at the club too. We’ll get back to regularly scheduled programming when I’m back at work and the holidays are over, and we have a new fun Republican Congress to hate on.

More Home Improvement Blues

The drain I put in is leak free, but the shower is leaky beyond hope. The door leaks, the edges leak. The whole thing is a mess and it’s destroyed part of the underlay and vinyl tile I put in a few years ago. So needless to say I’m very displeased. I’ve dismantled the whole stall Â and determined no matter how well you caulk the thing, eventually it’s going to leak when the caulk deteriorates or gets its seal broken somewhere. It’s just a fundamentally bad design, no matter how you cut it.

We actually hate the shower anyway, and were contemplating replacing it outright, but I decided I’d rather have the shower back quick and dirty, so I set out just to replace the drain. Not going to cut it.Â The new shower bases have lips to prevent water that might get out of the door from leaking all over the floor, and their walls are more substantial than a piece of vinyl glued to the drywall. The existing shower is an outdated piece of camel dung, and there’s no getting around it. Sadly, this is also going to mean replacing the floor I put in a few years ago, since I don’t have enough tile left to replace what I need to take up, and they don’t sell that pattern anymore. It’s vinyl tile, so not particularly hard to bring up if you use a heat gun to soften the glue. I may have a tiler come in and tile the thing with ceramic tile so I never have to worry about it again.

I really hate having to fix things. I really really hate having to fix things I already thought I fixed once.

More Humor from Cracked

Nine major stories everyone got wrong this year. Christine O’Donnell and the Tea Parties:

By focusing in on the assclowns the media painted a picture that not only wasn’t accurate, but pretty much made constructive political discourse impossible. They didn’t just fail to do their job — they did the opposite of their job, and they’ve been doing it for years.

Sadly, that’s only funny because it’s true. RTWT.

Ruger Scout Rifle

John Richardson and Michael Bane are both pretty excited about Ruger’s new scout rifle. From a business perspective, I think this is another win by Ruger. They are making unique firearms I think people are going to want. From my personal point of view, I’ve never understood the Scout Rifle, or how the concept would be inherently better than, say, a Springfield M1A Scout. In a survival situation, I’d want a semi-auto, and I’m pretty sure finding parts for an M1A in a SHTF scenario is going to be easier than for a less common bolt-action.

Motion to Dismiss in Maryland Carry Case

John Richardson has the details. It looks mostly good from our point of view.

2A Rights for Non Violent Felons?

At least one 9th circuit judge seems willing to consider the possibility.

Manchin Campaign Shot Among Top Ten

Joe Manchin shooting the cap and trade bill has been voted by Politico as one of the top ten moments of the 2010 election. Certainly worked out better for Manchin than Joe Sestak’s dog worked out for him. I think this means we can expect more of this from politicians, which is not going to please our opponents.

Ohio Preemption Victory

Dave Hardy notes that Ohio’s preemption law, which was challenged by a number of cities, was held to be valid by the Ohio Supreme Court, Preemption is now without a doubt the law of the land in Ohio.

Overpriced Cabling

The customer reviews for these 8000 dollar audio cables on Amazon are hilarious. But this phenomena isn’t limited to Amazon. Best Buy, who has never met a cable they wouldn’t like to overcharge you for, has an HDMI cable by the same company for sale with similar humorous reviews.

I’m not sure how the people at AudioQuest sleep at night, knowing they are essentially ripping people off. HDMI is a digital signal. Either the display it’s attached to receives it, or it doesn’t. A bad cable could give you a high error rate, but you’d probably notice that. The spec wouldn’t have been designed to require a 600 dollar cable to get error free transmission. I’d also be surprised if the speaker cable sold at Amazon doesn’t perform any better than other audio cables sold at a fraction of the price, if you ran each through a distortion analyzer over the range of human hearing.

See this technical paper from AudioQuest:

Conventional use of the above formula falsely assumes that it is acceptable to have a 63%Â reduction in current flow and an 86% reduction in power density at the center of a conductor. However,Â this formula does not by itself describe at what depth audible distortion begins. Listening (empiricalÂ evidence) shows that audible distortion begins at somewhat lesser depths.

The human ear is actually a pretty poor instrument. The question is whether these claims stand up to the harsh truth of the distortion analyzer. All this sounds like a lot of inapplicable technical detail meant to try to sell you an overpriced cable.

New Jersey Laws Hurt Gun Owners

Scott Bach is calling on the New Jersey Statehouse to do something about the state’s laws which entrap honest gun owners. Brian Aitken isn’t the first, not by far. He was just lucky enough to get caught up in the perfect storm. There are a lot of honest citizens walking around New Jersey with felony convictions because they ran afoul of a technicality. This, to me, is also a disturbing part:

But that never happened because the judge refused to let the jury consider the testimony or the exemptions themselves: He had predetermined that none applied.Â Counsel protested repeatedly, and the jury itself three times asked why it couldnâ€™t consider the exemption, but the judge refused every request, eventually lecturing the jury: â€œThe issue of whether the defendant was moving, and therefore entitled to an exemption from the permit requirement, is not before you.â€ Accordingly, the jury had no choice but to convict merely because there were firearms present.

Not long after the clemency, Mr. Aitken got an e-mail from one of the jurors:

“It is unbelievable how much power a judge possesses,” the e-mail read. “Why wasn’t the exception allowed by the judge??? Did he have something against you or your attorney???? Again, glad to see you are out.”

See, I don’t absolve the jury of blame in this injustice. To me they are just as guilty as the prosecutor and the judge. Ignorance of their civic duty is no excuse. The judge has exactly zero power to punish a jury for a verdict, even in New Jersey. If the jury felt that Aitken should not be convicted, they should have acquitted him despite the judges orders. The fact that a jury was willing to convict this guy shows just how far we’ve fallen in terms of our civic understanding of our relationship to our government, and the role juries play as a check on government officials.