Bob Owens notes that the guy’s record on guns isn’t that great. This much is true, but you have to consider what state he’s coming from. Commuting Aitken’s sentence was a remarkable thing for a New Jersey governor to do. Should he earn an NRA endorsement any time soon? No. But so far, even with this one act, he’s been willing to do more for New Jersey gun owners than all the governors for the past half century combined. That’s how bad things are there.
WaPo Admits ATF Power Grab is Illegal
They love the idea. Love it! But yeah, it’s probably illegal. But the administration should do something, damn it. For the children Mexicans.
Home Improvement Blues
Replacing a leaky shower drain this week. We haven’t been able to use our master shower now for some time because of the leak I haven’t had time to fix. This, unfortunately, requires going into the ceiling. After going in, I quickly realize someone has already been up there. I now suspect the previous owners had a leak, which pretty clearly was caused by a rotten gasket where the drain meets the shower. But rather than fix it by rebuilding the drain, it appears they decided to shove plumbers putty around everything. Sure, that’ll stop the leak for a while.
Somewhat frustrated that the original trap doesn’t have threads compatible with the new one I bought. I will have to replace the whole drain and trap. It’s all PVC. Since I now realize I need to do this, I must return to Home Depot to get a 2″ PVC street elbow. I would have needed to go back anyway, because I just realized my PVC cement is no good. Still have cleaner and purple primer, which I don’t think goes as bad as readily. Been a while since I did any PVC work. It’s times like this I’m glad to have worked for a plumber as a kid. I can do basic plumbing work. Don’t know if I’d want to try to install a new boiler, but a shower drain should be within my capabilities. The question is how many trips to Home Depot am I going to need to make? Real expertise is having to make only one.
Lightbulb Black Market
Been some talked about bans on light bulbs here and here. This has to be one of Congress’s dumbest moments, and it’s worth noting it was a GOP congress that did this to us. Thanks guys! CFLs have gotten to the point I am mostly satisfied with the quality of the light, but a big pet peeve of mine is that they take time to warm up, and produce substandard light until they do.
Recently I got CFL versions of this halogen light, which previously hadn’t been available. The light quality is iffy, and the strength is way too low. Fortunately, I think these GU10 halogens aren’t on the ban list. But I am pondering whether they are good enough. My kitchen floods draw 300 watts in their full glory with halogens, and with CFLs they draw a whopping 42 watts. But does it really save energy when you want to leave them on to avoid having to wait for the lights to warm up?
I’ve also wondered how much energy these bulbs really end up saving in the first place, at least in climates where you use a furnace for a good part of the year. Most light bulb energy is lost as heat, but is it really lost if it’s cold enough to run the furnace? I have no doubt they save on electricity, but how much extra are you spending running the heater to make up for the heat not being put out by your lighting system? For much of the year, I think CFLs are just a way to convert electric consumption to gas and oil consumption in home furnaces. Sadly for us power generation is more green than home heating.
I’m generally not too optimistic about the green technology movement. I saw a Toyota ad a few days ago where they wanted people to send in their “green” ideas. One that they were touting was running their regenerative braking system on roller coasters in amusement parks, suggesting it could be used to power the whole park. I’m guessing Toyotas marketing people don’t have much of a grasp on physics, particularly the first and second law of thermodynamics. Nope, won’t power the park. Won’t even be enough to jack the coaster up the chain. That’s not even mentioning that it would probably ruin the entertainment value of the coaster ride. Most green technology is a complete crock, and many fail to appreciate what a bummer thermodynamics is.
Could Have Fooled Me
The federal government, because its powers are enumerated, is not regarded to have a “police power”. Could have fooled me. You know, I used to think Bush didn’t have his bureaucrats well under control. Obama makes Bush look like a stern taskmaster in comparison.
History of the “Cop Killer” Bullet Issue
Dave Hardy finds that the issue went all the way back to the 1930s, with J. Edgar Hoover. Hoover, in my opinion, was one of the greatest stains on American freedom to ever plague the American political scene. This is just more evidence.
Go After The Gun, Not the Criminal
That seems to be the advice from anti-gun groups in Connecticut:
But 88 percent of gun arrests are for criminal possession while only 12 percent are for gun traffickers, he says.
Both Pinciaro and Fair think it would be more effective for cops to focus on gun suppliers instead of just the shooters.
Fair has spent years asking police to track guns used in crimes. At meetings with police in the past she was told it was too difficult or too time intensive. Last week she heard a different answer.
These people are unbelievable fools, asking that scarce police resource be diverted from tracking criminals into tracking inanimate objects that are a symptom of a problem, not the problem itself. The problem is the criminal.
Pinciaro is pushing a new tool — microstamping — to help cops quickly track guns used in crimes. The new technology would imprint a gun’s serial number on bullets fired from it. Pinciaro says the technology would allow bullets to be traced back to the gun immediately without needing to first find the gun and then wait for the state’s forensics lab to run tests.
How does that work exactly? If all you have are empty shell casing, there’s not really any forensics that’s going to help you if you don’t already have the gun, and if you already have the gun, what do you need the forensics for? You can just look at the serial number. If the serial number is filed off, well, chances are the micro stamp is gone too.
Even if you had micro-stamped shell casings, you’d still presumably need a forensics lab to lift the serial number, and then execute a trace with ATF, which is still only going to find you the last legal owner. These people have no idea how this technology works, and they are supposed to be the ones we listen to? Screw that. These people are clueless and should be exposed as such.
Taking the Times to Task
NSSF’s Stephen Sanetti writes to the New York Times about their editorial lamenting lead in ammunition, suggesting such a move would gut most of the federal tax dollars that go to wildlife conservation. Of course, take a look at the letter right below it, and you’ll see these types aren’t going to be swayed by argument. They are zealots who have no idea where food comes from.
New Jersey Bear Hunt a Success
A study commissioned by the state Division of Fish and Wildlife and performed by wildlife biologists at East Stroudsburg University estimated the number of bears in two study areas of northwest New Jersey at almost 3,500. There were 589 bears killed in the hunt, which is 17 percent of the population. In spite of the culling, biologists believe there will be at least 800 cubs born in winter dens and emerging next spring. In other words, the culling was designed to reduce the rate of black bear population growth. There will be more black bears next year but the number will more likely be about 3,700 instead of 4,300.
That’s an unbelievable number of bears for as small a habitat as New Jersey’s forested areas represent. But even if the bear population is still growing, the hunt will benefit New Jerseyans by culling the bears that are least fearful of humans, leaving the survivors being the ones who are adept at avoiding us.
Fixing the State Police Problems
This is apparently about a week old, but we missed it in the rush up to the holidays: Governor-elect Tom Corbett is replacing the State Police Commissioner who has been working with Mike Bloomberg’s political group to push more gun control.
The new appointee comes from the Attorney General’s office, so hopefully he’ll stay out the gun control fights and we’ll no longer have to deal with a Commissioner pushing a personal political agenda with the weight of his office behind it.