However, here are a few puzzling items on the list:

• All handguns by Hi-Point, they are cheap and pretty ugly, but I’ve never read about them being inherently unsafe. There are several other manufacturers of “cheap” pistols listed.
• The Sig Mosquito, certainly a high quality manufacturer and I’d like to know why this is unsafe.
• The Walther P22, same as above.

It seems possible there is an attempt here to eliminate affordable guns that might be used for self defense by folks with fewer financial resources. We’ve seen “Saturday Night Specials” bans before and it, yes these cheap guns are sometimes unsafe, or used by criminals as throw away guns, but they are also used by folks who can’t afford more for perfectly legal means. The fact that there aren’t any reasons listed in the document is troubling. Even if someone like Hi-Point wanted to address the issues that these legislators “found”, there’s no info for them.

So Chicago, sorry you lost that big case, but show some good sportsmanship here, ‘k?

Now I’m off to buy a 25mm rifle.

Effective immediately DOD Surplus, LLC, will be implementing new requirements for mutilation of fired shell casings.  The new DRMS requirement calls for DOD Surplus personnel to witness the mutilation of the property and sign the Certificate of Destruction.  Mutilation of the property can be done at the DRMO, if permitted by the Government, or it may be mutilated at a site chosen by the buyer.  Mutilation means that the property will be destroyed to the extent prevents its reuse or reconstruction.  DOD Surplus personnel will determine when property has been sufficiently mutilated to meet the requirements of the Government.

Not only does this have a significant impact on ammunition availability and prices, which are already bad enough, but it will also incur additional financial penalties. The value of quality shell casings is much higher than the value of the brass as scrap. That’s additional income that will be lost. There is also additional expense as the casings have to be “mutilated” and that process needs to be approved and inspected by someone. So not only is it an anti-shooter move, it just doesn’t make any financial sense. It’s like busting your house up to sell off the wood.

What really sticks in my craw about this is that it’s a sneaky and underhanded way to discourage firearms ownership and hurt existing shooters. These “policies” and “regulations” don’t go through any legislative process and can have huge impacts on the firearms community. It’s certainly not a new tactic, but it’s one that really irks me.

If you are upset about this, please do as Georgia Arms suggests and contact your representatives.

Watch out Granny!

The Toaster Revolt of 1997

So, I’m getting a bagel this morning. Little did I know I was about to witness the worker’s revolt of 97.

I get my nice sesame bagel, head over to the bagel biter, slice it in half and and turn to go to the toaster. This is one of those commercial conveyer-belt toasters. Anyway, there are about 10 people around the toaster, this 1 woman, whom I’ll refer to as Norma Rae, is pontificating to the cafeteria guy, (we’ll call him Jambo), on how much of her precious break time is being wasted dealing with this toaster. People are putting their bagels, bread, muffins, puppies, etc into the toaster, staring at it for a minute and taking their item out, looking at it and shaking their heads. It seems the toaster isn’t so much as toasting as it is warming.

Ok, so normal person would say, “Oh, darn” and run the bread product through again until the desired toastedness is achieved, but not your average corporate citizen, no! The folks are standing around, ganging up on the poor cafeteria guy, “What’s wrong with this thing?, “Why aren’t there 2 toasters?”, “Why do my shorts keep riding up?”. Poor Jambo is just trying to get to the knob to turn the thing up a little, but Norma won’t let him get by. She continues her assault on defenseless Jambo while one of her compatriots, whom I’ll call Brain Donor, is repeatedly PRESSING the temperature adjustment KNOB. So Norma is quizzing Jambo on why there is only 1 toaster, Jambo is mounting his only defense, “I’m just a contractor, the corporation supplies the equipment”, Donor is continuing to press the knob, wondering why it is having little effect.

Meanwhile, another party, whom I will name MacGyver, swoops in to retrieve his bagel. Mac discovers that his bagel is being blocked in the output tray by another. Being the resourceful guy that he is, MacGyver grabs the tongs, removes the offending bagel, placing it on a plate to the side of the toaster, and takes his own bagel, slipping away stealthily. Well, Mac had no idea what he had done. You see, this bagel belonged to Norma, she had finally disengaged from Jambo’s jugular to get her tasty bagel. Much to her horror, someone…or something had removed her bagel from the toaster and placed it on….a plate! “Did someone take this out?”, Norma demanded. “Who did this, did it fall?” “Is this my bagel? Who’s is this? Mine was a sesame? Is this mine? Who took this out?” My mind was reeling from the assault. It was all I could do to weakly mutter “that’s mine” when Norma pointed at my bagel, which was on its second trip through the toaster.

Well, I got out of there just as Norma was looking for something to make protest signs with and Donor was wondering what the pretty red things inside the toaster tasted like. I heard a distorted scream of pain as I left the cafeteria.

Cut to this morning. I’m wandering around the same cafeteria, with the same (or reasonably the same) toaster. There’s a nicely printed and laminated sign hung next to the toaster. This sign reads:

“Please do not butter item before placing in toaster”

Really?

Well, here’s how.

A couple of years ago they changed it. Now, instead of cash, we get “reward points”. 1 point for every dollar spent. You can use 2500 of these points to get a $25 gift card to various merchants, or even a $25 check. So, on the face of it everything looks OK. It’s still the same rate of return, they’ve just abstracted the idea of “dollars” to “points”. I’m sure this is a multi-step plan to slowly increase the number of points it takes to get a dollar, but that hasn’t happened yet, so I’ll save that rant.

Anyway, there is a bit more hassle involved since instead of just sending us a check every year, we have to go through the web site and cash in our points. Not a huge deal, but here’s where it gets dysfunctional. I just cashed in our points, we had 74,000ish points accrued, which if you do the math, works out to 29 $25 gift cards or checks with some points left. Not seeing the benefit of committing to any particular gift card when there is cash as an option, I took the check route. And you know what they’re going to do? Do you? I bet you can guess.

They’re going to send us 29 individual $25 checks. I know because they did it last time. Anyone want to bet if they optimized this process enough to not send us 29 checks in 29 separate envelopes?

UPDATE

Well blow me down, corporate America is not completely brain dead. It seems that someone realized what was going on and fixed the insanity. I receive a single check for the entire amount. Sorry to disappoint you.

Apparently, some lucky students in some lucky schools had the pleasure to experience what it’s like in the inside of a cow’s stomach. You see it seems that someone thought it would be a good idea to cut a giant hole in a cow and stick a porthole in it. Someone (it may have been the same person, or not) thought students would learn a lot by sticking their hands in those holes to feel around inside said cows. I had never heard of such a thing, not sure how I managed to avoid it, but that’s neither here nor there.

If you will direct your attention to this site you will see some evidence of this practice. According to them, the cows don’t seem to mind when you poke around inside their digestive system. There is even a student’s account of what’s in there. It includes descriptives like “warm peanutbutter with grass mixed in” and “the constistency of a melting Wendy’s frosty”. Lovely.

This kicker here is those weird little shadow puppet animations that are on the page. One of them discusses some poor bloke name Tom. It seems Tom made an error when he was 9 and rapidly ingested some very hot chowder. This destroyed his throat, so the doctors cut a hole, um… I mean, fistula, in his stomach. From that point on Tom’s form of sustenance required him to “chew his food and spit into a funnel directly into his stomach”, Yum!

Enjoy clicking around other links behind those shadow puppets. It’s an art piece about the Tom Thumb story with interleaved fairy tails, recipes and medical facts.

I’d close my eyes, concentrate, and in a puff of smoke he’d arrive. He’d start dealing out “HoooAhhh!”s, “You’re out of order”s, unrefuseable offers, and generally being Pacino like. It would be so useful on a daily basis. Just think of the inane situations you end up in every day that could be fixed (or at least made more entertaining) by a dose of Pacino. The possibilities are staggering.

Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to be content with my heat-vision.

Vroooommmm…..

Bang Bang Bang…..

Vrooooo….

Kachunk…

Vroo…

Chasnick..

Vrooooommmm…..

You see they had to do a 3 point turn at the end of this cul-de-sac to get out. Somehow at the big meeting when various dashing criminals gathered to plan this job, probably at a casino in Monaco, not one of them thought that it might be a good idea to perform the multi-step direction reversing maneuver before loosing the deadly hail of lead. Either that, or the driver was taking his road test, wonder if he passed?

Dad? Do you get a new computer when you die?

That got me wondering, assuming that there is some sort of afterlife, is there even a need for computers? What about the Internet? Does some sort of perfect awareness of all things make it unnecessary?

If there an internet there, what’s on it? Is there a huge iTunes Music Store where everything is free and without DRM? Is there any porn? Can you get spyware on your PC? Is there a fallen angel that just needs my account number to transfer his vast wealth, paying me a “modest” fee in the process?

Are the PCs any better than what we have here? Do they crash randomly and require reboots to stay running? How often do you have to upgrade, if at all? Is there a Blue Screen of …. umm… Death? Can you get Carpal Tunnel Syndrome?

All tough questions which will likely never be answered. All those near death and death returnees talk about is the white light and their deceased relatives welcoming them. Not one of them noticed the really important things, like were they Macs or PCs? (Though I know they’re Linux boxes)