Classic metal duet, Ozzy Osborne & Lita Ford, “Close My Eyes Forever”
Month: January 2011
How to get hit by a car when walking down the street
If you’ve ever wondered how to get hit by a car when walking down the street, here’s some helpful tips:
- Walk at night. Harder for cars to see you, tho you could see them due to their lights.
- Wear dark clothing. Harder for the cars to see you than if you wore light/white or even reflective clothing.
- Wear headphones with the music cranked up loud. Why should you listen for the sound of oncoming cars when Justin Bieber could be serenading you instead.
- Walk with the flow of traffic (in the USA, on the right-side of the road). If you walked facing traffic (left-side of the road), you’d be able to see oncoming cars and be able to move out of the way, and that’d be you know… like useful or some junk.
- Walk in the street, because cars are pesky things… if a couple of tons of steel come at you at a high rate of speed, physics be damned because you can just sue (if you survive).
- A sense that everyone else has to look out for you. Because taking responsibility for yourself is so uncool.
No, I didn’t hit anyone, but I had to run to the store late last night and nearly hit someone on a dark poorly-lit stretch of road because they were wearing almost black clothing, had large headphones (muff type, not earbuds) over their ears, walking on the right side of the road and on the road itself, and worst of all not facing traffic. A complete lack of awareness, and just a recipe for disaster.
It’s rare today to at least see people walking down the road facing traffic. When did we stop teaching this? And can we start again, please?
Dwindling duckies
About 3 weeks ago, two nests of muscovy duck eggs hatched. I forget the exact numbers, but each had around 20 ducklings.
An interesting thing happened.
The 2 “families” merged into one large group. I’m not exactly sure why or how it happened, but one day we’d see one mother with more and the other mother with less. Then later on we’d see that same mother with a lot less and the other mother with a lot more. I reckon since they all travelled in similar circles, they all just merged and blended… ducklings would see others similar to it moving on and would join the flow, others were looking the other direction and would stay with the others still eating. Just not sure what sort of “duck think” was going on here.
But more interesting was the two mother ducks seemed to be OK with it… as if they were agreeing to share the load. Every other time I’ve seen some mother duck and not-its-ducklings interact, they keep away: the foreign mother will chase away the strange babies, everyone keeps to their group. But here, they seemed to be all accepting. It got to a point where what you would see was a large group of 2 mothers and a whole mess of babies, rarely just one mother and babies.
Interesting. Just never seen such behavior before.
But what’s been harder to watch is the number of babies dwindling down. As of this writing, there are only 2 babies. It’s been an unusually cold winter so far, food has been scarce. Well… I guess that’s relative. For you see, we know there’s a predator bird flying around. I haven’t seen it so I can’t confirm what it is, but Kiddos have seen it. It’s a hawk or falcon or a kite or some such bird of prey. Kiddos have seen it dive-bombing the ducklings; they try to scare it off, and maybe they succeed for now but they can’t guard the ducklings all the time. I’d love to see this. I think large birds of prey are really cool. It’d be cool too to see where it’s nesting, because obviously it’s nearby.
I’m of mixed emotion on it. Of course, it’s just nature and the way things are: nature has some critters produce large broods because it’s expected for most of them to die off in one way or another. That includes being food for other critters higher on the food chain. Furthermore gosh… if we had all 40 ducklings survive, that would have massively increased the muscovy population in the neighborhood, which would put other pressure upon the population and just lead to another round-up. So it’s all good… but it still sucks because geez… ducklings are cute. 🙂
Homeschooling-related bills for the 82nd Texas Legislative Session.
There are (at least for now) 2 homeschooling-related bills in the 82ns Texas legislative session.
Quick look and the text appears to be the same in both the House and Senate bills.
No, bad bill. Oppose. I LOVE the phrasing… that leaving the failed public school system for a better education via homeschooling is considered dropping out.
HSLDA is opposing this, but I’m not 100% sure why. My guess is because it enumerates “home school” (in Texas, homeschooling is generally not enumerated, falling under jurisdiction of “private school” and it is best kept that way). I’m going to contact HSLDA for clarification.
Updated: I contacted HSDLA to ask for more details as to why they oppose.
Here’s their more detailed response to SB207 & HB196.
Here’s their more detailed response to HB132.
I agree with their reasoning. You can debate the merit of the intentions behind the bill, but from a purely legal perspective they are bad bills.
SHOT Show observation
Travis Haley leaves Magpul Dynamics
Travis Haley is leaving Magpul Dynamics. (h/t Jay)
Wonder what those opportunities are….
6.8 – a different opinion
When the February 2011 issue of American Rifleman showed up in my mailbox a few days ago, I look at the cover and see “Shooting & Loading the 6.8 SPC“. Ooo! How apropos!
In reading the article I was taken aback. How much actual experience with 6.8 SPC did the author, Bryce M. Towsley, have? I know he’s been around, but I’m talking specifically with the 6.8.
The article isn’t overall bad, but it just doesn’t seem all that well-informed.
He says “The 6.8 SPC is not a ‘drop-them-in-their-tracks’ cartridge”. I beg to differ, having dropped a deer DRT just a couple months ago. I know others have experienced the same. He also mentioned that they rarely exited, but until that same deer hunt I have never recovered a bullet… all have exited, and this one didn’t purely because of the angle at which I shot the deer (all hail Barnes TSX performance). But I’ll give him a pass on this given the rest of the paragraph seemed to have been speaking of past performance, not modern 6.8 performance.
Then he says after testing a multitude of factory ammunition and handloads, he says didn’t find the 6.8 to be particularly accurate. Eh?
Ignore the ones in the center as I was still zeroing the rifle. This is from a Wilson Combat 6.8 upper using Silver State Armory 85 grain Barnes TSX “tac-load”. The 3 groups on the diamonds are not accurate?
If the data in the article is complete, then I’m not sure what to say. Either it’s your gun, your handloads, or your factory ammo choice. Try some Silver State Armory for factory ammo. For handloading, Silver State Armory’s small-primer brass is the best.
When it comes to performance when hunting, the article makes it sound like 6.8 isn’t good for much beyond varmints and whitetail deer. People are taking elk with 6.8, big mean hogs with 6.8. So, not really sure why 6.8 gets the brush-off from the author.
What’s more confusing? While the online article doesn’t have the sidebar, the print article has a sidebar on 6.8 by Bill Wilson (the “Wilson” in “Wilson Combat“). Bill has done a lot of testing and work with the 6.8, and here’s the proof. <– go on, click it. It’s not just the copy nor testimonials at the top of the page; it’s not just the guns listed in the middle of the page. Look towards the bottom of the page and the number of animals taken, and those are just the big trophy-like ones. Look how many big Texas feral hogs were taken with 6.8. And look all the way at the bottom at the steel plates and the grouping there at long distance.
Furthermore, Bill’s sidebar says:
My initial impressions of the 6.8 SPC were its accuracy potential, functional reliability and lack of recoil. Shot through quality barrels, it’s easy to get 1/2″ to 1″ 100-yard groups with bullets suitable for hunting. Few load combinations I tried shot worse than 2″.
One article contradicts the other article. So which is it? Is 6.8 accurate or not? Me? I’ll take Bill’s word for it because I know how much work he’s done in this area.
Bill continues:
But my personal reason for experimenting with the 6.8 SPC was not tactical or target shooting. It was hunting, specifically hog hunting. For those who have not hunted hogs, be aware that a 100-lb. hog is as tough to kill as an average whitetail, and a big, tough old 200-plus-lb. boar is as hard to put down as some elk-sized animals. They are tough, require good shot placement and deep penetration.
[…]
So how does the 6.8 SPC actually work on game? This little round has terminal performance way out of proportion to its size. At the time of this writing I know of more than 50 hogs weighing up to 270 lbs. that have been cleanly taken with the 6.8 SPC with neck and shoulder shots at distances up to 150 yards.
[…]
…my favorite [loads for hogs] being the 85- and 100-gr. Barnes TSX and the Nosler 130-gr. AccuBond. For predators and whitetails, I like the Barnes 85-gr. TSX, 110-gr. Sierra Pro-Hunter and the 100- or 110-gr. Nosler AccuBond.
Based on my hog and deer hunting experiences, however, I would not hesitate to shoot the largest hog, a large mule deer or a black bear with my 6.8 loaded with Barnes 110-gr. TSX bullets.
When you actually know what the history is of the 6.8, when you know what’s going on with the 6.8 and what it can actually do, you find it’s quite a fantastic and capable round. If you really want to stay on the cutting edge of what’s going on with 6.8, or if you just want to learn more about it, 68forums.com is your best resource.
I got into 6.8 because I wanted something more capable than .223/5.56 for hunting, but didn’t add tremendous amounts of recoil. Something in the AR platform gives lots of versatility and flexibility of options. I wanted this so I could have something my kids could hunt with. Thing is, it’s becoming what I’m enjoying to hunt with. 🙂 I’d say the only downside is there still isn’t an inexpensive option for plinking rounds.
If this article can get more people interested in 6.8 SPC, that’s great. Unfortunately I wonder if people are going to read the article and blow it off due to the way the article was written. Hopefully people will pay more attention to Bill Wilson’s sidebar.
Magpul goodies
Oo… look what Mr. FedEx man just delivered
Ordered a bunch of stuff from Magpul. Of the Magpul Dynamics DVD’s, I really wanted the shotgun one. I figured I should get handgun to be complete. Carbine will have to wait for another time.
Picked up 2 B.A.D. levers.
I also picked up 2 trigger guards. I figured why not get one of each, the aluminum and the polymer and compare and contrast. Unfortunately, the polymer one is on backorder so I only received the aluminum. I’ll have to wait to install it until the backorder is fulfilled.
But the biggest bummer? I ordered their iPhone case, and it’s backordered. *sigh* Of all the things I ordered, I was looking forward to that most of all. 🙂
Not sure when I’ll get around to watching the DVD’s. I’d like to do it soon, but I’ve got other things to tend to right now.
KSG fail
Well, this just sucks.
Caleb has video of himself working a Kel-Tec KSG action. The fail? the trigger doesn’t reset if the trigger is held back when you rack the slide. Ooo… that’s not good.
And it’s a shame too. I was just thinking how nice the dual magazine tubes are. I mean, it’s great that the shotgun can use all sorts of ammo, but it sucks that switching ammo is slow. So you’re using buckshot within 15 yards (or maybe 25 with the right ammo), but now you need to transition to a longer shot so you need a slug. You’d have to pull one out of your ammo carrier, drop it in, work the action… it takes time. But with this KSG? one tube is full of buckshot, the other tube has slugs. Just flick the magazine selector and off you go. Of course, I’m not sure if it’s truly faster as I haven’t been able to try the gun. It’s just thinking.
Well, I’d still like to play with one, and who knows… if word gets around about this, maybe Kel-Tec will do something about it.
Gun-Related Bills for the 82nd Texas Legislative Session.
The 82nd Texas Legislative Session is in full swing.
Here’s a few 2A-related bills to keep an eye on (actually since we’re talking Texas State, it’d be Article 1 Section 23 of the Texas Constitution)
I’m curious about one thing here. The bill allows private institutions to prohibit legal carry. If an institution opts to do so, how is the public supposed to know about it? As far as I can tell, the bill doesn’t specify. Section 4 of the bill mentions amending PC 46.035 such that collegiate sporting events can only prohibit with 30.06 notice, but what about non-sporting event times, like just strolling around campus on a Tuesday? To remain consistent with the rest of the law, notice of prohibition should be given through proper 30.06 notice; if a private institution wishes to prohibit, they’re going to have to post 30.06 signs all over campus.
I’ve emailed Sen. Wentworth’s office requesting clarification.
My guess is they would have to give notice under 30.06.
Cursory reading of the text, and the bill seems good.
This is the House version of SB 321, and the text appears identical.
Doing a detailed search of the 82(R) – 2011 Legislature for any bill having the subject “Weapons (I0887)” (thanx Jay!), here’s a bunch of others. I’m only listing those of direct relation to “gun rights” (e.g. not listing HB 48).
HB 25 – Relating to the carrying of certain weapons in a watercraft.
HB 77 – Relating to the carrying of certain weapons in watercraft.
Looks to just add “watercraft” along with “motor vehicle” to a few parts of the Penal Code. Seems to be 2 bills for the same thing.
Not the same as SB 354, but close.
Both going for the same thing. They’ll hopefully reconcile and merge.
HB 181 – Relating to an exemption from the sales tax on handguns, rifles, shotguns, and ammunition.
HB 242 – Relating to the authority of certain retired peace officers to carry certain firearms.
HB 356 – Relating to the recognition of a nonresident license to carry a concealed handgun.
That one is a bit contentious. If you’re a Texas resident and wish to carry a concealed handgun, you must have a Texas CHL. Obtaining say a Utah permit and then carrying in Texas via reciprocity wouldn’t be able to fly. Yes you could still have a Utah CHL, but as a Texas resident you’d be required to have a Texas CHL.
That’s nice and all, but how about allowing the general public to also carry there? Look, if someone is going to come in and start doing evil things during a school board meeting, why should only the board members be allowed to defend themselves? Why not the general public? A CHL-holder is unlikely to be the evil-doer, and an evil-doer is going to do their evil regardless of any law. Why create privilege?
Updated: HB 750 was filed after I originally wrote this. So there are now 2 House bills (HB 750 and HB 86) and the one Senate bill (SB 354). All have similar but different text, so there’s going to have to be some work to reconcile things.
I get the feeling this is going to be one of the bigger issues of the legislative session.
Folks: contact your Texas State Senator’s and Representatives to let them know your stance on these bills. Furthermore, if you support these bills, urge your Senator or Representative to sign on as a co-author of the bill.
Finally, if you have not joined the Texas State Rifle Association, you should. Many of the things we enjoy in Texas came by way of the hard work of the TSRA and Alice Tripp. Support their efforts. (Disclosure: I am a TSRA Life Member, but otherwise have no connection to the TSRA; I just like supporting them and encouraging others to do so as well).
Stuff From Hsoi 
