Zombie Outbreak?

Come on, what else was I going to call something like this after I saw it at Drudge?

Preparing For The Future

The Atomic Nerds offer insightful commentary on the week so far; I concur. Being a union guy though (I was actually elected our shop steward by my fellow employees recently) (poor bastards :)), I chose to use one of my vacation days to get myself in the proper state of mind for the upcoming Good Friday holiday this weekend. Being unionized, we get some input into which occasions during the year we wish to "celebrate" by our absence from our place of employment, and this Friday is one of them.

Went to the local County office that handles vehicle registration (along with most other tax collection-related activities for Smith County) and got the pick-up truck re-tagged for the year. In an associated observation, you would think that such a critical function of state government would make more of an effort to abide by the legislation their efforts are directed at funding. Here in Smith County, the edifice named The Cotton Belt Building houses the tax collecting offices (along with several other "services") but all of the exterior doors display an illegal notice barring guns being carried into the building. Given the presence of Sheriffs Deputies at all the doors, not to mention basic respect for the intent behind the law regulating such activity, I left my pistol locked in the truck. Even so, I can report that the coppers on the doors are not the least amused by casual queries about the violation of Texas law the signs (scroll down to Sec.30.06) on the doors exhibit. I wouldn't go so far as to say the one I spoke with was un-courteous, just really, really unamused.

That minor drag on market transactions complete, I went to Lock & Load for some much needed ballistic therapy. I recently bought a Smith & Wesson model 559 in 9mm (new in the box!) and wanted to put another 100 rounds or so through it. As every new gun owner knows, minor mal-adjustments or hardened preservatives/lubricants often don't become apparent until several hundred rounds have been fired through them (the guns, not the owners). This particular S&W offering is starting to exhibit failures to extract with no particular indications of the extractor hook (clip? blade?) gouging the brass especially. The spring pressure seems adequate (to finger pressure - I'm sure a specific strain gauge exists but I don't own one) (yet), and there isn't any obvious accumulation of gunk (excuse the technical terminology) in that area of the bolt, so I will just field strip it again and give it all a good going over with a can of brake cleaner.

I did get it sighted in to my initial satisfaction. I chose my usual 21' and managed to "chase the hole" around the paper until I stopped and thought about it for a bit. Elevate the rear sight (this model features a fixed blade front sight) to raise the point of contact on the target, drift the rear sight left to move the point of impact on the paper to the left. Don't know why this continues to seem counter-intuitive to me. As I started to say, I finally managed a reasonably consistent ~1" group at 21', after allowing for repeated stoppages to clear FTE's. :) Not too bad from a new gun, and one in a model that is itself new to me as a shooter (it's surprising how much a minor-seeming difference like the thickness of the grip or even the tactile feel of different grip materials can have on basic sight acquisition and grip mechanics, isn't it?). I've put off buying a 9mm for at least 35 years now; even with the to-be-expected new gun quibbles I'm thinking that was one of my less well thought out decisions.

I'll be going back to the range on Friday (that was the justification for the day off, remember?); we'll try it again then. Maybe some pictures too if I remember to bring an actual camera instead of just my crappy cell phone. It's not a question of "blog standards" you understand, I just want a clear enough picture that I can tell what I'm looking at next year.

What Is This Privacy You Speak Of?

JayG has a post up from yesterday about the modern HR penchant for basing employment decisions at least in part on social media activity:

Right off the bat, let's dispense with the obligatory: A private business has every right to ask this of potential employees. It's short-sighted, doesn't address the real issues, and has every possibility of turning the "Streisand Effect" up to 11, but they still have the right to do it. It's a pretty stark reminder of the lousy economy, though, that a company could even consider such an invasive, intrusive policy.


It's understandable why a company would want a peek at a potential employee's social page. Someone prone to drinking binges, blackouts, frequent absences - or maybe even owning a firearm - might be the type of person they'd like to exclude from their searches. Maybe they're just looking for indications that their potential employee posts a lot during work hours - or rides a motorcycle/practices a different religion/prefers Glocks to 1911s...

He asks an intriguing question though:

I was under the impression that companies cannot ask about marital status, sexual orientation, children, religion, etc. in a job interview. Since all of this information is quite likely to be part of one's social profile, wouldn't that run afoul of the rules that already govern interview questions? I wonder what a company that asked for a Facebook password would say if asked "Are you asking my my marital status?"...

Any one?

In turn, Phil Bowermaster asks, "Why Be Surprised?" in his take on the same issue:

Am I just being cyncial? Once we established that they can make you pee in a cup, didn’t everything else pretty much came along for the ride?

In a comment to Phil's post, I wrote:

Here’s another business opportunity – delineate and promote a “bright line” distinction between personal and professional data and create a site that publicly reports on and shames companys that ignore the difference. Done right, said employers will quickly find themselves holding steadily less-well attended job fairs. Those that make the correct correlation between these two events will likely make the necessary change; the rest will have their customers taken over by their successors.

Does this seem a reasonable response to anyone else?

Act Of Valor

Went to see the movie Act Of Valor today; I encourage all to see this film in a cinema if at all possible.

A reasonably straightforward telling of an entirely plausible-seeming (to me, at least) threat with all of the to-be-expected combat action people have come to associate with SEALS and Special Forces generally. HALO jumps, air insertion of SEAL Tactical Assault Boats, the STAB boats in riverine action, it's all included and beautifully filmed to convey both an accurate image as well as the impact caused. I found the commo discipline as well as the shooting under stress and movement (specifically, the reloading and communicating between fellow teammates) to add an additional layer of suspension of disbelief.

I suppose that the predictable-seeming plot point that occurs towards the end of the film (no spoilers here - spend the money for this one, it's worth it) is more than justified by the final on-screen scene. It stops being a screen writers dodge when you start to count up all the names of those who actually did just that sort of thing at some point during these last ten years of war.

Go see this movie; buy a copy when it becomes available on DVD, you will want to watch it more than once, I promise. And if you don't have to hold back the tears just a little at the end, I don't want to know you.


Update: Via Glen Reynolds, this is no surprise.

A Feverish Grasp On That Metaphorical Silver Lining

Get that stock market value as high as your fantasy allows. I plan to borrow against my 401(K) at the end of the month and every little bit helps.

h/t Instapundit

Space In The Campaign

Want to hear all about the actual technology required for a Moon Colony and Getting There From Here (and just how available all that stuff actually is)? Tune in to Fast Forward Radio at The Speculist tomorrow night (2/1/12) at the special time of 11 pm eastern/10 pm central to listen to Rand Simberg and Brian Wang, two guys who actually know what they're talking about and aren't running for any political office (and aren't indebted to anyone who is :)).

Yo, Phil, Stephen; I don't give a damn what else is in the news for this show at least. Tell the nice people who these guys are and then get straight to it!

They Got Me

I managed to pick up my first no shit trojan yesterday (FYI, I think it was hidden in some Java script within a you tube video and is called "blacole"), everything seized up and then my firewall went pffftt! I managed to ID it and remove it, but I still can't get my firewall back up, nor can I access my e-mail account. I can't get my desktop to uninstall anything either, so to the computer store we go - back in a week I hope. This little netbook allows me to do minimal stuff, but I sure miss that 22" screen and sound system.

At the moment, I'm mostly waiting for the 44 updates to finish. Man, I've got to start taking care of my computer gear a little more frequently one of these days (yeah, that's gonna happen :)).

Officially, it sucks to be me.

Correlation With Liberty

One of the blogs I read regularly (look, see? It's over there to the side of the page) is M. Simon's Power And Control; he's a fellow USN vet and frequently addresses a number of different topics I am interested in but don't have the academic background to follow at a detailed level of discussion - he's good at explaining technical topics to a lay readership. Imagine my surprise upon reading this post title Gunners Look At Drugs.

The Gun Values Board appears to be a forum and one I'm not familiar with. I do know that writers and interview subjects don't always have editorial control over the titles on their published work, but "The Second Amendment Community Tends To Ignore The Connection Between The War On Guns And The War On Drugs" strikes me as more than a little ill-informed in my blog reading experience. The interview reads like an e-mail exchange (and if so the lack of supporting links is kinda annoying, but, again, editorial control and all that) and makes a reasonable if shallow case for the proposition that ending drug prohibition is consistent with defending our Second Amendment rights. You decide.

What I found compelling was the observation that:

Long term PTSD (everybody gets it short term if the trauma is severe enough) is a genetic problem, and roughly 20% of the nation is susceptible. Of that 20%, roughly half have problems well into adulthood. That would be the 10% of the population that are “addicted” to illegal drugs and alcohol.

The core organ involved seems to be the amygdala although the hippocampus is thought to play a role as well. The interesting thing about these organs is that they don’t “communicate” with the brain much except as chemical factories. Neural pathways are sparse into and out of the amygdala. So you can’t “think” your way out of the reactions those organs produce. You can’t will away the fear messages that the amygdala broadcasts.

Two thoughts come quickly to mind; "Just Say No" isn't gonna work for these folks, and it seems a quick jolt actually does make some people better (without quotes, scary or otherwise). I think it's pretty well established that the British shooting community (what there is left of it at any rate) is a good deal more tolerant of shooters having a "quick bracer" over the course of the day than we are on this side of the water. Might be time to give that a second - and actually science-based for a change - look maybe. Probably not, prejudice is so much more comfortable, and this from a group that ought to be more familiar than any with the virulent racism and class-based elitist prejudice that inspired so many of the gun-restricting laws and regulations that bedevil us in the US.

One other consideration did occur; of the roughly 10% of Americans that are genetically susceptible to long term PTSD, and of whom some portion is likely also among the 10% addicted to drugs and/or alcohol, how many are also members of the 60+ million households (that is the number the NRA claims isn't it?) that have one or more guns therein? Which, when you stop to think on it (and for a given value of us), makes them part of us. You know, fellow "gunners", members of the militia if they're the right age, all that inalienable rights guff we prattle at each other about. Unless they're sick, then it's a disdainful sniff and a quick view of our backsides as if they were unclean defilers of our privileged sect.

A closing thought; how about we make a concerted effort to shine a little medical (or any other that seems relevant) science onto what ails them and seriously consider offering our fellow citizens some of the treatment that contributes to unit cohesion and morale, just as we do amongst ourselves now (there's a very backhanded joke in there if your personal kink permits that sort of quirk). It is well established that we the citizenry are "the militia" the 2nd Amendment refers to; I don't read any exclusion to that other than age, so maybe we ought to act - and more importantly, think - just that way and treat our fellow militia members as such.

Think of it as strengthening the frailer links in the chain that guards our mutual rights, if metaphor helps at all.

Go and offer comment at M. Simon's post, he needs better gun rights material to work with. While you're there read the drug related stuff on his side-bar, it's informative. Liberty does have limits, but "Liberty is indivisible" has quite a ring to it.

Good Guess

I'd be more impressed if I knew how many guesses predictions were made in total. 10 for 10 is really something, 10 out of a 1000 not so much.

h/t Instapundit.

That's Their Story

And, apparently they're sticking to it.

So to speak.

h/t Instapundit.