Filed under: Emergency, Flu, Government, Guns, Health, Pandemic, Predictions, Preparedness, Science, Science Fiction, Society, Survival, Weather
“Foraging?”
I chuckled. “Yeah.”
“But I thought you already had like 40,000 rounds of ammo,” said my friend.
“You exaggerate.”
“Yeah, but not by much.” He laughed. “So, what were you foraging for?”
“Oh, just decided to top off some of the usual supplies we have at home. You know how it is.”
He did. He too lives in the Midwest, where a winter storm or spring flood or summer tornado can leave you isolated without power or the ability to get out for upwards of a week. “So, you really think this is the start of a pandemic?”
“Probably not, but it is too soon to say. But even if it isn’t, there could be a panic, which could be almost as bad.”
“Yeah, good point.”
* * * * * * *
WHO says swine flu moving closer to pandemic
BERLIN – The World Health Organization warned Wednesday that the swine flu outbreak is moving closer to becoming a pandemic, as the United States reported the first swine flu death outside of Mexico, and Germany and Austria became latest European nations hit by the disease.
In Geneva, WHO flu chief Dr. Keiji Fukuda told reporters that there was no evidence the virus was slowing down, moving the agency closer to raising its pandemic alert to phase 5, indicating widespread human-to-human transmission.
* * * * * * *
“You know, this is all your fault,” said a different friend.
“What is?”
“The swine flu.”
“How do you figure?”
“I read your book. I know the backstory. This is how it starts, isn’t it?”
“Well, something like this, anyway.”
“So, what’s next?”
“Aliens.”
He laughed.
* * * * * * *
Jim Downey
…into what had me busy last week(end): The big list. Shooting the damned derringers was brutal. But you hafta be ready for the Zombie apocalypse.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Astronomy, Bad Astronomy, Ballistics, Cassini, Depression, Enceladus, Guns, Health, NASA, Phil Plait, RKBA, Saturn, Science, Space
Man, I still feel like someone beat me with a bag of nickels.
I wonder if this is just an effect of having subjected myself to a lot of blast shock over a four day period? Shooting a lot of the ‘real world’ guns (we test something on the order of 40 with all the different ammos available from the previous tests) wasn’t such a big deal. But some of them – particularly the Bond derringers in the larger calibers – were just brutal to shoot 20 – 30 times in a row. And the blast from the short barrels of the chop tests could knock your teeth loose.
Anyway, I ache everywhere. And I’ve been fighting a mild depression for the last couple of days. At first it was just masked by being tired (the tests were hard, and I got too little sleep). Also, I figured that the emotional energy it took to be in close proximity to several other people constantly over five days time was a component – don’t get me wrong, I like everyone involved in the testing a lot, but I am just not used to being with people that much. But I have now had some time to recover, and I should be past the worst of that.
So, a little post-project blues. Or maybe the blast shock, repeated several thousand times, has something to do with it. I dunno. I’ll write more tomorrow, in the meantime take a few minutes to enjoy these great images of the Saturn system from the Cassini spacecraft, courtesy of the Boston Globe’s Big Picture series.
Jim Downey
(Via Phil Plait.)
So, I was listening to NPR yesterday afternoon, and heard their ‘letters’ bit about the show on Monday (which I missed, due to being out shooting). They had evidently done a segment speculating what would happen were marijuana legalized, and were reading some of the letters that they got in response. Most were about what you would expect – thoughtful observations and critiques of the show. Then there was the last one:
Finally, one of the few letters we received against legalization. It comes from Rose Rosetree in Virginia. She emailed to tell us she reads auras, professionally. She writes: “From my perspective, pot is very dangerous. It is a slow poison that has very specific consequences for all long-term users, as well as individual and heart breaking consequences for each user.” Ms. Rosetree goes on to say: ” Until all NPR listeners can read auras, invaluable for all forms of holistic healing, as well as many other practical uses, with all respect, non-aura-readers will only perceive the surface problems with marijuana and other recreational drugs.”
Hmm. Methinks Ms. Rosetree has books to sell. Surprise, surprise.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to UTI.)
As I mentioned the other day, this last weekend was the next round of testing for the Bbti project. We finished up in good form yesterday, after completing the ‘chop tests’ of three new calibers (.327 Magnum, .41 Magnum, and 10mm) as well as revisiting many of the previously tested ammos with a bunch (like over 40) of new ‘real world’ guns. There are some very interesting results already evident in the raw data, some of which I will be discussing informally on my Bbti blog in the coming weeks until we get everything crunched and posted formally on the main Bbti website.
But not for a day or two. As I told a friend this morning: “My hands feel like they have been pounded with hammers for the last week.” Just doing this much typing is very painful.
So, until later . . .
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to Bbti Blog.)
. . . to let everyone know that my posting here is likely to be light & sporadic (hmm – sounds like a weather forecast) this week. We’re going to be starting the next round of ballistics testing on Thursday, and I have a lot of work to get done before that.
Cheers!
Jim Downey
Filed under: 2nd Amendment, Civil Rights, Constitution, Government, Guns, Religion, Society, Violence
(I posted this over on dKos, thought it might be of interest to people here.)
* * *
xxdr zombiexx’s diary on Thursday provoked a lot of good discussion, and brought out in high relief some of the differences here on the left regarding attitudes towards guns. One very insightful thing he said in the 3rd update to his diary particularly got me to thinking:
The point is that I do think that some people take this “right to own guns” bit too seriously and have elevated it to a religion.
OK, let’s use that as the launching point for an analogy. It is not a perfect analogy, but I hope it is an illustrative one – please keep an open mind, and give it a chance to work. My intent here is to explain, not argue.
The First Amendment to the US Constitution states:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
I want to focus on the first two parts of that, concerning religion, which are commonly referred to as the “Establishment” and “Free Exercise” clauses.
(I am not an attorney, and am not trying to argue legal history – I just want to provide a basic premise for the analogy.)
We tend to think that these clauses mean that an individual American has the right to believe (or not believe) as he or she sees fit, and to exercise their belief freely, without the interference of the government. And by & large, this is true. There are disputes concerning what constitutes any kind of government recognition or support of one religion or another (things like having the Ten Commandments posted in courthouses, et cetera), and there are problems which occur with how some people exercise their religion (as in considering otherwise illegal drugs to be a sacrament). But for the most part, you can believe as you see fit, and exercise that belief within the normal constraints of the law. This is how the vast majority of Americans live their lives.
[Here comes the speculative part. Bear with me.]
OK, now consider how most people would view the Democratic party if it had a history of supporting limitations on the exercise of religion. Let’s say that during the 1960s, following the death of President Kennedy, there was an effort made to promote Catholicism, in respect for the religion of the slain president. After all, a substantial number of Americans at the time were Catholics, including a large percentage of the working-class base of the Democratic Party in the big cities of the North East. Oh, you could still believe as you saw fit, still be Baptist, or Jewish, or Mormon – but let’s say that there was legislation proposed that would make the Pope the nominal head of all religions in the US, just as a sign of respect to President Kennedy.
Of course, such legislation would be seen as completely inappropriate, there would be a backlash, and Democrats would pay a heavy price in following elections. After wandering in the political wilderness for a generation, most Democrats would know not to get involved in such a mess, to leave religion well enough alone.
Time passes. But then along comes a new religion. A bit of a weird one. Scientology. A lot of people see it as a cult. Its power and influence is seen to grow, though in fairly limited ways. Still, it makes a lot of people uneasy. Several European countries decide that it is something of a threat, and pass laws against it, some harsher than others.
A new Democratic president decides to do something, and is instrumental in passing a new law in an effort to protect people from perceived dangers of Scientology. But the wording is sloppy (as any such effort to limit a religion while trying to stay Constitutional would be), and as more people become aware of the implications of the law, the more different religions seem to be threatened by it. Over the course of a decade, even though the Democratic president and his Republican successor don’t really use the law to do anything against most people, the general consensus comes about among believers that this law should be allowed to lapse when it comes up for renewal.
And still, even so, there are those Democrats who think that Scientology is a real threat, and they lobby hard to keep the law. Their intention is completely honorable – all they want to do is have what they see as reasonable limits on this one particular ‘weird’ religion. But their actions remind people of the ill-fated (though again, well-intentioned) efforts to promote Catholicism, no matter how much they profess that *that* is not what they mean to do at all. Fed by the Republican noise machine, fear of Democratic interference in the free exercise of religion is kept alive, even while the anti-Scientology law is allowed to expire.
A new Democratic president comes on the stage. He seems to be honest, and forthright, and has a lot of messes to clean up from his inept Republican predecessor. He says that he has no interest in limiting anyone’s religion, that he is a non-Catholic himself, and most people believe him. But he did slip up once during the campaign, and made an unfortunate comment about small-town Americans bitterly clinging to religion. That made a lot of people nervous, even good Democrats who were people of faith. And he had been on record previously in supporting the anti-Scientology legislation. And someone remembers that he was raised an atheist. A couple of his top cabinet members make comments which can be understood to be hostile to Scientology, perhaps to religion in general. Oh, and his official government website says that he still supports making the anti-Scientology law permanent.
Then, still very early in his administration, there are several high-profile instances where Scientology is in the news and seems to be as much of a threat as ever, if not moreso. Demands on left-leaning political blogs increase for a renewal of the anti-Scientology law, as poorly written and ineffectual as it was. Some vocal atheists weigh in, say that the problem goes well beyond just Scientology, that it is religion itself that is the problem, and that we should all just grow the hell up and get past this infantile fascination, be more like the Europeans. People of faith – not just Scientologists, but all those who remember what has happened in the past – start to eye the Democrats with increasing unease and suspicion.
Jim Downey
Filed under: 2nd Amendment, Argentina, Guns, Health, Patagonia, Preparedness, RKBA
I mentioned last fall that I went to get a Hep A vaccination, in prep for our trip to Patagonia. Actually, what I got was the first part of the vaccine. To be fully effective, you need a booster shot six months later.
That six months was last Monday. This morning I went back for the second shot.
And as I sat there in the waiting room, I considered the matter. Why get the second shot? I only got the first one because I had a somewhat compromised immune system (the years of stress due to being a care provider) and was heading to Argentina, where there was an *outside* risk of exposure. I have no intention of traveling anywhere which might have a serious risk. And given how little I enjoyed our Argentine trip, almost no real inclination of going back there or anywhere else where there is a slight risk.
So why take the time, spend the money (just $25, but still . . .), and risk a low-grade reaction to the vaccine?
Well, partly it is just my approach to the world – I like to be thorough, see things to completion. And partly it was inertia: I had the card noting when I should come in for the second shot, and had all along figured that I would get it done.
But partly it was insurance. Like owning a fire extinguisher. Chances are I may never need it, but if I do, nothing else will be a very good substitute. And while I have absolutely zero illusions about being “safe”, why not take reasonable precautions?
Would you have bothered?
Jim Downey
Uh-oh:
Welcome to the Skylighter web site for people who make fireworks and other pyrotechnics. Skylighter offers a wide variety of novelty fireworks, sparklers, fireworks books, fireworks videos, pyrotechnic chemicals (potassium nitrate, potassium perchlorate, aluminum, sulfur, etc.), fireworks making tools, fireworks tubes (for rockets, mortars, fountains, salutes, shells, etc.), fireworks shell parts, end plugs, end disks, end caps, and other paper and plastic supplies for making fireworks and pyrotechnics to organizations and individuals in all 50 states. The entire Skylighter catalog is available on-line, including air and surface shipping costs for all U.S. areas. Sorry, but we do not ship outside the United States.
And the guy who runs it has a blog with *extensive* information about how to construct fireworks. Here’s a bit:
Even when they don’t “work well,” and CATO (blow up) on the launch pad, these rockets are impressive! There is a lot of power packed into that engine tube, so it pays to put a long piece of Visco fuse on them, and have everyone plenty far away from the launch area just in case.
Whistle Rocket Explosion on Launch Pad(Photo Courtesy Jerry Durand)
This is the third in a series of whistle-related articles. The first installment dealt with making whistle fuel and simple fireworks whistles. That same fuel will be used in these strobe rockets. The second article described the construction of basic whistle rockets. Many of those same techniques will be used now to make strobe rockets. So, it’s a good idea for you to familiarize yourself with those basic methods before forging ahead with this project.
Oh, baby.
Man, I’m drooling.
About 15 years ago I had the good fortune to attend several nights worth of amateur fireworks displays as part of the Pyrotechnics Guild International competitions. And I got a serious case of fireworks lust. Which is always easy for me, anyway, what with being born on July 4th and all. A few years prior to that, I’d had the chance to help set up and set off some very impressive stuff – up to 6″ shells – as part of some SCA activities.
Believe me, I could seriously get into this stuff. I put it off back then because I had my hands full with other things. And I do still, of course, but the temptation now is even stronger. Hey, I already have several pounds of black powder here because of my flintlock . . .
Oh baby.
Jim Downey
Filed under: 2nd Amendment, Art, Ballistics, Guns, Press, Promotion, Publishing, RKBA
Well, things with the Ballistic by the inch site have slowed down since I wrote this:
OK, this is a little weird.
I’ve created a monster. Well, not just me, but it’s at least largely my writing. Not that even my own sister could tell that.
See, the Ballistics by the inch project has been really successful. Really successful. Like over-a-quarter-million-hits-in-the-two-weeks-since-we-launched-it successful. I won’t know the actual number for a couple of hours, but already yesterday it was past that mark.
That’s more than twice the number of hits I’ve had to the Communion of Dreams site in the entire two years since it launched.
But yesterday the number of hits to that site crossed 500,000. In basically three months. And we’ll probably see a new round of interest next month, when the article in Concealed Carry Magazine comes out.
Wild.
So far, this has stayed primarily within the ‘firearms enthusiast’ community, and it may well just remain there. That’d be OK – that was the audience for which we did it. But it could also make the jump into the mainstream fairly easily, and that would be very odd, not unlike (but from a completely different direction) to when my little Paint the Moon project got picked up by the mainstream press.
Hmm, I need to remember to update my Wikipedia entry…
Jim Downey
Communion Of Dreams 