Snowflakes in Hell

You can see pictures of the pilot accidental discharge that Uncle’s been talking about over here.  They include close-ups.

Philadelphia’s corruption probe that surfaced with bugs in the office of Mayor John Street a few years ago has now nabbed the governor of Puerto Rico, along with several Philadelphians.

But Luis Fraticelli, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s San Juan Field Office, said, “Our democratic system cannot function when public officials act as though they are above the law.

Feldman, who raised more than $1 million for Democrats, including U.S. Sen. Bob Casey Jr. and Gov. Rendell, was a former business partner of Ronald A. White, the late power-broker who was the lead defendant in the Philadelphia corruption case.

In the Philadelphia case, Feldman was not charged. In San Juan, he was charged with one count of conspiracy to violate federal election laws.

This is what happens when you let one party rule a city for decades.

Hat tip to Instapundit

Uncle pointed out a few days ago that ballistic glass could be penetrated by a 12 gauge shotgun slug.  Alcibiades pointed out in the comments this site.   But holy polycarbonate penetration batman, do you see what a 45-70 government round does to it?  I remember a few years ago the antis pointed out that a .50 BMG could penetrate bullet proof glass, and showed it easily stopping an AK-47 round.  Interesting that one of the oldest metallic cartrdge loads is capable of doing the same thing.  It seems for penetrating ballistic glass, the best option is to be heavy.  I guess this comes back to what Joe Huffman said about momentum mattering more than energy.

A government which has the power to do unlimited good, has the power to do unlimited evil.  GeekWitha.45 tries to explain that to one of his acquaintances.  It’s a good read.

Gun Legislation & Politics in New York has some interesting background on Tim Sullivan, who’s legacy is the Sullivan Act in New York City, which was one of the early gun control laws that appeared in the United States.  It still lives on today, as a fine piece of  “common sense” gun control brought to you by Irish gangsters.

This article takes exception to Pennsylvania’s generally dour outlook on its future.

But if ever there were a case that documents what the economist Joseph Schumpeter described as “creative destruction,” it’s what happened in Pennsylvania. Steel and other manufacturing industries were indeed shattered by competition from the globalized economy that was just emerging. But new industries that nobody could then have imagined took their place, and they provided new jobs, year after year.

Employment in Pennsylvania reached an all-time high in January 2008, and then fell slightly in February. People there fear that a steep recession may be coming. But as of February, the last month for which statistics are available, unemployment Wall-Street-Layoffs in Pennsylvania was just 4.9 percent. Since January 2003, the state has added a total of 178,000 new jobs, according to the state government.

Where did all these jobs come from?  According to the article, technology and health care sectors, bolstered by our state’s large number of universities.  The big problem with this outlook is that, while unemployment may be low, young people are still leaving the state for opportunities elsewhere.  Pennsylvania’s chief problem is a high tax burden, and a regulatory environment that’s still mired in the obsolete industrial era policies.  If Pennsylvania wants to be truly dynamic, it has to find ways to cut taxes, and reign in state government.

It must suck to be Peter Hamm or Paul Helmke these days.

You actually get good articles on the shooting sports in local papers outside of Philadelphia.  I think this is actually true of most areas.  This is an area of the country where high schools still have rifle teams.   But there are still ninnies:

The event was moved after State College Area school board members refused to grant space at Mount Nittany Middle School, citing the district’s no-weapons policy.

The board’s decision in January disappointed leaders of the Tussey Mountain club, who wanted to hold it in the club’s hometown. It also sent a message to local shooting aficionados who think the sport deserves respect and support from the public.

School boards are elected, and we should get to work on putting people in there who will restore the rifle program to the middle school.  In these communities, there’s probably enough support for youth shooting programs to put significant pressure on the school board to change their policy.

Tonight I took my Mk.III Hunter to the range to shoot the e-postal match for this month, after screwing up the rules the other night, and shooting 20 rounds at the flies.  Tonight I was shooting better anyway, so it all worked out.

For the bullseye targets, I loaded two at a time.  First two shots were so spot on, I thought I had missed the target clean somehow, wondering if my sights had gotten knocked way off center.  I didn’t manage to reproduce that feat again, but I managed the 9 ring on the initial shot 3 other times.  My follow up shots tend to be not as good, which I attribute to not taking enough time between shots.  Bullseye target score 84.

For the flies, I did 7 out of 10.  Trick was being slow and deliberate.  I loaded no more than one round at a time into the my Ruger Mk.III to force myself to not rush.  Hung on the target good and long until movements dropped down, then broke the trigger.  Jerked at the last minute on three of them, but such is life.  Grand total score of 91 out of 110 possible.

I’m using a factory gun.  I think the Mk.III could stand to have a lighter trigger.  I’m also using a cheap chinese no-name holosight on top, which gets the job done, but has issues with distorting the zero if you don’t have the dot right in the middle of the glass.  It also enjoys drifting from zero, which is obnoxious.

You can actually find out what states have the highest suicide rate per capita here.  By the looks of it, Montana, Nevada, Alaska, New Mexico, and Wyoming are pretty depressing places to live, since they are 1 through 5 respectively.  Rounding out the bottom?  New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maryland and Hawaii.

Is it really a surprise that the states VPC mentions have high rates of suicide using a gun, given they have high rates of sucides?  Also, how else are you going to kill yourself in Montana and Alaska?  There are few high bridges, few trains, no tall buildings.  I mean, I guess you could smother yourself in honey and go try to find a grizzly, but seriously, this is about as surprising as finding out that New York leads the nation in suicidal dives off tall buildings, or that San Francisco leads the nation in bridge suicides.

That’s not even getting into whether taking things away from people because they might kill themselves with it makes sense as a public public policy measure.  I don’t think it does.  I suspect most Americans would agree.