Month: February 2019

Back From The Grave

Drive Time

It appears as though Jeep is going to relaunch their old Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer models in the near future.

Now before anyone starts setting off the fireworks celebrations, let me say up front that the relaunched vehicle will not resemble this, in any way, shape or form.

More’s the pity.  And the odds are good that it will emerge from the wind tunnel looking just like the current Jeep SUV line, or else it will resemble its predecessor in the same way that the New VW Beetle resembled the Old VW Beetle (i.e. not much, and uglier).

I’m taking bets…

And for the record:  when Jeep announced back in the mid-80s that they were going to discontinue the Wagoneer, I came thisclose to getting one.

The Danish Solution

Immigration

I’ve spoken before about how Denmark, surely the most tolerant of countries, has decided to reinforce their traditional Scandi-values on the immigrant population they’ve allowed into their country.  Chief among these, of course, is the little 17-acre island where they’re going to be dumping the ingrates (i.e. criminals) amongst said groups:

Remote, not easily reachable or escapable… sounds a little like Alcatraz, dunnit?  Which is indeed the title of the linked article.

As I was reading the piece, I couldn’t help thinking that the Danes are onto a good thing — which, inevitably, led me into thinking about a similar solution on this side of the Atlantic.

Granted, our little criminal-immigrant problem is somewhat larger than Denmark’s, but then again, we have Catalina Island — all 75 square miles  of it, which could surely be put to better use than it is now.

Considering that California is in large part responsible for a lot of our current immigration problem, I see no reason why the .fedgov shouldn’t ummmm appropriate this real estate, kick out the rich farts and hippies who currently infest the place (most of whom, I suspect, support untrammeled immigration), and dump all the malcontent immigrants (of whatever origin) onto its admittedly-pretty shores.

Then mine the waters around it.

Quote Of The Day

QOTD, The Gun Thing

From Bearing Arms:

[T]he idea of passing a law that won’t likely be enforced through most of the state strikes me as completely stupid.
Then again, this is gun control we’re talking about, so stupid is a given.

From my experience most police departments in New Mexico (the “African” state, as Doc Russia calls it) don’t bother enforcing a whole bunch of laws, not just this bullshit.

Spamming Response

Bad News, Technology

I am totally unsurprised by this situation:

Robocallers and spam callers are getting quite good at masking their identify. They do this partly by “spoofing” local numbers, making it seem like a legitimate local number is calling to increase the likelihood that you’ll answer. That’s the reason, according to Hiya, that around 9 percent of spam calls a month actually get answered by phone owners even though they don’t recognize the number calling.
Nine percent might not sound like much, until you consider the fact that 26.3 billion robocalls were made to American phones in 2018.

Result:

The nearly 50 percent of phone calls that go unanswered jumps way up to 76 percent of calls left unanswered — a little more than three out of every four — when the call comes from an unidentified or unfamiliar number.

In my case, that would be 100 percent.  I never  answer a call if the caller is unidentified (i.e. isn’t among my saved contacts).  As a result, I always tell people to email their phone numbers to me first so I can add them to my contact list.  Otherwise, their calls will be met with indifference.

Sucks, but that’s what happens when people use technology indiscriminately and unprompted.

Not A Report

The Gun Thing

In the wake of last Saturday’s post about cheap carry guns, Reader Terry S. sent me this article, entitled “The Most Dangerous Handgun On The Planet?”  (talking about the Ruger SR40c).

I must be getting older and crankier [no shit] but I am getting sick of articles like this, which basically regurgitate the manufacturer’s spec sheet and throw in a little Wikipedia history on some part of the deal.  (In this case, the short history of the .40 S&W cartridge, linked back to the Miami Shootout.  Yeah, whatever — who cares? because we all know about that infamous stand-off between undergunned FBI agents and a couple of better-armed goblins.)

So what does this article tell us?  Nothing.  (Don’t even get me started on the breathless hyperbole of the headline, which is pure clickbait.) Here are a couple issues I would have addressed.

Sure, the .40 is more powerful than the 9mm Europellet.  How does that translate into a compact pistol like the SR40c?  My own experience with the .40 S&W has not been that pleasant:  the sharp snap! of the .40’s recoil makes target reacquisition slower, and the recoil affects my accuracy quite substantially — and this in a large-framed Beretta 92FS.  And I’m not alone in this:  several shooters have reported the same issues, and there are reports of female cops and agents having controllability problems when qualifying / requalifying with their weapons chambered in the .40 S&W.  So how does the SR40c handle the recoil?

Is this pistol better than, say, the diminutive Glock 27, with which the Ruger compact surely must compete?

The article does compare a few features (e.g. having an external safety — unusual in such guns), but those are peripheral issues.  Is the SR40c more reliable?  Can it feed a variety of different ammo brands and types (which the G27 seems to be able to do)?  Is it as rugged as the Glock or the mini-Springfield XD Mod 2?

(I have to tell you, I kinda prefer the Ruger’s looks:  that smoothed-down slide and grip just shouts “comfort” and “easy-draw” — but the article didn’t even give us that.)

Now I have to grant you that The National Interest  is most assuredly not a gun magazine, but that just means that in future I’ll be less likely to look at their gun articles if they’re going to be superficial puff pieces like this one,

And as for the silly headline:  does the Ruger even look  as dangerous as this SIG SG553P?

(My question:  is the SIG really a pistol, or just a chopped-down pistol-caliber carbine?  But that’s a topic for another day.)