And the last, for the moment, on that “sailing” theme: sail away, me auld Oirish beauty.
Month: July 2023
Caption Competition #289
Your suggestions in Comments.
Working Towards Extinction
In this post at Insty’s which discusses how San Francisco retailing is going down the rat-infested tubes, Stephen Green opines:
The future of shopping in America’s Democrat-run cities will eventually evolve into the Soviet model of paying a clerk first at one counter, then waiting for your goods to be delivered at the next counter. Shoppers won’t be allowed near any of the merchandise. But that’s what happens when you elect Soviet-minded politicians.
Our remaining advantage over the Soviet model is that enough of America still works that there are goods behind the counter.
So far. But the Communists in the Democratic Socialist party are working hard to create the other reality — you know, the one where the State ends up owning the means of production and pretends to pay people while people pretend to work. [/Stalinism]
Easier Option
Well, you could choose to go through all this hassle:
The world’s richest known lithium deposit lies deep in the woods of western Maine, in a yawning, sparkling mouth of white and brown rocks that looks like a landslide carved into the side of Plumbago Mountain
But like just about everywhere in the U.S. where new mines have been proposed, there is strong opposition here. Maine has some of the strictest mining and water quality standards in the country, and prohibits digging for metals in open pits larger than three acres. There have not been any active metal mines in the state for decades, and no company has applied for a permit since a particularly strict law passed in 2017. As more companies begin prospecting in Maine and searching for sizable nickel, copper, and silver deposits, towns are beginning to pass their own bans on industrial mining.
“Our gold rush mentality regarding oil has fueled the climate crisis,” says State Rep. Margaret O’Neil, who presented a bill last session that would have halted lithium mining for five years while the state worked out rules (the legislation ultimately failed). “As we facilitate our transition away from fossil fuels, we must examine the risks of lithium mining and consider whether the benefits of mining here in Maine justify the harms.”
Advocates for mining in the U.S. argue that, since the country outsources most of its mining to places with less strict environmental and labor regulations, those harms are currently being born by foreign residents, while putting U.S. manufacturers in the precarious position of depending on faraway sources for the minerals they need.
Geologists say there’s also likely a lot more lithium in spodumene deposits across New England. Communities that haven’t had working mines in years may soon find themselves a key source for lithium and other minerals needed for car batteries, solar panels, and many of the objects people will need more of to transition themselves off polluting fossil fuels.
There are good reasons for U.S. communities to have healthy skepticism about mining projects; there is no shortage of examples of a company coming into a community, mining until doing so becomes too expensive, then leaving a polluted site for someone else to clean up. There are more than 50,000 abandoned mines in the western United States alone, 80% of which still need to be remediated.
But of course, there’s no story without there being rayyyycism, and the Injuns:
Environmental concerns aren’t the only problem with mining, Morrill says. The history of mining in the U.S. is linked to colonialism; Christopher Columbus was looking for gold when he stumbled across North America, and as Europeans expanded into the continent, they took land from Indigenous people to mine for gold, silver, and other metals.
Today, mining in the U.S. often encroaches on Indigenous land. Under mining laws in the U.S. that date to 1872, anyone can stake a claim on federal public lands and apply for permits to start mining if they find “valuable” mineral deposits there. Most lithium, cobalt, and nickel mines are within 35 miles of a Native American reservation, Morrill says, largely because in the aftermath of the 1849 gold rush, the U.S. military removed tribes to reservations not far from mineral deposits in the West. In one particularly controversial project, the mining company Rio Tinto wants to build a copper mine on Oak Flat, Ariz., a desert area adjacent to an Apache reservation that Indigenous groups have used for centuries to conduct cultural ceremonies.
…and on and on it goes. (Read it all until you begin to glaze over; we’ve had these arguments so often that everyone knows what’s going on.)
OR:
We could just continue to use oil to power our cars and trucks, figuring that the gross pollution difference between batteries and electric cars (production and consumption) and using internal combustion engines is pretty much a wash.
But then that wouldn’t be an insane choice made by gibbering eco-lunatics now, would it?
Ya Thank?
From the Redcoats Burn Down The White House! news department:
Some Republican senators are concerned that conservative populism is taking over the Republican Party — concerns which coincide with increased distrust in federal agencies and establishment media outlets.
Wow, I wonder how they managed to figure this out… so late in the game.
Clueless idiots. Oh wait: here might be a clue:
Distrust for basic institutions has continued to bubble throughout President Biden’s time in office, particularly in light of the Department of Justice (DOJ) targeting former President Donald Trump while seemingly allowing Biden family corruption to go relatively unaddressed.
And Congress is right on it:
Such mounting concerns led to the creation of the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, which has worked to showcase the corruption of the FBI and DOJ.
A show of hands, please: how many of you think that this subcommittee’s findings will result in anyone being fired, imprisoned or even fined for said corruption?
None of you, huh? Me neither.
I’m a conservative, all right, but I’m nowhere close to being a populist, politically speaking. But if we look at the scale between “Boys will be boys” at one end and “Hang every last one of them from lamp posts” at the other, with each passing day I’m finding myself sliding ever closer to the “Never mind the gallows; we have lots of ammo” position.
What amazes me is that “some Republican senators” are only now becoming aware of how common my position is turning, even amongst the more polite conservatives.
And when the Communists steal the 2024 election with millions of fraudulent mail-in ballots?
We’ll just have to see.
Entry Level
Here’s a thought. Let’s say that you’re one of the many people who doesn’t own a gun of any real consequence — say, a .22 bolt-action rifle Christmas gift from Grandpa when you were ten, which you’ve fired occasionally but not often, or an old .38 revolver inherited from some uncle or other and only test-fired: and that’s it.
(I know, in these times and for my audience, this is scarcely believable; but I bet everyone can think of at least one person like this among your acquaintances, relatives and workmates. This is about them.)
Suddenly, you realize that things are going to get real and fairly soon, and you’re going to need a gun (or even two) fairly soon as well. Fortunately, you have a buddy who can teach you about the gun(s) and how to shoot them (what we Olde Pharttes call the “manual of arms”), but there’s a problem. You don’t have much money to spend, and the next gun show in your area is a month away — and you need a gun right now.
Your local gun stores are either out of stock, or worse: the guns they do have in stock are hideously expensive, and you only have a few hundred-odd dollars available, because the rest is being spent on building up emergency food supplies for you and your family. (Okay, I bet that now my Readers will know of a few people in this predicament.)
Still, you know that hoarding food supplies is pointless if some guy with a gun suddenly decides that he wants what you’ve got; you need to protect yourself, and get it done cheaply and quickly. Fortunately, you find an online source — an online outlet’s warehouse close by, and they have a stock of guns you can go to with fistfuls of dollars in hand, but you hardly know anything about guns.
What to do, and what are the best options?
As we all know, there is a list of must-haves when it comes to making a gun purchase of this sort. You need:
- an inexpensive gun
- chambered to shoot common (and therefore likely cheaper) ammo
- that you can learn to shoot quickly.
Her are my thoughts on the whole thing.
If there’s any chance you’re going to be facing some up-close-and-personal interaction, not much beats a shotgun. They’re cheap, easy to work, and despite having a small cartridge magazine capacity (5 or so), they’re the business. And there are lots of choices, and they’re all cheap. Here’s the best (I think) of the lot, the Mossberg Maverick 88 pump action, costing much less than three hundred dollars:
For ten bucks more, Savage’s Stevens 320 line also comes recommended:
Both are chambered in either 12ga or 20ga — 12 is more effective, but the 20’s recoil is much more manageable.
But Kim, you ask, what if I’m wanting to keep a little more distance between myself and Larry The Looter — say, as he comes up the driveway or is climbing over the back fence?
The bad thing about a shotgun is that the shot spreads soon after it leaves the muzzle, which means that the further away the target, the greater the dispersion of the pellets, and the greater likelihood of a partial- or even clean miss.
A rifle? Why, sure — if you’ve fired a bolt-action rifle before and know how to work it, then that’s the one to get. (Lever-action — “cowboy” — rifles are surprisingly expensive at the moment.) When you scan the wholesaler’s catalogue, however, you see that very few of the rifles have iron sights anymore — it’s no longer fashionable, for some reason — so your ever-shrinking fistful of cash needs to get a scope as well, even if it’s just an inexpensive one.
Well, step forward a couple of manufacturers who sell scope-inclusive gun “packages”. There’s Savage’s Axis line of rifles, which typically sell for (well) under $500 and include a scope:
Even better, they’re chambered for most of the popular (therefore cheap, and likely available) cartridges like the .223 Rem (5.56x45mm), .308 Win or .30-06 Springfield.
I would suggest that you couldn’t do much better than that, if you’re likely to need a gun which can reach out a little. For only a few more dollars, you can also get a Mossberg Patriot, similarly chambered:
Frankly, I myself would pick the Mossberg, but my reason for that is purely a personal one (no details because unnecessary). Either rifle would be fine.
Lastly, if you don’t have one of those old .38 revolvers in your possession, you might want to get a handgun simply because they’re easier to carry around, either in a holster (please) or just tucked into your waistband (please don’t).
Like the shotgun, there is an optimal choice for a handgun: a revolver (because it’s like a fork: you pick it up, and it works) chambered in… well, here’s where things get interesting.
I myself would recommend the .38 Special cartridge — the “+P” is better still, albeit often more spendy — but regardless of what caliber you choose, you’ve got to suck it up and buy quality / premium self-defense ammo (which is not necessarily true of the long guns).
As for the revolver itself, you have a couple choices: firstly, the Rock Island M200:
It’s ugly, it’s basic (.38 Special only, not +P), and it only costs $250. Remember, it’s likely to be a last-ditch gun, so there’s no point in spending more. But if you do, there’s always the Taurus 856 (also .38 Spec only), for a hundred-odd bucks more:
(This model’s the hammerless double-action-only, which is fine for the purpose as described. It might even work better for you than one with an exposed hammer.)
For almost double the price of the Taurus, though, you can get the Ruger LCRx:
Why does it cost so much more? It’s a Ruger, so it’s not going to break, and it can shoot the .38 Spec +P cartridge, which is a much better self-defense load than a regular .38 Special. Your choice.
Aside: why the .38 Special and not the 9mm? Simply put, the 9mm is pretty much confined to semi-auto handguns — which require a great deal more instruction and practice time than the original “point-and-click” interface of the revolver.
And why not the .357 Magnum? Expensive, not as available as the .38, very difficult to control in a small revolver, and the guns that can handle the cartridge are much more expensive.
Okay, one last thing: Someone, somewhere is going to start yammering about an AR-15 semi-auto rifle being The Ultimate Choice — perhaps your buddy, who is a vet and is willing to give you the proper instruction. And the ammo is dirt cheap (and other gun guys may be willing to give you a hundred-odd rounds from their stash), so why not?
Fine.
The problem is that because the AR-15 model is so easy to customize, you’re going to get confused about the thing. Don’t be. Get a basic out-of-the-box AR-15 with iron sights and two spare 30-round mags, and all will be well. What’s “basic”?
Step forward the Del-Ton Sport-M2, for only $600:
Del-Ton? Who they? No idea, but when it comes to AR-15s these days, that scarcely seems to matter. Here’s one guy who tried the Sport-M2 out, and found it quite acceptable. Or if you have a hundred more bucks in your handful of cash and want to take less risk, quality-wise, there’s always the Smith & Wesson M&P Sport II (which would get my vote):
Don’t listen to the guys who say they can “build” you an AR-15 for less than the Del-Ton, by the way, because that inevitably involves a lower from X, an upper from Y, a trigger group from P and an optical sight from Q, all of which need careful fitting and testing — and you don’t have the luxury of time.
Myself, I’d just get a Mossberg pump shotgun and a Rock Island revolver, because it’s easy-peasy (which is what you’re looking for, right?) and the total cost for that combo, without ammo, is about $500 ($600 with a couple boxes each of 20ga and .38 Special).
Cheap, nasty but fit for purpose.