Post-Worthy

From Comments comes this thoughtful piece by Lo-o-o-ngtime Reader GMC70:

So – we have to consider how to live in a nation where, at least at this point, national politics is rigged and, if the Senate falls Democratic, is possibly rigged in perpetuity. One way is to ignore national politics, live in your local area, and get on with life. In a society where individual freedom used to be valued, it is going to be hard to get used to the idea that ideas can lawfully be suppressed. But we’re rapidly entering that age.
Another possible consideration, depending on the state you live in, is simply secession. If you’d asked me a decade ago, or even less, about that, I’d have laughed.

I’m no longer laughing.

Finally we all have to consider where our individual red lines are. What is the red line which will change you from law-abiding citizen to outlaw? I know where a couple of mine are: I will not register firearms (if, of course, I actually had any). At that point I will be an outlaw. I will not comply.
I will not give up my religious practices. Period. Nor will I tolerate any regulation on my church’s practices, decisions, or doctrine. And yes, that one’s coming, too.
If our red line is crossed, what will we do? I’m getting older, and the older I get, the less the threat of prison means to me. I have no desire to go to prison, but I will not compromise or give in certain areas.
And I will not go quietly into the cattle cars some on the left have planned for me and those like me.

What he said.  Only with more cursing.

About Time

The only question here is:  “What took them so long?”

Kimber Manufacturing is moving its corporate headquarters to Troy [AL] and will “aggressively hire” in all departments. The firearms manufacturer last week announced it is moving to a new facility it built last year on 80 acres with more than 225,000 square feet of space, with design engineering, product management and manufacturing space.
In an announcement, the company said Troy was chosen for, among several reasons, its proximity to engineering schools as well as pro-gun, pro-business support from the city of Troy and Alabama.

They’re going to find out how much cheaper and more congenial it is to do business in the South.

The company said it is seeking applicants across several categories, including CNC technicians, machinists, quality control specialists, lean technicians, design engineers, compliance analysts, customer service representatives, materials planners, maintenance technicians, finishing operators, and assembly technicians.

And I’m glad they’re going to hire locally as well — obviously a bunch of Noo Yokkers are going to make the move with them, but as they all work for a gun company, they can’t be too NYFC, can they?

Best part of this is that if you buy a Kimber from now on, that part of your money is no longer going to support the tax base of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s New York State.

Next up:  Henry Repeating Arms, in Bayonne, Noo Joizee.  It’s time this All-American company moved to America.

Quote Of The Day

From Sen. Lindsey Graham (v.2.0):

“Lastly, after the treatment of Justice Kavanaugh I now have a different view of the judicial-nomination process. Compare the treatment of Robert Bork, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh to that of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan, and it’s clear that there is already one set of rules for a Republican president and one set of rules for a Democrat president.”

…although asking the Socialists to obey the rules of logic and fair play is like teaching your cat the virtues of veganism:  pointless, and you’re just going to be ignored.

But yeah, Senator:  give it to ’em good and hard, anyway.

Headache

Just when I thought I’d figured it all out, comes shit like this:

‘They are the sort of equations that arise when you try to study something that evolves in time but also depends on space.
‘For example, like the wind in a wind tunnel you want to model the flow of air then that of course depends on time because it changes over time but it also depends on space – the velocity of the air is different at different points in the wind tunnel.
‘So if you have a system like this which furthermore evolves under the influence of randomness.
‘So if you have randomness that enters the game then that’s described by stochastic partial differential equation.’

I used to work with people like this when designing predictive algorithms, and I would place bets with myself as to how long (measured in seconds) it would take before I lost track of the conversation completely and the speech became unintelligible.  Usually, it was about twenty seconds.

It gets worse.  The reason I used “20 seconds” in the above sentence is because I actually kept count, over the year’s worth of discussions and meetings, of the times.  Then I created a distribution chart — bell-shaped, of course, with the most common incidence around 20.

Yeah, I was a fucking geek, too.  Just a much more limited one.

By the way, if you read the article — and you should — there’s a glaring (but non-mathematical) error.  Call it the Obama Fallacy, and see if you can spot it.

Bird Time

Because Mr. Free Market is a Foul Evil BastardTM, he decided to send me a few scenic pics from his current sooper-seekrit location in Scottishland.  Here’s the general milieu (note the complete absence of freezing rain, for the first time ever in this event I’m told):

(Note that Mr. FM is not wearing a face condom, despite Scottish law.)

Then it’s off to the “boxes”:

 

Note the careful arranging of reloads in pairs, ready for the old Load & Slaughter routine in his Beretta O/U (gawd help us, but the man has such terrible taste in shotguns).

The group shot down several hundred grouse and partridge, but here’s a pic of one brace, taken by Mr. FM with a single barrel.

When I say “taken”, I mean “shot”, of course, not clubbed out of the sky with his shotgun (which would be poor form, of course).

I am so jealous I could spit.