Been rather busy, so

nothing but data today

T'is the time, after a fairly busy week,

to once again pay attention to SCIENCE! 

Research, anyway.

Why has the opinion of teachers lowered?

Crap like this sure doesn't help:
A third-grade teacher at a public school in New Jersey is under fire after she encouraged her students to write letters to notorious convicted cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal, who recently fell ill in prison.

Marylin Zuniga teaches language arts and social studies at Forest Street School in Orange, N.J.
...

Every teach out there who actually cares about the job, as opposed to being a commissar for the small comrades, despairs.  And every parent who doesn't want their kid thinking communism is a good idea is seriously pissed-off.

Brings new meaning to The Dark and Fascist State of NJ, doesn't it?

...but once the Tea Party scandal broke, his encounters with otherwise law-abiding ranchers became more hostile. “I used to work Tombstone,” he says. “They hate the IRS down there. It’s a hard enough thing to drive out, bang on somebody’s door, and make a legal demand on them for money. It’s even harder when the person is wearing a gun on his hip and says, ‘I saw on TV that you people are discriminating against the Tea Party.’ That’s when I decided, the hell with this!”
Well, when your agency goes from 'PITA, but at least evenhanded' to 'Uses the power of the agency for political purposes', what do you expect?  Applause?


"Tell you what, Officer Third Trimester, how about you let us carry the guns through here and I'll take my chances with Johnny Jihadi on my own? Because if someone suddenly went all Aloha Snackbar in here, Officer Gimpy McCruller over there's best and highest use would be as a ballistic shield."

Yeah, about the FBI 'solving' the anthrax case...

Few years back there was a piece showing just how crappy the case against Ivins was.  Now we have this:
When Bruce E. Ivins, an Army microbiologist, took a fatal overdose of Tylenol in 2008, the government declared that he had been responsible for the anthrax letter attacks of 2001, which killed five people and set off a nationwide panic, and closed the case.

Now, a former senior F.B.I. agent who ran the anthrax investigation for four years says that the bureau gathered “a staggering amount of exculpatory evidence” regarding Dr. Ivins that remains secret. The former agent, Richard L. Lambert, who spent 24 years at the F.B.I., says he believes it is possible that Dr. Ivins was the anthrax mailer, but he does not think prosecutors could have convicted him had he lived to face criminal charges.

Just gives you a warm, fuzzy feeling about the FBI being right on top of things, doesn't it?

So, will the SJWs pick one group to side with,

or will they try to ignore this?
The Navajo and Cherokee are the largest Native American tribes (with 600,000 members collectively) and have both reaffirmed their decades old tribal laws banning gay marriage. Since 2011 six smaller tribes have revisited and let stand their laws defining marriage as between a man and a woman. This brings the total of Native Americans not following the national same sex marriage law to one million according to the Associated Press.

As North Carolina began issuing same-sex marriage licenses the state's Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians took it upon themselves to update their law to ban same-sex marriages from being performed on their tribal land. At least ten other tribes explicitly allow same-sex marriage with others remaining neutral.

There's a clown named Arthur Chu who's famous for something;

he's a racist asshole.
Chu's post assumes that the only reason Brad would marry a black woman is to use her for political gain and cover.  If he can conceive of marrying and reproducing with someone for such reasons, it means he's considered them. Racist.
There's no evidence that Brad has ever done so, but Chu assumes this must be the case.  Why? Because he's a racist.
He assumes that the black woman is either too stupid or too gullible to recognize such a fact, and can't divest from it.  Racist.
There's more.


Superior Court Judge M. Marc Kelly, of Californicated; line from a Jerry Reed song comes to mind,
"If it wasn't for the black robe I'd take you out back of this courthouse and wear you out!"
Why, you ask?
A California judge has reduced a child rapist's mandatory 25-year sentence down to only 10 - saying anything longer would be 'cruel and unusual punishment'.

Superior Court Judge M. Marc Kelly told an Orange County jury that 20-year-old Kevin Jonas Rojano-Nieto 'did not intend to harm' the three-year-old girl he raped at his family home in June.

The judge said that he was sure that although Rojano-Nieto sodomized the girl and covered her mouth so she couldn't scream out, 'there was no violence or callous disregard for the victim's well-being'.
I will stop at this point, because I'm about to suggest suitable punishment for this judge that goes into 'cruel and unusual, but deserved'.

That had to hurt

If the media was actually paying attention to this,

there'd be hell to pay.
The State Department suspended embassy operations back on Feb. 11. On April 1, the embassy sent a message to U.S. citizens in Yemen indicating there were “no plans for a U.S. government-sponsored evacuation of U.S. citizens at this time” and encouraging U.S. citizens “to monitor the news and seek available departure options from Yemen, via air, land, or sea.”
The travel warning for Yemen was updated on April 3. “We encourage all U.S. citizens to shelter in a secure location until they are able to depart safely. U.S. citizens wishing to depart should do so via commercial transportation options when they become available.”
An emergency message sent to citizens on Sunday said they “may be able to leave Yemen from either Aden or Mokha and cross into Djibouti by boat.”
Just go read it all.  The level of stupid and incompetent is amazing.  Smart Diplomacy, no doubt.


A federal judge has issued a scathing rebuke to lawyers for the Obama administration in a case involving the president's unilateral immigration action. In an order issued Tuesday night, U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen, who had put a temporary hold on the action, not only refused to lift the hold — he also came very near to accusing administration lawyers of flat-out lying to him.
Assuming this judge might actually care about the law and ethics, if it can be shown they did lie, I think that's 'Recommend they be disbarred' territory, possibly perjury charges as well.  Now THAT would send a message.


Sen. Harry Reid: lying sack of shit.  Who's STILL demanding Romney prove something.


Here you've got cops behaving badly, Child 'Protective' Services being the assholes they tend to be, and quite possibly both shoving into this home without a warrant:
“He said, ‘We’re here to remove your son,’” Robinson said. “I said, ‘Nobody is touching my kid without a court order or a warrant.’”
According to the 38-year-old mother, officers failed to show her the documents and forced themselves into her home.
Aside from assaulting a pregnant woman, did these assholes have a warrant?  If so, did they show it?  If no on the first, that's a flat criminal action, and they should be prosecuted for it.

Remember those loads I was going to test?

The 155-grain bullets?  Well, I did.  But I don't know which group it was.

Can you say 'screwup'?  I knew you could.

Usually, for testing at the indoor range, I fire a group, pull the target back and label it, and if I remembered to bring the camera shoot a picture, then run it back out.  That way if the target falls off/gets lost/whatever I still have a record.  In this case, I shot a group using the 160-grain bullets and then one with the 155-grain without following the usual procedure.  Because of course I'd remember which was which...

Which means I labeled both of them '160'.   I think this one was the 155-grain bullet(sized .311),

 and this one the 160(unsized)

 but I'm not certain.  Which means I've got to load five more of each for the next time.

 Good news, I found and remembered to take along something I'd put together quite a while ago and kept overlooking: the 160-grain bullet, unsized, crimped lightly into the first lube groove, over 7.0 of W231

That top picture was with the rear sight set for 600 yards, the second and third set for 500.  So with all these, probably 400 yard setting would put them dead-on at 30 yards.  Which, yes, I will try.

On 7.62x54 I got the use of a different Mosin for the day, this one a standard 91/30, and tried it with a couple.  It really liked the 180-grain bullet over 3.2 of bullseye,

 and the 100-grain SWC over the same load

On the W231 load, I'll blame myself for the horizontal spread, that one shot real well.  And definitely more authority than the lighter-charge loads.

Same on the 7.62x54r with the vertical spread, quite possibly my fault.  On this rifle, I noticed that a few times, with these very light loads, when firing I'd feel a touch of air movement back toward me that I never noticed with the other; I think the chamber might be a touch oversize, and the pressure is low enough that the brass wouldn't expand quite enough to fully seal, so it was letting a bit of gas leak back.

I've about got my 'stop messing with it and stick with these loads' list figured, though need to do the re-test of the 155-grain, and then try some of these at 50 yards.  Messing with these has been fun.

Yeah, caring about details and truth and not hanging people for fake

racism accusations, and fake rape reports, is SO sub-intellectual...


Affirmative Action:
With this, “Jojo” managed to get into the selective Saint Louis University School of Medicine with the exact same application he used as an Indian man. As a fake black man, he allegedly secured interviews at nine highly selective medical schools, including Harvard, Columbia, and the University of Pennsylvania. As he told The New York Post:

“I disclosed that I grew up in one of the wealthiest towns in Massachusetts, that my mother was a doctor, and that my father was an architect,” he said Saturday, describing his med-school applications.
“I disclosed that I didn’t receive financial aid from the University of Chicago, and that I had a nice car,” he said. “I was the campus rich kid, let’s just put it on the table. And yet they considered me an affirmative-action applicant.”

Well, he's a lying, racist, tax-cheat RWPP who lives very high on the hog; anyone surprised he wants to be given other peoples money?

"You wingnut, nobody wants to take your guns!"

Except when they do.  And just don't think they can get away with it as yet.
“Assault weapons are not about hunting, or even self-defense,” DeLauro said. “There is no reason on earth, other than to kill as many people as possible in as short a time as possible, that anyone needs a gun designed for a battlefield.”
Apparently she and her little friends have no problem with the idea of cops having weapons good for nothing other than to kill as many people as possible in as short a time as possible.  But then she plans on being able to tell the cops who to kill.
And let's totally ignore all the people who use 'assault weapons' for hunting, and targets, and self-defense; they don't count.  And if you do count them, it damages her Preferred Narrative™.

Though DeLauro is in favor of stronger guns laws that would completely ban assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition, she emphasized this bill would not force gun owners to turn in their firearms.
Either she doesn't know what a assault weapon actually is, or is lying, but we know she'd try to use that label on every firearm possible.  Because armed peasants shouldn't be allowed.

And The Hill?  What the HELL is 'high-capacity ammunition'?  Did you get that from her, or does your journalist not have any idea what they're talking about?

The legislation would provide up to $2,000 in tax credits for gun owners who voluntarily hand over assault weapons to their local police departments.

Y'know, I'd bet some of these people have wet dreams about some kind of massacre they can blame on some 'right-wing gun nut' and use to try to ban things.

A site I'm not sure if I've seen before,

but Tam mentioned it the other day.  I'm going to have to work my way through, lots of good stuff here.


Higher education.  This might be one more case of a university finding out just how expensive acting like petty tyrants can turn out to be.


On a subject far more happy than politics and idiot educators, I for some reason forgot to try the mouse loads with one more bullet:  the 160-grain I've been using for some of it is a good one, but I remembered(why now, I'm not sure) I've also got this one for a 155-grain.

The 160 was originally intended for 7.62x39, it also works well in 7.62x54r and .303 British.  It's a tumble-lube design(bunch of small lube grooves instead of one or two big ones), whereas the 155-grain is a standard lube-groove design(which at these velocities it isn't a problem to use tumble-lubed).  The 160-grain has one advantage for some .308" bore rifles: it drops from the mold at a larger diameter than the 155.  Which, since some rifles like a larger diameter for cast bullets, is handy.

Anyway, I'd cast and lubed some of the 155, and loaded a few up, some unsized and some sized, in .30-06.  Next time can get to the range, I'll see how they work.

One followup to using these very light loads: I checked the bores of the rifles I've been shooting them in.  In the case of the .30-06 and .30-30, which I've put the most of these through, not a sign of lead fouling.  I'd finally cleaned both, which required a couple of CLP-wet patches, let sit a few minutes, then wipe out.  Since then I've put about fifty through the .30-06, and the bore is spotless; I could've skipped cleaning, though it's good to find out for sure how it's doing.

Why you're not Officers Friendly anymore, Reason #whatever:

You're thieves and vandals who screw people around and destroy their property.  Because you can, and you don't like those peasants having guns.
The Torrance Police Department failed to return 17 surrendered firearms worth $15,800 to their rightful owner, ignored two court orders to do so and then destroyed them after almost three years of illegally holding the weapons, according to a lawsuit against the city by gun advocacy groups.
Well, isn't that just wonderful?  The excuse:
Instead, he blamed a state Department of Justice letter advising law enforcement agencies that they needed to retain the firearms unless their owner could provide proof of ownership and register some of them.

That DOJ letter, he wrote in an email “was an incorrect interpretation” of the state law.

“Apparently, other cities such as San Francisco and Oakland have also been sued based on the same erroneous interpretation and those cities settled their cases and revised their procedures.”
Californicated DOJ.  Need we say more?
“The DOJ’s LEGR (Law Enforcement Gun Release) letter wrongly tells police to not give guns back unless the person can document ownership of the gun and it is registered in the DOJ’s database. The law doesn’t require this, and gun owners can’t comply anyway, because police routinely fail to enter the firearms into the DOJ’s database, and most people don’t have receipts for the guns they own.
Remember New Orleans?  "Prove to us this gun is yours.  We don't care that your house is gone and all those records.  Show us a receipt, not just your own inventory, or you don't get it."  Nothing in state or city law, as I recall, just what NOPD decided to do.  In this case, the law DOES NOT REQUIRE THAT, but Californicated decided it does('Because we say so').

Kranke didn’t address why a lawsuit was required to force Torrance to do exactly the same thing.
Because they didn't want to give the guns back, and so violated law and court orders as long as they could.

Found something at the flea market yesterday:

old Kennedy tool chest

Has all the drawers, though one pull is missing on the bottom drawer

I see wire brushing and paint in the future.  And a repair that needs be made.

Good piece on the "Let's destroy anyone suffering from BadThink!" crap

As you might imagine, my position has led to some pretty heated debates over the years, and I was quick to smack down fears that churches would be forced to perform same sex marriages, or that people would be punished for not being made to agree. I deemed these wildly hypothetical fantasies.

But I was wrong.
...
I find myself at odds now with a lot of proponents of same sex marriage who appear to be walking the charred battlefield of the cultural war and shooting the wounded.

I apologize for thinking this was about only equal treatment under the law. I apologize for dismissing conservatives' fears that this slippery slope would lead to de facto banishment from various sectors of the public square.

I thought people just wanted to be left alone. I was wrong.

For many, they wanted forced conversions.

As such, it's only fair we ask where it ends.
Well, if the idiots have any say, it'll end with anyone not agreeing with them in every way being driven out of business, fired from jobs, thrown out of school, and with their personal life destroyed.

Assisted by journalists like Alyssa Marino and Alix Bryan. 

Well, a lot of these European leaders crapped on Bush every chance

they got, and they kissed Obamas' ass over and over.  Now they've discovered just what they helped put into office, and they're not liking it.
Smart Diplomacy:
Mr. Obama’s disinterest in America’s European allies is a long-standing story, however. In September 2009, as part of his “reset” of relations with Moscow, he abruptly shelved plans to deploy ballistic missile defenses in eastern Europe that Poland and the Czech Republic had signed on to at considerable political risk. As a Washington Post assessment notes, administration officials “failed to give a heads-up to the Poles and the Czechs, making it appear like a diplomatic snub at their expense.” Characterizing the U.S. consultation process, a senior national security official in Warsaw lamented that “we heard through the media.”
...
Observing the noticeable difference in style between Mr. Obama and his predecessor, who was reviled by foreign publics but still took the time to build relationships with leaders abroad, Jackson Diehl at the Washington Post warned a year into the Obama presidency that “coolness has its cost.”
Bush was a number of things but arrogantly stupid wasn't one of them.  And that's a large part of all Obama's got.

And one of the cherries on top:
Things got worse at the G-20 St. Petersburg summit meeting the next week. Again, Germany found the United States curtly dismissive. It wanted Germany’s signature at once on the joint statement on Syria; Germany wanted to wait a day until a joint European Union statement was ready and so declined. ‘The sense from Rice was that we are not interested in your view and not interested in the E.U. view,’ the official said. ‘We left Petersburg very offended. This is not what you want your best partner to look like.’
I repeat: you clowns trashed Bush constantly, and when Obama popped up you kissed his ass and said "THIS is the President we need!"  Well, you got it.