spike TV

You know i really should stop watching spike TV. It has caused me to want to take martial art classes so i can become a ultimate fighter.

Now they want me to make my own diesel, and I think it is a great idea.

I want one.

FuelMeister

cube

What I am reading now

Notice a lot of posts lately? Yeah, 24 hours of duty with nothing to do but surf. Anyway, I am reading the last book of Stephen King's Dark Tower series. I wouldn't really recommend it, but I seem compelled to finish a series after I start it. I picked up the first few books from USO libraries in Iraq. And now I feel like I have invested so much time that I need to finish. I am waiting for amazon to deliver some Bukowski and then I will be a little bit happier.

The Rumblings of Big War

Check out this article. It helps to explain why Iran feels that it is in a position to oppose the west right now. America's forces are spread arguably thin, and they are now also within striking distance of Iran. That makes a full fledged attack unlikely, and small scale precision bombings impossible. Iran also controls enough oil to affect gas prices, especially if it is threatened with any embargoes. So right now Iran is feeling particularly fearful of any economic or military actions. And should they? With other Middle East countries like Pakistan and Israel already possessing nuclear weapons, how hard would it be to unite the UN to take decisive action against a country claiming to want only nuclear power? (ok, I don't believe that either but that is what they are saying)

Lost and Found and Friends

I recently joined myspace because I heard one of my old friends was on there. So far I met a guy that started an internet cult with me in 1997 and my best friend from 1994. We live on different continents now, and probably won't start hanging out any time soon, but it's still nice to see how people are doing. Moving around a lot sometimes gives the impression that past friends and aquantainces have just ceased to exist. Finding them sort of confirms your past. Hopefully in good ways. It's like your own personal VH1 Where are They Now special. That is definitely one of the better parts of the internet. And sometimes it works out. I found my buddy from basic training (three years ago) and he just came in to visit last week. It turns out that he was going to be passing through when I happened to be home. So quit reading this shit and look up some of your old friends.

Middle East and Perpetual War

I don't think there is much hope for the region in general. Iran continues to antagonize the countries making up the UN Security Council. Iraq and Afghanistan are still years away from being considered safe and secure countries. Look for tourism to pick up there around 2098. Now Palestinians have elected a terrorist organization for their government. I don't think the inhabitants of these places have any desire to use diplomacy. Could this region spark the next world war? Why not. There are deep seated religious and political conflicts. None of the various religious groups look ready to resolve issues between one another, and even those of the same religion are willing to fight based on differences in ethniticity. This area is currently not as violent as parts of Africa, but their links to the outside world are much more substantial. The area is too important to be ignored. It contains most of the world's oil, which is a necessary resource in just about every country. The US is already dug in, with hundreds of thousands of troops deployed. It is also Russia's backyard. Then you have Israel, which is always a concern of the UN since the country was created at the end of the last world war. Any conflict in the area will demand a response by the most powerful economic, political, and military organizations that the world has ever seen. Not to mention the global concern with international terrorism that seems to be centered there. The only question seems to be how long this situation can run before it explodes into a major war.

An important roundup

Recently, I have seen several high quality posts on the internet that give you lots of advice and knowledge about handgun and handgun calibers. So if you are looking for you first handgun, I estimate that these three posts will cut your search time down by quite a bit.

I present.

Picking your first defensive handgun
So, you wanna buy your first pistol?
Serious Chamberings, for Serious Purposes.

Good luck.

cube

24

Yea, yea, I am late...bite me. I was in Tulsa and drove back to memphis after monday night's show...and I have been real tired.

I hope you are watching 24 this season, the first 10 mins of the first show were most explosive of any show I have seen. The writers of 24 killed off 2 of the most beloved characters and seriously injuried another. Awsome.

The body count should be up sometime tommrow, because the last 10 mins of the 4th hour were so good I stopped counting and have to wait on a friend to send me his more complete TiVoed checked numbers.

Here are a few things that I have found on the internet about 24.

To be the man: "Who would win in a fight Jack Bauer or Chuck Norris?"
and from the same site....."When life gave Jack Bauer lemons, he used them to kill terrorists. Jack Bauer hates lemonade."

Clarified: "President dumbass, has, if that's even possible, seemed to have gotten dumber. The Bush administration must love this show, makes our President look like Mensa material."

The OX Rant: "Jack Bauer on privacy..."

cube

Historic Taxation

This post is the first post in a seris of posts on the federal tax system of america. I will be discussing many different areas of the american tax system. I hope this discussion will prove to be informative, useful as a reference tool, and, towards the end, provocative.

Importance of a Tax System

The issue of taxes are filled with econmic, social, and moral implications. Taxes have a large broad based effect on the American society. Every single person in america is affected by taxes, which means the effects will be complex and large in scope. Taxes affect consumer actions, pesonal finance decsions, and corparate strategies. The structure of a tax system helps determine the value of additonial work. The benefit of additional labor helps determine the amount indivudals work on average. The average amount a country works affects the unemployment rate, living standards, and social norms.

To further complicate matters, taxes have been used as a poltical tool to serve different social purposes. Some countires have used taxes to fund large social programs. Taxes have been used as a tool to even out social inequalities, such as wealth. In the past they have been used, injustly at times, to control indivdual's behavior, as in the poll taxes that black southerners paid.

Taxes repersent the taking an indivudals wealth. When the govemerment takes somthing from a person in America, it is generally understood that the govmerment gives what it has taken back. Wherther it be in social services or a strong national defense, people expect to recive somthing from the govmernt. In the wrong hands taxes can be used to limit freedom, in the right hands they can be used to fufill obligations that a goverment has.


Historic View of the Tax System

An excellent start to understanding the entire history of the American tax system can be found at the U.S. Treasury Department's website. I will give a short overview of what they have mentioned, and then provide some additional comments on the tax system.

The U.S. Treasury Deparment divides the history of the US tax system into 9 major parts: Colonial Times, the Post Revolutionary Era, the Civil War, World War I and the 1920's, World War II, developments after World War II, the Reagan Tax Cut, the Tax Reform Act of 1986, and the Bush Tax Cut. The also have short sections on the 16th Amendment and the Social Security Tax in chronicalogical order.

Until 1789 their was not a national tax. Under England the colonial government had limited need for revenue and under the Articles of Confederation the national goverment relied on "on donations from the States for its revenue". Both the indivdual colonies and the states where the ones with the revenue needs and were the ones who did the taxing.

A graphical repersentation of the decreaing progressive tax system can be found here

http://www.econ.nyu.edu/user/wolffe/LevyLivingStandardsMay2002.pdf
on page 28

Historic Rates of poverty

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty.html
http://www.census.gov/hhes/poverty/poverty03/graphs03.html

historic rates of the standard of living

Wikipedia article

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_of_living_in_the_United_States

funny Europeans

Don't ya think it is funny how the Europeans will not let their own people have guns but yet think it is ok for Iran to have nukes.

cube

Wal-Mart wants to make it's own bank

http://money.cnn.com/2006/01/04/news/companies/walmart_bank/index.htm?cnn=yes

I have not heard of this. Sounds interesting, apparently they just want the bank to handle their transaction s and are not interested in branch banking.

If Wal-Mart puts in a branch bank, it will be open 24 hours and only Mexicans will bank there. They also will be cheaper than all the other banks in town. Sounds cool to me.

If Wal-mart does this, they probably will be responsible for another percentage point worth of total GDP.

cube

Announcement

Due to some recent changes at the cubicle's domicile I will be blogging much less than normal for an extended period of time, (next three months is what is is looking like). I am going to try to keep in blogging shape by posting one post a week, though if it is like any of my other tries at keeping in shape, I will probably fail.

These changes include, but are not limited to; 4 new large clients at work (large as in our business will probably more than double this year if all clients are kept and brought on); 1 large test for a prospective client at work; Christmas; New Years; MCAD (I am still a little....err...grumpy about that, but it is really the only play I see to: A) set myself apart in the field of non .Net programmers. B) Transition from my current main programming language(s) [Visual Fox Pro and VBA (Visual Basic for Applications)]) to .Net. C) Get a job in my girlfriend's town programming in .Net, having very little professional experience in it.); MCSD (This is really the only play I see to distinguish myself from among all the .Net programmers who have their MCAD); and my early Christmas present Gun Tests, from my sister.

If you would like a personalized email stating when I return blogging full time, please send an email to : c y r u s m c k o r m i c k - a t - h o t m a i l - d o t - c o m

Remove spaces, dashes, replace 'at' with '@' and 'dot' with '.' , and that should produce a usable email.

cube

Did you know?

Did you know surefire (most famous for their flashlights) makes suppressors?

Here is their website. Suppressor Science sounds great.

cube

A very interesting paper

Via Bradford Plumer I found this paper Underground Gun Markets.

Here is a sample.


Sorry for the picture. My free version of adobe does not allow me to cut and past. Oh well, you can read the sample just fine if you squint.

cube

Trust your instincts

In the past few months there have been two occasions that have reinforced upon me that I should trust my instincts.

Incident One
I was hanging out with my girlfriend for the day and we were going back to her apartment. It was mentioned to me that her roommate would be out of town. As my girlfriend was opening the door to her apartment, I thought I saw a flicker move behind her bedroom window. My instinct was to grab my girlfriend, go in first, with gun drawn.

Several things stopped me from doing this. As I was trying to figure out what I saw, my girlfriend had already entered the apartment. Secondly, I also dismissed what I saw. Fortunately, it was not a MWAP (mutant with a plan), but my girlfriend's roommate, who had not quite left town. She did leave a message on my girlfriends phone, which my girlfriend did not check. The roommate was in my girlfriends room trying to get on the internet.

I am still of two minds if I had time to react. The opening of the door followed very soon after I saw the flicker. I would have had to act very fast to stop my girlfriend form entering her apartment and to get between her and the "threat". I also believe that I would have had dumb questions ask like, "What?" and "Why?", but I can't really do much about that.

In short, I acted slow and refused to believe what my eyes saw.

Incident Two
Last Sunday, I was leaving a friends house and the weather looked nasty. The plan was for me to lead my girlfriend to the interstate, where she would go west and I would go east on interstate 40. I explained to my girlfriend that she should find the weather as soon as she gets into her car. I figured that everything would be ok once we got moving. It was not until I was in my car and driving that I realized the full extent of what I was driving through.

As I was driving, I found out there was a tornado to the southwest of where we were. I also found out that my girlfriend was going to be driving though the storm as it was coming to her. I was able to get her on the phone and tell her to pull over in Conway and wait it out. Well, by the time she go to Conway she was in the middle of a lot of rain. She managed to make it to a hotel (my suggestion because they have TV's in hotels to watch) to wait it out.

In this case, I failed to listen to what the more cautious part of my brain was saying. I also failed to adjust my travel plan based on new information. To allow your instincts to take over you must first have a certain amount of willingness to change plans. I also failed to impart my exact feelings of fear to others. In other words, I did not let my instincts shine.

Both my girlfriend and I made it home safely, we were much luckier than others.

Source:"A motorist was killed Sunday night when the driver of a van drove into a tornado shrouded by darkness and rain. The storm picked up the vehicle and flipped it onto its top in the median of Interstate 40 near Morrilton."

cube

Get your gun

There is this news reporter in Memphis that created a series on getting your CCW. A how to if you will. A very favorably report to the gun community.

Start here.

The first video, failed to mention that it takes a little while for the entire process. Getting my permit (from the class till it was in my hand) took a couple months or at least one month. It also failed to provide links.

For the second video, I saw some safety violations from the shooter, though it was a good primer for getting a gun. I also heard some phrases I did not understand - "point-on-point vs 3-point sighting". Odd.

Third video, "you must get a safe for when you are not carrying the gun" or so Andy wise says. I don't have a safe. Mainly because I don't have kids and I live by myself. I always either have the gun in my truck , on my body, or on the night stand. I could get a car safe, but I like the idea of quick access regardless of weather I am in my car or not. I guess I could get it stolen, but then again I could also be attacked on the way to my car and need quick access to my gun.

Uhmmmm...stratch the last statement...You have to watch that third video. Wow.

I guess my other response to getting a safe would be, it costs as much as several guns.

Fourth Video, any wise is a better shoot than me...grrrrr. Also, excellent quick review on the use of deadly force. It was quick, but not complete.

via Blake

cube

Surviving Bigfoot

We have covered surviving zombies, werewolves, and vampires; but have never covered Bigfoot that I could find.  For a real life description of the fear that Bigfoot could inflict on you community I would suggest watching the documentary "The Legend of Boggy Creek" (BTW - I watched it during thanksgiving).  This documentary covers how the "Fouke Monster" terrorized Fouke, Arkansas, a small town in the southwest part of the state.

Bigfoot is radically different from the above-mentioned monsters in the sense that he is more of a prowler rather than a predator.  Though the predator instincts are present in Bigfoot, they are mostly connected to small friendly house animals, such as dogs and cats.  He will rip the hides off of your best hunting dogs and scare you cats to death.

Though Bigfoot is stronger and faster than humans, the odds are quickly evened if you have guns and a strong flashlight.  Hunters or young boys typically either sight them alone in the woods or they are heard outside your house when the menfolk are away and only women and children are left at home.  Most encounters with Bigfoot only with a scare, but they also have been known to attack when provoked, as in the "Legend of Boggy Creek".

I see two main methods of defending against Bigfoot: secure castle or owning the night methods.  There are two important things I would like to mention before I begin.  One, these two strategies are independent of each other, but can be used together if you want.  Secondly, strategies for protecting against Bigfoot will also do well in protecting your house and family in many different situations such as riots and other events where society breaks down.

The secure castle strategy, is based on the idea that you cannot fight Bigfoot in it's own environment.  It lives in the woods; has a coat of hair; has better sense of smell, hearing, and sight than you do.   In short, if you attempt to hunt it in the woods you will either not find Bigfoot or you Bigfoot will attack you.  While you most likely will make it out alive, you will still have nothing to show for you pains.  Instead of putting yourself at a disadvantage, let Bigfoot come to you.  Prepare by having plenty of lights, early warning systems (either electronic or animals), and ammo.  When Bigfoot attacks, turn on all the lights.  This will surprise him and take away his biggest advantage, the dark.  If you are lucky, you might even have a trophy to prove Bigfoot exists.

Owning the night would involve filling you property with automated night vision cameras, IR lights, and outfitting all members of you party with generation three night visions.   Once that was done, you can either wait for Bigfoot to attack or go hunting Bigfoot.  Though because you are using fairly new technology to try to even the odds against Bigfoot, this plan is a little riskier.  Though if some elements of this plan were combined with the secure castle plan, you could possibly have a winning strategy with loads of redundancy.

cube

Safe travels and God's speed

Happy thanksgiving!

cube out

Response to a previous post

Cubicle's last post has created commentary that is far in excess of the actual post. I would like to tackle some of it here. Previously published commentary will be in bold and italics.

1. That is nonsense. For any person of right mind i should be fairly simple to see that the terrorist are bad guys and America are the good guys. As to Iraq, it is fairly simple to see that they are caught up in a vicisous tribal warfare cycle that can only be ended by action from the outside. It worked out for the indians (gambling) and it will work out for the Iraqies if they rid theirselves of the bad guys.

Always assuming that you are righteous and morally correct is a sign of fascism. There should be some sort of standards to apply who is right or wrong. Never assume that America is always the good guy just because they are cutting your checks. Also, Iraq isn't plagued by tribal warfare. That's Afghanistan. We are mostly facing Zaqarwi's forces and former elements of the Baath party along with some foreign insurgents. BTW, American Indians are the most marginalized minority in our country. They used to be the sole inhabitants, but I guess those casinos really make up for it.

2. No, they don't have to the EXACTLy the same. What i am saying is that if their are no good reasons to have troops in Iraq (where the enemny is and fighting) then we have no good reason to be anywhere. If they army is not fighting the enemy, they they are useless and a waste of money.

You are right. We should just start an endless war to justify our military spending. (Oh wait we did). We can't cut our military spending because if we ever get in a position where we maintain standing armies in only half or three quarters of the world or come anywhere close to reducing our spending to the level of the second highest nation people will cry. And as a soldier I can tell you exactly what our purpose is. We stand ready to fight in order to deter war. When deterrence fails, we quickly and decisively defeat the enemies of the United States. This whole World Police kick isn't actually anywhere in our doctrine or policies.

3. you have a choice. You can either fight this war (iraq, afganistain, war on terror) or you can choose not to fight.If you choose not to fight you loose.

You also have a choice on how to fight, and you can choose solutions that ameliorate the situation rather than exacerbate it. How exaclty are we tying Iraq into the war on terror these days? Because they didn't train or harbor terrorists, it would seem logical that the war on terror could have been fought without invading Iraq. Then maybe Afghanistan would be the terrorist magnet, Al Qaeda wouldn't have a propaganda boost, and we could have better focused our efforts elsewhere.

Why is America a target of terrorism? Prosperity? Or a history of supporting tryants like Saddam? Are there any non-military solutions to terrorism (which is admittedly not exactly a military problem)? And if we are all about democracy and choice, then are we willing to deal with democratic countries that don't necessarily agree with us? Would we respect the wishes of the Iraqi people if they asked America to remove its military and corporations after their country stabilizes?

Pushing the nuclear envelope

An example. Nuclear weapons. Can you see how third world countries would see it as unfair that one country stockpiles nuclear arms and then attacks other countries on the suspicion that they may be trying to assemble one? And not all countries, just specific ones. Now if you are Iran or North Korea or any other country put on notice by Bush, what is your only protection against invasion? Make it appear that you may in fact already have nuclear weapons. That's the difference between Iraq and North Korea. North Korea gets a decade of conferences, and with Iraq there was no negotiation. Saddam could not have done anything to deter our invasion. I think he is as big of a bastard as everyone else, but our willingness to launch unilateral, preemptive wars based on supposition sets a dangerous precedent, and you can expect the rest of the world to react accordingly.

Priorities of a Hegemon

Is it more important to pursue peace, or to ensure that United States retains its role as the economic and military leader of the world? Is it more important to make our country even more rich, or to ensure some basic standard of living throughout the world?