I-95 proves that the government cannot provide services that don't suck

We drove back from the holiday weekend on I-95 yesterday.  I know, I know.  What should have been a six and a half hour trip was thirteen and a half.

I-95 is instructive.  It is the main Federal highway for the most populous portion of the Republic, running through the "Northeast Corridor" between Boston and Washington, D.C.  With over 50 Million residents it's the only significant chuck of the USA that approaches European population density (17% of population in 2% of the land surface).

Fortunately, I didn't drive the portion shown.  I drove the Southern portion, from Columbia SC north to Frederick MD.  This is the portion that is illustrative of why government simply cannot deliver services that don't suck.

For those readers who blessedly have not had to drive I-95, it is a national disgrace.  It has been congested for as long as I can recall (over 30 years of personal experience with the stretch shown, and what we drove yesterday).  It has been congested in exactly the same locations for those 30 years.

The same exact locations.  30 years.  Offered for your consideration, the 20 miles on each side of Fredericksburg, VA.  It was a parking lot in the 1980s; it was a parking lot yesterday.  The reason then was that the highway lost a lane (more lanes in Richmond to the south and Washington to the north).  The reason now is the same.

So riddle me this, Big Government Man: how in 30 years is it not possible to widen 40 miles of Interstate to remove what everybody in the Northeast Corridor knows is a notorious choke point?  And please don't be so dim and predictable as to say "there isn't enough funding" - we spent a cool trillion dollars on a "stimulus" that the President swore would be "shovel ready" projects.  You don't get more shovel-ready than widening I-95.

So we see that it's not possible for the government to provide services that don't suck.  Even a trillion dollars can't fix this.  Now multiply by all the myriad things that the government thinks are (or should be) its purview, and the result is inevitable: more crummy public services.  I mean, everyone at the Department of Transportation knows that Fredericksburg is a nightmare - they all drive it.  And they can't get it fixed, even with a trillion unbudgeted dollars.  And this is only one 40 mile stretch of a single highway.

And yet we have an entire political party running for office on a platform that the government should be responsible for even more of the economy, and of our lives.  They promise even more "services".  I'd be more impressed if they'd fix I-95.  Granted, that's a very low bar, but they can't even seem to do that.

KGB Stooges

Real live ones.  I stumbled across something pretty interesting: a book using KGB archives to call out who in Western Europe was a KGB rat:

When KGB archivist Vasili Mitrokhin (1922-2004) moved to the U.K. in 1992, he took with him 25,000 pages crammed with information about Soviet espionage activities going back to the 1930s. This trove, known as the Mitrokhin Archive, has provided the material for several books, beginning with The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB (1999) by Mitrokhin and historian Christopher Andrew. 

... 

In 2001, Norway’s largest newspaper, VG, reported on a forthcoming book that would divulge previously unreported information about Labor Party politicians’ Cold War-era KGB ties; ten years later, in 2011, another major daily, Dagbladet, reported that the book’s publication had been stopped by Labor Party leaders – and that some former KGB spies were still employed in both the Foreign Ministry and Labor Party. The media establishment responded to this revelation, too, by trying to discredit it. The book was reportedly suppressed by Thorbjørn Jagland, a Labor Party pol and former Prime Minister who in 2001 was Minister of Foreign Affairs – and who was, as it happens, one of those named in the book as KGB informants. (Jagland, famous in the U.S. mainly as the man behind Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize, is currently Secretary-General of the Council of Europe.)

(Bold is my emphasis - Borepatch)

Look, I don't have a problem with people who are leftist - that's most of my family, actually.  But there's a difference when you take coin on the sly from your country's adversary, and maybe even suppress publication of that fact because you're a powerful politician who wants to avoid some embarrassment.

I need to pick up a copy of this.

And how cool is a site called Useful Stooges?

Donald Trump and the Destabilization Of America

Kevin looks at the Obama Administration's efforts to "Fundamentally Change" America:

It has been said that Western societies are "high-trust" societies, that is, members of these societies trust their fellow citizens and the various institutions that keep the systems running.  We trust each other to (in the majority) behave honorably.  We trust the police to identify and apprehend the suspect when our fellow citizens fail our trust.  We trust the justice system to try and punish, if necessary, those suspects.  We trust the banks to hold our money and at least not lose it.  We trust our media to report the facts.  We trust our government to treat us fairly.

And how much of what I just wrote above is true today?

He traces the stages of destabilization as practiced by the KGB during the Cold War.  It's quite interesting, and you should go RTWT.

What's interesting is that Trump's "Make America Great Again" message is targeted precisely at this perceived destabilization effort.   Trump is engaging in memetic warfare - he's the only Republican to do so since Reagan, in fact.  I suspect this is why Obama seems so continually annoyed at Trump, in a way he's not at the other Republicans.

And so they will do everything they can think of to make Hillary President.  Amidst a world wide crisis of governmental legitimacy, they will ensure that if she does go into the Oval Office, she will go in with no ability to govern.  It may be that THAT is the crisis, with Obama waiting in the wings to come and "restore unity".

I'm not saying that it's a particularly good plan.  But I wonder if it is the plan.

Tramautized delicate flowers

William Briggs (Statistician to the Stars!) ponders the crooked timber that is Man:

There’s a story in John Toland’s magisterial The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire (volume two) which depicts a Japanese ship transporting Western prisoners in conditions worse than on any (other) slave ship. It was dark, confined, covered in human filth, and unbearably hot. Unbearably is a strong and apt word. The men went mad and what they did to each other is difficult to relate. I won’t try. Few survived.

...

Do we need to discuss the Amalekites? The retreat from Moscow in 1812 (and again in the twentieth century)? The guillotine? Should we recall certain religious practices of the Aztecs? The scene in The Brothers Karamazov in which we learn that babies were tossed in the air to be bayoneted for amusement? The Goths? Cannibalism? The practice of sati (also spelled suttee)? Utopian scheme A, B, …?

Enough. It is impossible to be familiar with any serious literature and not realize the human race is fallen, that man is broken, that bad things have always happened and, at least in this form of our existence, always will. A vale of tears isn’t in it. Evil.

So what kind of childish naive sheltered coddled whimpering intellect would allow itself to be “traumatized” over reading about a minor criminal beating up a shopkeeper and then attempting to do the same to a policeman and getting himself killed in the attempt? Traumatized?

I’ll tell you: Columbia law students.

The rest is even better, as he demolishes the frivolous hot house flowers that inhabit today's Academy - students and Administrators.

The only thing that I would add is that many of the prisoners on that Japanese ship were the same age as the Columbia students.

Social Justice, explained

My attitude is that anyone who speaks the words "Social Justice" pays cash.

Who's up for a blogmeet where we drive a tank?

Tank Town USA, 90 minutes north of Atlanta:

Tank Town USA is the ultimate heavy equipment playground and the #1 thing to do in Blue Ridge, GA...and possibly the world! Whether you want to drive a military tank, military trucks or construction equipment, Tank Town USA has it all.

Our team of professional instructors will put you in the drivers seat as you navigate our 5 acre course designed to let you test what these vehicles can do! It's a fun, fast paced, and exciting adventure for all ages.

This is one of my bucket list items.

There may even be a shooting range up there, and we could do not only a Tank meet but a blog shoot.  Any interest?

"I joined the ATF because I couldn't get a better job in Law Enforcement"

That was the Quote Of The Day* from the blogmeet, which was way fun.  More than a dozen folks showed up, which is maybe an Atlanta blogmeet all time record.  The QoTD was my reaction to a lively discussion on the state of Law Enforcement in the Republic.  Cynical readers wiil be, well, more cynical than I.

The consensus was (a) a good time was had by all, (b) let's do it again in August, and (c) how about a blogshoot already in September.  I mean, we haven't had any yet and that makes Baby Vulcan cry.

And so leave a comment if you're in the Atlanta Area and you have a place you'd like us to congregate at for the next blogmeet.  I've been picking Roswell because I live there, but I'm open to suggestions to the next one.

Also, we're thinking about meeting at a shooting range in late September for  blogshoot, complete with stuffed children's toys and lots of interesting guns.  Leave a comment if you have a range that might accommodate 10 or so shooters.  And stuffed Teletubby toys.

Thanks to everyone who showed up, including long tome Atlanta blogger Billy Ockham who is a seriously interesting dude.  And the other non-blogger dudes (and dudettes!) who are also seriously interesting.  And why aren't you blogging?  You know you have an instant blogroll here.

* OK, it was from me, I confess. But everyone thought it was pretty funny,

UPDATE 7 July 2013 21:25: Thanks to Libertyman, I've updated the title.  Brain fart from getting up too early, I dare say.  Or just from being an idiot.

Atlanta area blogmeet today

If you're in the area, stop by.

Date and Time: Sunday 7 July, 2:00 PM

Location: Mac McGee's Irish Pub on Canton St. in Roswell GA.

Mac McGee's has a great selection of beers and Whiskeys, and the food is outstanding.  Prices are right.  We always have a good time at these, so stop by if you can.

Blogmeet AAR

Boy, that sure was fun.  There was a good turnout and great conversation throughout (hey, that's the point, right?).  The consensus was to do this regularly, so I'll set up another round for late April.  No pictures this time around, but maybe at the next one.

Wolfgang liked his doggie patty (hamburger patty, no bun or fixins).  He was really good with the convention of yappy little dogs at the next table - more than a dozen little dogs of various toy breeds.  It seems that their owners get together regularly for doggy birthdays, and we suffered through a chorus of "Happy Birthday" for a Pomeranian.

Thanks to all who showed up.  As to the next one, is Saturday a better day for some people?

Who's up for a Christmas blogshoot in the Carolinas?

Some of us have been emailing for a bit, and so let me toss out a question to the gunblogging community: who would be willing to get together for a meet 'n shoot sometime around the Christmas holiday?

I know that there are a bunch of folks in the Washington DC area, and there are a surprising number of us here in Atlanta.  It seems like Charlotte/Raleigh/Durham NC is about splitting the driving distance.

Please leave a comment if you're interested, along with preferred date and location.  Also, if anyone knows a range in any of those areas that could accommodate a decent size group, please leave that info as well.

Just when you thought that the Democrats couldn't get any creepier

Want to know which of your neighbors are Democrats?  There's an app for that:

Curious how many Democrats live on your block? Just download the Obama campaign's new mobile app.

The app, released last week, includes a Google map for canvassers that recognizes your current location and marks nearby Democratic households with small blue flags.

For each targeted address, the app displays the first name, age and gender of the voter or voters who live there: "Lori C., 58 F, Democrat."

This simply makes my skin crawl.  We know that there are people who are willing to target their political opponents.  Not with words, but with violence:

In the ten days following the November 4 election [California's Proposition 8], seven houses of worship in Utah and ten buildings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) in the Sacramento area were targets of vandalism, such as graffiti and meeting house glass doors shattered. According to the LDS spokesperson for the Sacremento area, the vandalism that they experienced in the ten days after the election was more than they usually get in an entire year.^{[5][30][31][32]} A copy of the Book of Mormon, an LDS religious text, was found burning at the front of a meetinghouse.^[30][32] The FBI investigated these events to determine whether a violation of civil rights had occurred.^[31]

An affiliate group of the radical trans/queer organization Bash Back! claims credit for pouring glue into the locks of an LDS meetinghouse and spray painting its walls. A Web posting signed by Bash Back!’s Olympia chapter said, “The Mormon church (just like most churches) is a cesspool of filth. It is a breeding ground for oppression of all sorts and needs to be confronted, attacked, subverted and destroyed.”^[33]

If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear, Citizen.

UPDATE 6 August 2012 20:02: Having slept on this (I queue posts the night before), this seems even more appalling than it did.  It utterly fails Joe Huffman's Jews In The Attic test, and if this sort of thing had been done my Karl Rove and Dick Cheney, liberals' heads would have exploded like the Martians from Mars Attacks:

Wreckers

Communist governments loved to find people to blame.  Since their system was so starkly unproductive when compared to their promises, blame was a full time game in the Worker's Paradise.  Wreckers were those who were said to be intentionally bending the system and was conveniently flexible in the hands of the authorities.  If you planted a little kitchen garden (instead of tending a collective plot), you were a wrecker.  Stalin had millions of these shot.

Here, that's been flipped on its head.  The wreckers aren't everyday people trying their best to navigate a hopeless system, it's an intrenched, professional dependency/grievance industry that bends a system, making it hopeless for everyday people.  I'd go so far as to say that at the top of this list are the race hustlers like Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson, who tell everyone who will listen that racism is endemic in our society - because after all, you can't change your skin color, and there's a lot of money to be made by the Al Sharptons and Jessie Jacksons of this world in issuing racial indulgences to appropriately contrite parties (read: paying customers).

What is kryptonite to this view is the idea that culture matters, and that in the America of 2012 (as opposed to the America of 1958), culture is likely the prime determinant of success.  Because if this idea gets around, you might find cultural examples like this (warning: this video is very disturbing):



There is a culture of violence in the inner cities, and this video shows a mother forcing her toddler to fight with another toddler.  You need to subject yourself to the screaming of the children to hear the mother's shouted "encouragement":

"Got some action!  Got some action!"

"Y'all better ball up some fists!"

In the side bar of this blog is a recommended reading post, one that I've highlighted a number of times before: The Wealth And Poverty Of Nations.  The entire point of the book is that culture matters.  The book talks about the issue at the macro scale, and the video here demonstrates it at the micro scale.

The professional grievance industry has given us this, step by step.  Since nothing can ever be the fault of the individual (it's all institutional racism, remember), whole populations are left to essentially go feral.  And I guess I better say something here that poor white areas can be as scary as this part of St. Louis - just typically more rural, and so not as concentrated.  It's not the race, it's the culture.

Likely the most important reason that I will no longer call myself a Liberal is because I see my old comrades comfortable hanging out with Wreckers.  Happy to march shoulder to shoulder with those bending the system to skim off filthy lucre, while the poor suffer.  Willing that the sins of the Father are visited on the Son, yea to the seventh generation - so long as their tribe gets a momentary tactical advantage.  Happy to see those little girls in that video grow up the way we all know they will, provided another Democrat wins an election.

I don't expect some of you understand the depth of my contempt for my old comrades.  I know that some of you have taken that same journey as I, and feel this same contempt in your bones.

This is the Cold Civil War.

Atlanta Gunblog Meet and Greet

Blog friend and fellow gun blogger Sean Sorrentino will be in Atlanta a week from today - Monday, May 21.  I plan on meeting up with him in the Perimeter Mall area around 7:00-ish.

I know that traffic is a mess, but anyone who is able to join is welcome.  Leave a comment or shoot me an email - we should be somewhat flexible in location.

Calling Atlanta gunbloggers

I'm starting to pack up FOB Borepatch for good - declaring victory and withdrawing from Texas - and I went online and bough a brace of Care Bears.  So let's get together and shoot 'em, blogshoot style.

The problem is that my range is wildly inappropriate to the whole 20 people show up blogshoot thing in general, and shooting unusual targets in particular.

So leave a comment if you're interested.  Leave a comment if you have an outdoor range that might be accommodating (Differ?).

Dallas area Blogshoot - lock and load for April 21

OK, I have final confirmation on availability of the venue for 21 April, so let's lock the date.  Details below.

Date/Time: Saturday, 21 April 2012 1100 hours.

Location: 3100 E. Beltline Rd, Ferris, TX 75125.


What to bring: Water is important, and snacks are good.  If you got 'em, bring your guns and ammo.  At the New England blogshoots we always joked that we had enough guns to invade Canada.  Since everything's bigger in Texas, we'll need guns - lots of guns.



Raffle: We're having a Blogshoot raffle to support our gunnie brothers and sisters trapped behind Enemy Lines in the People's Soviet* of Massachusetts.  Each pre-ban AR magazine you donate to the Cause will get you one chance to win.  I'll bring prizes, as well as the obligatory stuffed children's toy that we sacrifice to the Gunnie Ghods.  Remember, these have to be pre-ban, meaning manufactured before 1994, or we can't send 'em to JayG and the Crew.  Bring your old stuff - these are surprisingly hard to get in Massachusetts (which is the point).

Carpooling:  The Texas Gun Blogosphere's own community organizer, Southern Belle has generously agreed to help, err, organize.  While carpooling is a commie plot to undermine the fabric of American society, at $4/gal it's pretty dang expensive to do long road trips (ask me how I know!).  We have folks in Houston, San Antonio, and Dallas - and points outside and in between).  If anyone is thinking about NOT coming because of the cost of gas (or the hassle of driving), please leave a comment here or over at her place.  I can bring two people from Austin to and from the blogshoot, and if we can get a few other folks to volunteer, we can bring a Texas sized crew.

Here's the list of the folks who have expressed an interest :

U.S. Citizen
45er
Dwight Brown
Southern Belle and Kx59
Daniels
Bill in Austin
Shepherd K
TriggerFinger
That Guy
Bob S
Cap'n Jan
John Farrier
Pat St. John
Teke
Mark (from Corpus Christi)
DropCrate
Jennifer
An Ordinary American
Mark Smith
Rabbit
Texas Sean
Shepherdk

If all y'all can drop a comment to say whether you think you're in or out, and if you'd like to ride with someone, that'd be very much appreciated.



Potential Attendees:

Kevin Baker
Paladin
YeOldFurt

* Mrs. Borepatch keeps telling me that they don't have a proper Soviet there.  I'm sure she can tell you why if you ask her.  Me, I keep saying that they have an Improper Soviet there ...

UPDATE 25 March 2012 22:27: Epic Freudian slip corrected courtesy of Old NFO, who sadly can't make it.  When we link up, the beers are on me, my friend.

What I learned at the blogshoot

kx59 put up a great summary, so I don't have to, other than to offer many thanks to the South Texas Gunblogger Community Organizer, Southern Belle.

I did learn a couple things.  First, factory reloads can be "cool" loads (loaded with less propellant).  Not really a problem there - it makes the ammunition a bit less expensive and it makes the round a little slower.  I guess that it's possible that some ranges like that, although it probably doesn't make enough difference to tell.

However, your gun might care.  Less propellant means less energy, which means that the recoil spring will compress less than it would on a hotter load.  My 1911 had been having intermittent problems where the slide didn't return to battery (the firing position).  It would once in a while stop about a quarter inch from where it would in a full cycle.  Pull the trigger, no bang.

I'd been shooting reloads from a local Texas company that had been recommended.  Back in Atlanta, I had short some reloads from Atlanta Arms, which is what the range stocked.

I was thinking that I'd need a gunsmith to look at it.  But I picked up a couple boxes of white box, and it worked flawlessly.  The white box rounds are hotter.

I guess I'll feed the 1911 factory new ammo from now on.

The second thing I learned yesterday is that shooting slings are like corsets: they both work only when they're good and tight.  I kept tightening the sling every time I took a run with the Enfield, and think that I probably need to tighten it a bit more.  But man, it sure improves your groups.

Texas blogshoot time?

The South Texas gunblogger community's very own community organizer is thinking about another blogshoot.  The last one was tons of fun.

She had the suggestion of College Station as a venue.  This is interesting in that it might be close enough to get some of the Dallas are bloggers attending.  We probably need an outdoor range, because this will be a proper blogshoot, with a proper blogshoot target:

Don't have a cow, man!  I'm out of Teletubbies, Pokemons, and Hello Kitty.


If you're interested, go leave her a comment.

Lockhart, TX blogshoot

Southern Belle is channeling her inner community organizer.  If anyone's in the area, it would be fun to meet up.

Lazy

That would be me.  I went to the range yesterday evening, and I didn't clean the guns when I got back.  I was getting ready to clean them today, when I realized that I was going to be shooting them later today at Sharpshooter's USA (5:00 PM, for anyone who wants to meet up before tonight's blogmeet festivities).

I'm afraid I let laziness overcome virtue.  Walked the dogs instead.

Just a reminder to folks in the Atlanta area, we're meeting up at 5 Season's Brewing Company on Roswell Rd just inside the Perimeter at 7:00.  Since the weather looks spectacular, I have a table reserved under the name "Borepatch".  

Atlanta Blogmeet - Lock and Load

We will rendezvous at 5 Seasons Brewing Company in Sandy Springs at 7:00.  It's 50 yards south of the Perimeter (I-285) on Roswell Road (Rt 19).  Beer and conversation is what's on tap.

Anyone interested, we can meet at Sharpshooters USA on Alpharetta Highway at 5:00 for some shooty goodness.

Leave a comment or send me an email if you're coming.