Libercontrarian

Crushed between the wheels of capitalism and big government.

Riots In France

The young Communists in are rioting. Why? There's record unemployment amongst young people in that Leftist utopian paradise, so in an effort to create some impetus for businesses to hire these lazy miscreants, the Frog .gov has decided to relax their phenomenally business-unfriendly, Socialist regulations and "allow" businesses to fire workers under the age of 26 without the intrusion of the .gov. Of course, the young Communists didn't take that well, as it might give them actual cause to get out of the streets and get their lazy asses to work. So, how does the Proletariat react? Perhaps that can be best described by my adaptation of that old Leftist saw, "Workers Of The World Unite... By Screwing Off."

posted by: underwhelmed at March 28, 2006 08:21 | link | comments |

Well, It's Good To Know We're All Safe

Just read a disturbing little piece on the news about a test of our border controls - a government agency, posing as a private company with falsified government documents, was able to cross the border with enough radioactive material (Cesium-137) to manufacture a dirty bomb.

Radiation alarms at the unidentified sites detected the small amounts of cesium-137, a nuclear material used in industrial gauges. But customs agents permitted the investigators to enter the (sic) because they were tricked with counterfeit documents.

Yes, friends, we are safe in the hands of Our .Gov, their remarkable competence at evidence in their complete and utter lack of attention to detail and imagination. Fortunately, these agents in the G.A.O. were possessed of enough presence of mind to "game out" how Hajji will be sneaking in nuclear materials (having changed his name from "Haji Shahab" to "Ramon Sanchez," no doubt). I am glad that they threw this curveball at the U.S. Customs Service.

Meanwhile, thousands of indignant foreigners march in our streets to protest Congress' lame attempt to put our house in order. What will they do if Al Qaeda sneaks in a nuke or five and torches off  some cities?

Return to the Guatemalan ditch they hailed from? Whose jobs can they take at half-wage if our country is in ruins?

posted by: underwhelmed at March 27, 2006 20:17 | link | comments |

Stranger In A Strange Land

I went into the Burlington Coat Factory near my house last night, and it was busy - selling clothes to Mexicans. Everybody, and I mean EVERYBODY, was Hispanic. I kind of felt like I was not in America any more. This bothers me somewhat, only in the sense that I have a perception that many of these people don't see themselves as citizens, but as a community within a community, and are not inclined to integrate with the native people here in language or culture.

Anybody have any idea what the illegal immigration population is here in the U.S.? I have heard numbers ranging from 11 million to 30 million. What's the real number like? Admittedly, I live in a part of town where the population of foriegn nationals is far higher than anywhere else, so perhaps my perception is skewed.

posted by: underwhelmed at March 23, 2006 21:35 | link | comments |

Rolling, Dying Laughing

The eeeEEEEvil U-nited States is at it again!

Stealing people's sheep...

Stealing people's walls and ceilings...

BAHHH HAAA  HAAAA HAAA!!!!  

posted by: underwhelmed at March 23, 2006 19:34 | link | comments |

Few Gun Posts

Some of my friends reading here might wonder at the postings I've been putting up lately - comments on pop music, Iran, the wireless phone industry, techie-nerd shit. You guys are probably saying, "Hell, son, where's the guns?"

Take it easy - I'm still a shooter and a reloader. I shot in a National Match competition on Saturday with my AR (yes, the carbine I built, and yes, I used Yankee Hill Machine iron flipups). The results were less than spectacular; I shot a 155 (1-x) standing (not too bad, probably a personal best on the 200 yard standing target), and a 161 (1-x) seated rapid at the reduced 300 yard (200 actual) target.

That was when I decided to "get clever" and adjust my sights.

As it turns out, I over-adjusted and could not get a bead on the target, and put a very nice, tight group into a patch 20" too high. This earned me a 21 (1-x) in the prone rapid , followed by an inexplicable crappy spray of bullets all over the target during prone slow fire - 86 (0-x). Thinking I had the sights truly screwed, I shot off a bench after the match, and discovered that I was only a click too high in elevation. The prone position had my eye so much closer to the rear sight that looking through the peep was like looking at the front sight through a hula-hoop - I was having a great deal of difficulty gauging vertical displacement of the front sight through the coarse YHM sights, which are meant for operators to use in close-quarters-battle in the event their primary electro-optical sight has failed. Since any kind of optics are banned in NM competitions, I went with what I had - and it cost me. I figure that I was shooting well enough that I could have broken 600, which would have been an overall personal best.

Oh well, it's an adventure everytime I go to a National Match - I almost never take the Garand, as it is such a laser gun that it is passably easy to shoot well. I kind of like the adventure of taking some goofy rifle that isn't configured specifically for that competition. Probably next will be the Lee Enfield or the M98. I am sure that I will make a hash out of it unless I prepare better for the competition by developing some tight handloads and shooting them through the course of fire up at Pawnee Grasslands or Lyons prior to heading out to Byers or Boulder Rifle Club for the next competition. Hopefully, the weather will return to its pre-Spring state (65 degrees and sunny, crazily enough) to permit me to do my thing out on the plain; it's 19 degrees outside right now and snow is covering the ground.

Gear note: Bought myself an RCBS Chargemaster. For you great unwashed out there, it's an automated powder trickler and scale, hooked together via infrared port, and meters the powder of your choice out to the tenth-of-a-grain in about the time it takes for you to seat a bullet on a filled case and put it in the box. It cuts out wads of loading time, and is a real aggrevation-saver. I have loaded a couple-hundred rounds with it and believe it to be one of the finest tools I have ever seen in the hands of a non-scientist. Truly amazing stuff!

I am in the middle of some pernicious case-prep for .223 right now. It is my least favorite task, as it takes an incredibly long time to finger-fuck a case into shape to make it viable for self-loading rifles. Part of the problem inevitably is occurring because I am Mister Precision, who must put a Marine D.I. shine on the brass, to avoid the inevitable appearance of Gunnery Sergeant Stephen C. Holt,  U.S.M.C. (Non-Commissioned Terrorist of Battalion One) for a two-hour PT session with his "permanent 'Owe-Me.'"

Oh well, it's my obsession, either I live with it or I spend $26,000 in psychotherapy overcoming the problem. I'll take the former, and have clean, shiny brass, thank you.

posted by: underwhelmed at March 21, 2006 23:27 | link | comments |

Blogwalking

This is my first attempt at blogging from my new PDA, the Crackberry 7520. You will remember that I was blogging from my Dell Axim X50v, but I had to get to a friendly Wi-Fi connection to do so. With the Blackberry Internet Server or the Blackberry Exchange Server, I can blog from anywhere at any toime. That means that your LIbercontrarian, your Sergeant-Major of the Armchair Commando Brigade of Aurora, Colorado, can frustrate Leftist do-gooders while walking Buddie, the Austrailian Shepherd, or having lunch after visiting the client.

posted by: underwhelmed at March 19, 2006 08:23 | link | comments (4) |

Boeing To Build 10,000 Iranian Presents From Heaven

Now, what in the wide, wide world of sports is a' goin' on with Boeing? Boeing has been given a 10,000 JDAM-tailfin-kit contract. I suspect that it's for the 10,000 Mk 84 bombs that Uncle Sugar's Angry Falcons have waiting to drop on Hadji Ahmadinejad's seven-inch-thick skull.

Why would America's Flying Corporation want to do that? Would it be because Chimpy McBusHitlerBurton is tired of our nation, Israel, and the rest of the free world being threatened by a bunch of no-good, four-flushing, women-hating, turd-burgling misanthropes?

You betcha.

Clock's ticking on you, ass-hat.

Tick, tick, tick. Ticking away to zero.

posted by: underwhelmed at March 11, 2006 19:51 | link | comments |

Stupid Girls

Just saw a video by Pink called Stupid Girls - it's a harsh criticism of the current moronic trend in American life that is telling young women to regress into dimwitted tools of the media and misogynists and gangster-rappers.

Pink envisions a version of herself as a co-ed with low self-esteem, or a bimbo in a convertible, too distracted to keep from running over sundry pedestrians, or as window-decoration in a "50-Cent" video:

Stupid girl, stupid girls, stupid girls
Maybe if I act like that, that guy will call me back
What a paparazzi girl, I don't wanna be a stupid girl

Go to Fred Segal, you'll find them there
Laughing loud so all the little people stare
Looking for a daddy to pay for the champagne
(Drop a name)
What happened to the dreams of a girl president
She's dancing in the video next to 50 Cent
They travel in packs of two or three
With their itsy bitsy doggies and their teeny-weeny tees
Where, oh where, have the smart people gone?
Oh where, oh where could they be?

Maybe if I act like that, that guy will call me back
What a paparazzi girl, I don't wanna be a stupid girl
Baby if I act like that, flipping my blonde hair back
Push up my bra like that, I don't wanna be a stupid girl

The funny thing is that the video is a moral warning tale to young girls that may be influenced by our degraded pop-culture; a young girl is watching MTV with an angelic Pink on her left shoulder, and a demonic Pink on her right. The child makes a moral choice at the end that brought a smile to my face. While I am not a fan of any modern Pop music, I will say that Pink's other efforts have stood out from the pack for their originality and cleverness, and this tune does not disappoint.

posted by: underwhelmed at March 08, 2006 18:28 | link | comments (5) |

Counting Coup In The RIM-NTP Case

Here come Da Judge!

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Research in Motion Ltd was given a temporary reprieve on an injunction being handed down against its US wireless email service on Friday, but the judge left little room for doubt that he expects the company to quickly settle its patent infringement suit with NTP Inc.

Judge James Spencer of the Virginia court where the long-running case is being heard said that he was "absolutely surprised" that the companies had not managed to reach an out-of-court settlement, and that he would rule on an injunction and damages "as soon as reasonably possible".

"The case should have been settled. But it hasn't. So I have to deal with that reality," he said, according to a transcript of his closing remarks at a Friday (this was the 24th) hearing.

---

It is this event which made the deal possible – the judge used a common-sense-delaying-tactic to get two parties who had valid claims (I say that NTP’s claim was marginally more valid, thus he would have been forced to rule in favor of NTP) to FUCKING SETTLE THE DAMMNED THING before he had to rule in favor of NTP and shut down the pervasive RIM networks that are being used by upwards of 4 million subscribers, many of them employed by the Federal .gov.

Since Judge Spencer knew the potential harm to RIM, the subscribers, and the .Gov, he wisely allowed the pressure of the Patent Office finding that was unfavorable to NTP on the 21st and the potentiality that he would find for NTP in his ruling as being sufficient pressure on both parties to agree on a fair settlement.

One of my coworkers thinks NTP’s case was merely a nuisance lawsuit; NTP’s founder is no longer amongst the living, and his greedy relatives are scrambling for the giant pot of savings (said to be $1.8 billion) that RIM has stockpiled as a result of their meteoric growth. I think that she’s onto something, although NTP appears to have enough of a valid claim that RIM’s legal team thought this a “best practice” strategy for RIM’s continued prosperity. They later admitted that the “workaround solution” that they were loudly declaring to their stockholders and customers would have been prohibitively expensive.

What does all this mean to your Libercontrarian? It means that Koko The Sales Gorilla will be holding a Crackberry 7520 in his furry paw come Thursday of next week. The future of RIM is looking great!

posted by: underwhelmed at March 03, 2006 22:15 | link | comments |

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