Don't be Evil? Ok, how about politicially biased then?

I recieved this email a few hours back:

From: Google AdSense
to: me

Hello Christopher,

Our specialists have found that your account is not in compliance with
AdSense program policies. As a result, we have disabled your account.

We continually review all publishers according to our Terms and
Conditions and program policies, and we reserve the right to disable
publishers or sites that are not in compliance with our policies.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

Obviously I was somewhat puzzeled... but only somewhat. After all, others around the blogosphere have had problems with google inexplicably cutting them off, apparently for political reasons, and I'm generally more offensive to the lef tthan they are.

But I kept an open mind. I sent back a one line question:

From: Me
To: Google AdSense support

Sirs,

Can you tell me how my account is not in compliance with your policies?

And I recieved no response.

And I got kinda irritated, and then I got kinda mad; so a few minutes ago, I sent this out:

From: Chris Byrne Mailed-By: gmail.com
To: Google AdSense
Cc: Sergei@google.com, ESchmidt@google.com, LPage@google.com, MRivera@google.com, Press@google.com, mmayzel@google.com
Date: Feb 8, 2006 12:25 PM
Subject: Re: Google AdSense Account Disabled

Sirs,

Can you tell me how my account is not in compliance with your policies?

I sent that one question to you initially, and recieved no response. Now I am expanding my question.

I have reviewed your ad-sense policies, and I cannot find any point at which I am in violation, unless a subjective reviewer of the site found my content disagreeable politically.

If my account has been suspended because I present a different political view point than the reviewer of my site... well then you might have a small problem.

If you say that I am a hate site, a violent site, or a racist site, I can refute that conclusively; and will do so for anyone who asks. If you say that I have inappropriate content, I can refute that and will do so as well.

I will also point to many sites that present anti-semitic, anti-american, and in general vile and disgusting propaganda; and yet they have ad-sense ads. I can show you sites that depict burning of american flags, and bibles, that have ad-sense ads. I can show you sites that are unapologetically pronographic, and have ad-sense ads.

I can only conclude that this action is motivated by political bias. It is my hope that suspending accounts that are politically opposed to a reviewers viewpoint is the action of a single employee and not general corporate policy.

You are of course a private company, and you may choose to allow your political biases to determine who you do business with; but if you do, be prepared to have all of your conservative and libertarian customers do the same.

If you cannot provide me with a legitimate reason for this account suspension, that is not motivated by a bias against my libertarian politics, my staunch advocacy of free speech regardless of it's potential for offensiveness, or the right to keep and bear arms, then I will be going to the blogosphere and the media with this.

Finally, if you insist on closing my account, please forward the remaining outstanding balance due me. As I cannot log in to my account I can't confirm how much it is, but when I checked yesterday it was only about $40.

Thank you,

Christopher J. Byrne IV

I wonder what the response will be.

Anyone know how to move a blog off of blogger?

My 350,000th visitor

Ok as I said, this mmorning I hit 200k on the blog; but a few minutes ago I hit 350,000 on the web site for all time; this includes my blog and main web page.

My 350,000th visitor

My 200,000th blog hit

Well, about two hours ago, my blog passed the 200,000 individual visits mark.

Yay me

Eh, why not

Little Britneys and Christinas

So the other day I am at Wal-Mart shopping for clothes for my little girls (ages 4 and 2) and I finally have to do something I have been dreading for well over a year - navigate the girls' section. My oldest is very tall for a 4 year old (47") and she is outgrowing the baby/toddler section. Now normally I believe in high (or at least medium) quality clothes for myself and my kids, but the kids outgrow clothing so quickly that spending so much money on clothing seems a bit ridiculous. Plus the girls have very different body types (Rosie is long-legged, Shai has a long torso) so the clothes I buy for the older can't be passed down to the younger.

Now keeping in mind that Rosie is a very TALL 4 year old I have recently started buying her size 5/6 (XS) girls' jeans just so they are long enough. Unfortunately this means navigating Mary Kate and Ashley land at Wal-Mart. This, I discovered, is a dangerous pursuit.

I am a fairly attractive woman when I want to be. I am certainly capable of catching a man's eye when I put the necessary effort into finding and wearing flattering clothing. I am a 25 year old woman who is certainly not past her prime and I wouldn't wear most of the clothes I found in the girls' section.

Bras and bikini-cut underwear. Flared skirts short enough to be mini-skirts. Skin tight jeans. And of course shirts and boleros designed to show off cleavage. What kind of cleavage can a 5 year old have?! And why the hell would you want to show it off?!?!?!?! I mean, I've seen the shoes with heels in the girls' section of the show store, but I didn't think there were actually clothes to WEAR with them...

It's even worse when swimsuits are taken into account. This is Arizona after all, so I've already been through this season's swimsuits. Bikinis, boyshorts, sheer coverups... whatever happened to good ol' monochromatic full-size swimsuits? I believe in always leaving myself enough room for negotiation, but what happens when my eventual 15 year old daughter asks me if she can buy a string bikini? "But Mom, you let me wear one when I was 5, why not now?" Gah...

I am lucky in that I can afford higher-priced clothing and if I need to, I will go that route in order to help preserve my daughters' innocence. But whenever I look at the clothing at Wal-Mart I remember the single mom I used to be and how I couldn't afford anything else. Are we raising a generation of little Britneys and Christinas by default?

As for that shopping trip, I returned to the toddler section and bought some cheap shirts and shorts for the summer until I can find something better. I bought one pair of pants from the girls section, the cheapest and most unattractive I could find. I then dropped the kids off with my mother for the weekend. When I picked them up on Sunday my mother asked me why in the world I would buy Rosie a pair of hip huggers. I think catalogs are going to become my new best shopping friends...

Mel

Mel's Intro

Hello everyone!

For all of you who don't know who I am, I am the Anarchangel's dearly beloved practically wife. I am going to be posting on this blog time to time with my own rants and raves, and general insights on life. No recipes from me (yet) but most likely lots on raising kids and dealing with disgruntled muscular minarchists. Oh, yes, and the occasional bitch about men in particular and, of course, life.

Mel

Just call me Mel, everyone else does.

Recipes for REAL Men - Volume 12, Lard Ass Buffalo Wings

So the bowl game is over, and I've finally perfected my Buffalo wing recipe (actually during halftime in fact). There was much winged love goin down, though I maybe mixed them a bit too hot for my crowd... which means they were damn near hot enough.

Actually they weren't entirely perfect, initially I included less Habenero and a tablespoon of cayenne powder, but it made for a slightly unpleasant after burn (cayenne powder stays in your mouth and on your lips for a loooong time; and adds a kind of bitter heat without adding much flavor). I also included a bit too much mustard, and I used prepared yellow mustard (frenches). For this recipe I eliminated the cayenne powder entirely, upped the habanero content, and substituted powdered mustard and apple cider vinegar.

NOW it's perfect.

Ingredients:

4lb bag of extra large, segmented frying wings
1 cup (3/4 of a 12oz bottle) of Franks Red Hot sauce
4 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
2 tablespoons tabasco sauce
2 tablespoons Arizona Gunslinger habanero pepper sauce (optional)
2 heaping tablespoons brown sugar to taste
2 tablespoons powdered yellow mustard
1 tablespoon cracked black pepper (finely ground)
Juice of one lime

You are also going to need the following:

8lb, or 4 quarts frying medium (lard or rendered beef fat (tallow) preferred)

Large thick walled deep pot (a cast iron chicken fryer, or dutch oven work best) or a professional quality deep fryer with at least a six quart capacity and a 400+ degree temperature control

Frying thermometer capable of reading at least 400 degrees farenheit

A steel mixing bowl large enough to comfortably toss all four pounds of wings in with plenty of room to spare

1 cup of cornstarch and a large plastic bag (optional)

Preparation:

There's only one way to cook real buffalo wings, and that's deep frying them. None of this baked wing crap.

Welllll... unless that is you want to bread the wings and then bake the flavoring in AFTER deep frying; and that can work pretty well, but it isn't necessary, and it isn't really a buffalo wing then.

So before we start, you have a choice to make, to starch or not to starch.

When you deep fry anything unbattered or unbreaded, it should be perfectly dry before you put it in the oil. If the wings are frozen, you should either defrost and dry them completely, or you should roll or shake them in cornstach wixed with salt and pepper (or do both). You MIGHT be able to get away with not starching the wings if there's NO ice on the surface of the wings.

Now, if you DO starch the wings, you are going to end up with a light breading effect. This breading will soak up more sauce, but it will also hold in more grease, and it tends to clump, burn, and get soggy. Also if your oil isnt hot enough the cornstarch will clump off the wings, cloud the oil, and burn.

Obviously, in general I prefer to put the wings in bare.

While you are prepping the wings, heat the frying medium to 400+ degrees, but be careful not to smoke your oil.

Oh and related to that, another one of those decisions; what do you want to fry the wings in? Since you're cooking chicken, it would make sense to use chicken fat right?

Well, not really because chicken fat burns and smokes when used as a deep frying medium. Plus, bulk chicken fat is kinda icky, and can taste kinda funky unless you cook it fr quite a while.

Basically it's just not suitable for deep frying, though it CAN be good for shallow frying depending on what you're frying with it (like frying goose liver, it's just plain good, though goose fat is even better - oh and it makes a good spread with salt and garlic. Schmaltz can be yummy if made properly).

The ideal frying medium for flavor is either bacon grease or rendered beef suet (tallow), mixed with butter; but that gets expensive very fast. Plus butter starts burning at around 250 degrees, and smokes at 400 degrees, and bacon grease starts to burn at around 350; so you can't really deep fry in it (though shallow frying is aaawwww yeah good).

Beef tallow alone would work; but unless you have a good butcher around, it can be hard to find food grade tallow (and obviously candlemaking supplies arent food grade), and you have to be careful of your smoke point.

That leaves lard; and lard is a pretty darn good choice, because it doesn't start burning or smoking 'til WELL over 400 degrees (commercial lard anyway. Gourmet lard is usually not as "pure" and so it smokes at lower temperatures, but has better flavor). It's the highest smoke point animal oil you can get, which makes it almost ideal for deep frying. Also lard has less cholesterol than butter, and no transfats like most high smoke point vegetable oils have (including frytex and other solid oils sold for use in professional deep fryers), plus it doesn't taste bad for frying.

Oh and one more thing, lard is CHEAP; as in about $4 for the 8 lbs you'll need for deep frying (which can be used and reused repeatedly if filtered and not burned); and thats if you buy it in the SMALL tubs. If you get the economy sized 5 gallon buckets you pay damn near nothing, especially in comparison to peanut oil (which is about the best deep frying vegetable oil and which runs about $20 a gallon, though can cost as little as $5 a gallon in bulk).

Oh and in case you didnt know, the proper way to season your new cast iron pans is to sand the cooking surface mostly smooth, thoroughly wash the pan, then rub the entire cooking surface with lard to cover it with a thin layer, and carbonize the stuff at 450-650 degrees for from 30 minutes, to two hours depending on the size of the pan, and the heat of the oven. Then you take the heat down to about 300 degrees for a half hour, then 200 for an hour, then shut te heat off and let the pan cool in the cooling oven until it has reached room temperature. You WILL set off every smoke alarm in the neighborhood during this process; so unplug yours, get a fan, watch out, and keep a fire extinguisher handy.

Now, on to the actual prep work.

Defrost and dry the wings, then rub fine flake or crushed kosher salt and pepper into them, and if you feel adventerous lightly sprinkle a little cayenne powder over them (it's not bad here, it just doesn't work too well in the sauce).

When the oil is over 400 degrees, place all the wings into the oil as quickly as is safely possible. It's important to distribute evenly.

If you put frozen wings into the fryer, the temperature is going to instantly drop from about 400 degrees, to about 200 degrees, and it won't go back up to browning temperature (about 280- 300 degrees) until all the excess water from the wings cooks off. That takes about 20 minutes, and you end up with crispier, greasier wings with drier meat. They arent at all bad that way, but if you want a plumper wing with more meat and meat jucies, you want to use thawed wings.

If you use the thawed wings, the temp is still going to plummet down to between 250 and 300, but it's going to come back up to 350 or so much quicker.

Fry the wings until golden brown, basically the degree of brownness you'd want in a chicken you were roasting in the broiler. It should take about 15 minutes AFTER the temp of the oil climbs back over 280. Dont let the oil climb over 400, or start to smoke (there will be LOTS of steam and splattering oil however so be careful).

Once the wings are all thoroughly browned, drain them individually back into the fryer (just let them drip dont pat them off), and throw them into a large metal mixing bowl with some of the wing sauce on the bottom...

Ohh yeah, we have made it yet... well here is,

The Sauce:

Alright, when it comes to wings, sauce is the key right? How hot, how sweet, how sour, how smoky... How about VERY, a little bit, a little bit more, and not very much...

Some folks like to include a lot of sugar, molasses, smoked barbecue sauce, or god forbid liquid smoke (Actually I shouldnt be that hard there are actually some tasty liquid smoke flavors these days) but really none of that is supposed to go on buffalo wings.

Buffalo wings are supposed to have three strong flavors:

1. Cayenne Pepper Sauce
2. Vinegar
3. Butter

Thats it. They aren't smoked, glzed, honey seared or anything else. Yeah those kinds of wings taste great, but they aren't buffalo wings. Save the other flavors for times when you don't want buffalo wings.

So, first step, your Cayenne sauce. Now there are some folks who swear by tabasco for their wings, and lord knows I do love tabasco sauce, but it isn't really the right flavor or consistency for buffalo wings. Then there Daves gourmet "cool cayenne pepper sauce" which would work really well, hell maye even great... maybe even better than Franks... but for my money it isn't a buffalo wing if it isn't made with Franks Louisiana Red Hot Cayenne Pepper Sauce.

That's right, I said it; it HAS to be FRANKS.

Yeah I know, Franks is too sour, too astringent, too thin, not hot enough etc... Ehhhh forget about that. If it's a buffalo wing, it's got to be Franks. Anything else is some other kind of wing.

Now, that said, there's no law against combining Franks with other things; and therein lies the secret of good buffalo sauce.

Now, you can do this two ways, either in the microwave without simmering, or in a small saucepan, simmered. Simmering melds the flavors together more, brings them out more, takes longer, is harder to clean up, and singes your nostrils something fierce. Microwaving is faster, and doesnt stink up the place.

I recommend simmering personally.

So, start by melting the butter in the bottom of the pan, then when the butter starts to brown add in the red hot sauce. Bring that sauce up to just below simmering and add the rest of the dry ingredients, and the vinegar, stirring thoroughly.

Keep stirring at jsut below simmer for about 4 minutes. At this point you want to set your sweet and sour balance, by adjusting the vinegar and the brown sugar to suit your taste. Make it just a bit less sour, and a bit more sweet than you'd like the final product to be, because we'll be adding more flavors in the next step.

So now a few minutes ago I said that Tabasco isn't right for Buffalo wings, and now I'm telling you use it? Why do I speak such crazy moon language...

Basically, because I love tabasco, and it has a distinct fermented pepper flavor that you dont get with Franks. A couple tablespoon is all it takes to give your wings jsut a HINT of that distinctive Tabasco flavor. If you want more tabasco flavor, go ahead and add more tabasco; it can't hurt.

Now the fun part, the REALLY hot stuff. Here's where you decide if you want your wings mild, hot, or WILD.

For traditional mild to slightly hot buffalo wings (the wings from your local pizza joint proably rate less than mild so if you can't handle those... what the hell are you doing making buffalo wings?), dont add anything else. The dominant flavors will be slightly sweet, sour vinger, and a slightly sour spicy pepper bite.

If on the other hand you want some HOT wings, now's the time to break out the habenero. I listed Arizona Gunslingers hot habanero sauce above, but you can substitute any habanero hot sauce to taste. Gunslinger is appx. equal in heat to Daves Temporary Insanity sauce, and about half as hot as Daves Insanity sauce; with Total Insanity falling somewhere in between. My recommendation? Start with one tablespoon of the sauce, stir it in and simmer for three minutes, then try it out. If it's not hot enough, keep adding more sauce in half a tablespoon at a time.

If you really want to get insane, put in 4 tablespoons of Daves Insanity sauce; but if you do that I recommend serving the wings with a yoghurt based dip (tsatziki for example), and glasses of whole milk. Oh and really, honestly, dont serve this to anyone who isn't a serious chilehead, you might hurt them badly, or make them sick (no I'm not kidding).

Importantly, no matter how hot you want it, you need to balance out the heat with the sourness of vinegar, and the sweetness of the brown sugar; so after you've reached your desired degree of heat, simmer for three minutes, and make a flavor adjustment with sugar and vinegar; but leave it jsut a bit less sour, and a bit less sweet than you really quite want.

Finally simmer for three to ten minutes after you've made your final adjustments and let stand; and whatever you do don't boil or burn the sauce.

This sauce is best if it's prepared the night before and allowed to mellow overnight; then heated up to just below simmering just before tossing; but it's not necessary to do so. You can just make it and toss the wings in with it and it's still damn good.

The final step before tossing is to add the fresh squeezed juice of one lime (unless of course you don't like citrus in which case, leave it out), and then stir throughly.

Final Prep:

So, sauce the bottom of your large mixing bowl, and toss a layer of lightly drained wings into it. Then pour more sauce, and drop more wings in until youve got all of both in the bowl; and throughly toss the wings in the sauce, coating all of the wings completely and evenly. Let stand for about 3 minutes, and toss again before serving.

My personal preference is to serve straight out of the bowl, with baby wipes, and paper towels kept handy. Serves four as an appetizer or 2 as a meal. Have milk handy.

And be sure to check out:

Recipes for REAL Men, Volume 12 - Lard Ass Wings
Recipes for REAL Men, Volume 11 - Bacon Double Macaroni and Cheese
Recipes for REAL Men, Volume 10 - It's the meat stupid
Recipes for REAL Men, Volume 9 - Labor Day Potatos
Recipes for REAL men, Volume 8 - It's a pork fat thing
Recipes for REAL men, Volume 7 - It may not be Kosher...
Recipes for REAL men, Volume 6 - Andouille Guiness Chili
Recipes for REAL men, Volume 5 - Eazza the Ultimate Pizza
Recipes for REAL men, Volume 4 - Two Pound Meat Sauce
Recipes for REAL men, Volume 3 - Highbrow Hash
Recipes for REAL men, Volume 2 - MuscleCarbonara
Recipes for REAL men, Volume 1 - More Beef than Stew

Nearing 200k

Well, all the traffic generated from the various forum posting of team infidel over the past few days has moved this announcement up about a week, but some time today or tomorrow I'll hit 200k total uniqe visits since I opened this blog 357 days ago.

Based on NORMAL traffic patterns, within a day or two afterwards I'll also reach 350,000 total hits on my main site since I first started tracking stats around '97. Of course my traffic has been well above normal the last few days, so who knows when it might happen.

Hooray me.

Does the U.K have a democratic government?

On the NoR forums someone asked a thetorical question about the U.K.

"The crazy didn’t write the laws. You have a democratically elected government, yes?"

Only vaguely... The commenter obviously intended to make a point about how the people get the government they deserve, but because of the structure of the British government this isn't as true as you might think.

Here's the thing, in the British system, you dont actually vote for a person to be prime minister, or any other position within governemnt. Every burrough elects their own member of parliament (MP), and the MP's all get together and decide who get's to do what.

That means if you want good local representation, you elect someone to storngly represent the issues and values of your burrough. Unfortunately, you have no control over who actually runs your country, because there are no nationally elected positions. The political parties control who gets to run things, and everything is done within the party structure; so if you want to effect things nationally you choose the party you prefer no matter who their candidate is or how you think they'll do their job. Of course by this you give up "effective" local representation.

Parliamentary systems as a whole tend to be very representative [of the will of the people] on local issues (whether they act on that will or not), and very poorly representative on national issues, because there they almost exclusively express the will of the party; but in the U.K this system is even more skewed. In the U.K. with most local government handled by local councils; MPs who are in theory elected on local issues almost never address them; and spend their time on national issues, or rather on party issues; and of course on their primary concerns, gaining more power, and getting re-elected.

Getting more power means being made a part of the government i.e. given a ministerial appointment or a party position. No-one else has any real power. In order to gain a position, one must make nice within the party. Independence is almost entirely not allowed. The party (or coalition of parties) in control decides who fills what position, and everyone else is relegated to the "back benches".

Getting re-elected almost entirely requires the support of your party. Without it, it is POSSIBLE to be re-elected, because elections are VERY local in the UK; but if the party is plainly against you, you might as well forget it unless you are a 100% lock in your burrough.

In fact, it is entirely possible for a popular party leader, whom the majority of the country believe should be prime minister, to lose their seat entirely because of local issues. The people of the nation have no say, only the people of the constituency; and as always, the party.

Because of the nature of the system, MP’s are almost entirely locked into their party lines (excepting a few fringe elements who are personality cultists, useful idiots, or complete nutters. Either way they distract the press and the people from what is really going on); and given a strong enough majority or coalition, they can do damn near everything they want; including controlling when elections happen so that they are always in a position of advantage (for example by scheduling the elections jsut after a sex or financial scandal rocks the other party).

Unlike the American system, there is no separation between executive authority, and legislative authority; except in the person of the monarch, who functionally acts as a rubber stamp on whatever the government tells them to do. The chief executive of government is also the head of the legislative branch of the government, AND the head of the party in control.

NOTE: To Americans, this particular concept simply does not compute. How can one perform in all of these roles without conflict of interest? Simply speaking, one can't; it is assumed by parliamentary systems that this is an appropriate means of government.

Combine this with the fact that there is no written constitution (the only things close are the Magna Carta, and the Bill of rights, which are not the rigths of “the people” as such, but those of the lords and the government); and the structure and limits of government are a matter of common law, and tradition.

So what gets done is generally a matter of who has the bigger political club membership (the party); and the party in power has very few actual limits on what it can do. Basically the only thing stopping them from doing whatever the hell they want is tradition, public opinion, and the level of control the party has over it's members.

Combine that with a FAR more partisan press than we have in the U.S. ; who are more interested in reporting personal scandal, smear, gossip, and naked women than what’s actually going on…

Yes, it’s pretty much a pigs breakfast.

The only thing that’s kept the british system on the rails are very strong traditions of moderation, and respect for precedent.

Unfortunately over the past 100 years or so, the Labour party (and it's predecessors) have been willing to almost entirely throw out, twist, or take advantage of every precdent and tradition they can.

Read this section on the wikipedia article about parliament for an example:

The supremacy of the House of Commons was clearly established during the early twentieth century. In 1909, the Commons passed the so-called “People’s Budget,” which made numerous changes to the taxation system in a manner detrimental to wealthy landowners. The House of Lords, which mostly consisted of powerful landowning aristocrats, rejected the Budget. On the basis of the Budget’s popularity and the Lords’ consequent unpopularity, the Liberal Party won a general election in 1910. Using the result as a mandate, the Liberal Prime Minister, Herbert Henry Asquith, introduced the Parliament law, which sought to restrict the powers of the House of Lords. (He did not reintroduce the land tax provision of the People’s Budget.) When the Lords refused to pass the bill, Asquith approached the King and requested the creation of several hundred Liberal peers so as to erase the Conservative majority in the House of Lords. In the face of such a threat, the House of Lords reluctantly passed the bill. The Parliament Act 1911, as it became known, allowed the Lords to delay a bill for a maximum of three sessions (reduced to two sessions in 1949), after which it could become law over their objections.

Yes, the labour (actually he was a liberal party PM, but modern labour is their inheritor) prime minister didn't like the results of the voting, so he simply decided he was going to get the balance of power changed to reflect what he wanted better... and this is considered a BRILLIANT manouvre.

The labour party have built a base with the enviable position such that it is almsot impossible for them to lose power. The way they have structured the burroughs, and the control of the elections combined with the co-operative highly partisan press almost completely locks labour in; and the only real contention is between different factions within Labour.

The conservatives on the other hand are fractured, unfocused, and nearly irrelevant; except as a bete noir for the press. The conservative party is almost completely unwilling or unable to either be pragmatic and do whatever is necessary to win control; OR stay ideologically pure so as to act as an effective opposition. Given this, the conservatives end up in a pointless muddle with no focus, no direction, and no power; dependent on the utter screwups of labour to occaisonally take power and form tenuous governments with weak majorities that they inevitably lose whenever the press manage to get the public to forget about the screwup that lost labour control in the first place.

Yes, it really is that bad. U.K. Subjects are pretty much screwed all the way around.

Saraceno Delenda Est - Due

Thanks to all Jaggle and Badmutsen readers coming here for a look, no matter your opinion of Team Infidel; excuse the babelfish here, I'm sure the translation is horrible but I don't speak Dutch and my two Dutch friends are unavailable at the moment:

Wij in tribune America met u tegen de Barbaren, voor dat zijn wat zij zijn. Zij hebben geen eer. Zij zijn vreselijke lafaards; en zij zullen worden verslagen.

Now, if we can just see some .DK folks over here as well, because:

I am Gilettes Bitch

Speaking as someone who even gets razorbumps from a properly pre-oiled, post balmed, extra hot in the shower shave with a mach 3 power nitro (yeah they might as well just call it the TestostoBlade - Shit I've even shaved using astroglide), razors suck.

What's this here? Is it a new sex toy? Perhaps some strange piece of Japanese fetish gear?

No, in fact it is a razor.

In particular it's the new gilette moneymaking scam, the power fusion. It's expensive, it's ugly, it's more than a bit ridiculous... hell you might as well just be mounting a few dozenblades on the wall and rubbing up against them.

Unfortunately, the damn thing works. In fact, the new power fusion kicks ass.

No razorbumps.

None.

Just as a test, I shaved dry; and there was no irritation.

I haven't tried the "built in beard trimmer on the back of the blade" because 1. I like my face and 2. I have an actual nice beard and moustache trimmer to keep neat with.

Of course at 3+ bucks a blade is it worth it (considering you MIGHT get a week out of a blade)?

Is it worth the faintly shameful feeling of putting something that ridiculously self parodic to your face? Worse, is it worth it knowing that you are Gilettes bitch.

Yes, yes it is. All that and more. No seriously it is the best shave you will ever have short of the worlds most perfectly honed straight razor.

Unless you have the aforementioend cuthroat or sharpness, go and buy one of these badboys.

The Day The Music Died

47 years ago, Feb 3rd 1959; 1:05am central standard time, somewhere in the vicinity of Clear Lake Iowa en route to Fargo North Dakota; Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper (J. P. Richardson) were killed, along with their pilot when their Beech Bonanza crashed in heavy weather.

Narrowly avoiding death were Waylon Jennings, who Richardson replaced on the flight, Tommy Allsupp, who Valens replaced, and Dion (of Dion and the Belmonts) who didnt want to fly that night.

The song American Pie from Don MacLean was written with inspiration from the event:

A long, long time ago I can still remember how that music used to make me smile and I knew if I had my chance that I could make those people dance and maybe they'd be happy for a while but February made me shiver with every paper I delivered, bad news on the door step, I couldn't take one more step, I can't remember if I cried when I read about his widowed bride but something touched me deep inside, the day, the music, died. So...

CHORUS
Bye, bye Miss American Pie drove my Chevy to the levy but the levy was dry an them good ol' boys were drinkin whiskey and rye singin this will be the day that I die, this will be the day that I die.

Did you write the book of love and do you have faith in God above, if the bible tells you so, and do you believe in rock n' roll, can music save your mortal soul and can you teach me how to dance real slow? Well I know that you're in love with him cuz I saw you dancin in the gym you both kicked off your shoes and I dig those rhythm and blues. I was a lonely teenage bronkin buck with a pink carnation and a pick up truck but I knew I was out of luck, the day, the music, died. I started singin...

Chorus

Now for ten years we've been on our own and moss grows fat on a rollin stone but that's not how it used to be, when the jester sang for the king and queen in a coat he borrowed from James Dean and a voice that came from you and me, oh and while the king was looking down, the jester stole his thorny crown the courtroom was adjourned, no verdict was returned, and while Lenin read a book on Marx, the quartet practiced in the park and we sang dirges in the dark, the day, the music, died. We were singin...

Chorus

Helter Skelter in a summer swelter the birds flew off with a fallout shelter, eight miles high and fallin fast, its the land that falled on the grass the players tried for a forward pass with the jester on the sidelines in a cast, now the half-time air was sweet perfume while the sergeants played a marching tune we all got up to dance oh but we never got the chance oh as the players tried to take the field the marching band refused to yield do you recall what was revealed, the day, the music, died. We started singin...

Chorus

Oh and there we were all in one place, a generation lost in space with no time left to start again, so come on, Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack Flash sat on a candle stick because fire is the devils only friend, oh and as I watched him on the stage, my hands were clinched in fists of rage, no angel born in hell could break that satan's spell and as the planes climbed high into the night to light the sacrificial right I saw satan laughing with delight, the day, the music, died. He was singin...

Chorus

I met a girl who sang the blues and I asked her for some happy news but she just smiled and turned away, I went down to the sacred store where I'd heard the music years before but the man there said the music wouldn't play and in the streets the children screamed, the lovers cried, and the poets dreamed but not a word was spoken, the church bells all were broken and the three men I admire most, the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost, they caught the last train for the coast, the day, the music, died, and they were singin...

Chorus

They were singin... Bye, bye Miss American Pie drove my Chevy to the levy but the levy was dry an them good ol' boys were drinkin whiskey and rye singin this will be the day that I die.

What about .45 GAP?

In my post "Why no .45 from Browning" I mentioned that I would kill to have a Browning HiPower in .45acp; but unfortunately you can't do it without making the pistol just a bit larger, and a good bit stronger.

A commenter posits the question:

"What would making a BHP in .45GAP give us in terms of

1. modifications to the design

2. Ballistics compared to the .357SIG and .40S&W

--Randy"

Which is a pretty good question, because the point of the .45GAP, is to allow for a .45 caliber pistol, with standard .45acp ballistics, in .40S&W sized frames.

The immediate tradeoff of the GAP is of course you lose a round in capacity to the .40; and that's if your slide has enough clearance, and enough strength with the thinner metal over the sides that it would necessitate.

It's no coincidence that Glock came up with the .45GAP, because it has some of the strongest pistols ever made, and theres PLENTY of clearance and thickness of metal in it's slides.

The problem is the case head dimensions on the GAP are still too large to feed in a standard BHP breech face. The Browning slide is about as thin as you can get for the .40. I'm not sure exactly how much wiggle room there is left in the .40 BHP slide for this; but it can't be much.

Hmmm... though with the external extractor it may not be as big a deal as in say a 1911, and the .45gap is still a low pressure round in comparison to the .357 sig...Honestly, I'd need to know the metalurgy a bit better, but I don't think it would work. The early production .40's had slide cracking problems already (though they were fixed with improved heat treating).

So, to chamber the .45GAP safely and reliably, we'd still need to thicken the slide just a bit (call it .05" probably).

The thing is though; I don't think the .45GAP would even be an improvement over the .40S&W

How can that be? Pressure. The .45GAP is very near it's pressure ceiling giving .45acp ballistics out of a much shorter case than the ACP. There isn't a lot of room voer velocity improvements, even in the lightest bullet weights.

The same is not true of the standard pressure .40S&W. In fact theres a HELL of a lot of overhead in the round; presuming a gun designed to handle it.

Given this, a hot and heavy +p .40S&W gives a lot more energy (165gr at 1250 fps 572ft/lbs) than the hottest .45GAP factory load (185gr at 1050fps for about 450ft/lbs).

Actually (and this is proven in street statistics, not just ballistics numbers) +p .40 is a better stopper than standard pressure .45acp in light bullet weights (say 165gr .40 vs 185gr .45). Theres only going to be a 20gr difference in bullet weight at that point, and only a .05 diameter increase with a velocity around 1050fps and 450 ftlbs ... Yeah, I'm giving the edge to the .40.

Now this is just taking standard pressure loadings of the .45gap vs. +p loadings of the .40 so is that fair? Well, yes; because there isn't a lot of headroom for the .45gap to push without running into serious pressure problems so there ARE no hot +p loadings, and there won't be (because there CAN'T be).

The same isn't true of the .45 ACP; which in +p loadings stomps over the .40 quite handily.

In a modern, properly prepared gun chambered in .45acp with a fully supported chamber and a heavy recoil spring, you can get 1050fps out of a 230gr bullet without too much of a strain (there are factory loads available), and handload up to 1150fps at the same weight if you are careful (though I wouldn't recommend it - SuperVel used to do it, but it was well over max pressure).

We can make more direct comparisons to the .40S&W by going down in bullet weight to the lightest standard .45acp (or .45GAP for that matter) at 165 gr. which is also the heaviest standard bullet for the .40.

With a bullet that light and a properly prepared gun, you can push 1350fps out of the .45acp without danger (from hot factory loads no less) for almost 670ft lbs, and handloaders have taken it to 1450fps (and 770ftlbs) but I think they're nuts. This is in comparison to about 1150fps from the .45GAP, and 1250fps for the .40.

The GAP comes off even worse in comparison to the .357sig. The only advantage the GAP has over the .357 is bullet weight and diameter. Of course thats a significant difference (about 40gr minimum, and up to 115gr maximum and .09 inch), but I'm still giving the advantage to the .357 over the GAP.

Considering the track record of ballistically identical loads to each, there is no question as to which is the better stopper, AND you'll have 1 more round of the .357 available to you.

I won't say the .45gap is useless, clearly it has decent defensive potential. What I think it is, is the new .41AE. Sure it's good, but it's redundant and doesn't give any advantage over the other options.

Yet more unsurprising...

You Are an Espresso

At your best, you are: straight shooting, ambitious, and energetic At your worst, you are: anxious and high strung You drink coffee when: anytime you're not sleeping Your caffeine addiction level: high

What Kind of Coffee Are You?

I'm not generally that anal, and a bit more impulsive, but yeah...

Your Personality Is

Guardian (SJ) You are sensible, down to earth, and goal oriented. Bottom line, you are good at playing by the rules. You tend to be dominant - and you are a natural leader. You are interested in rules and order. Morals are important to you. A hard worker, you give your all at whatever you do. You're very serious, and people often tell you to lighten up. In love, you tend to take things carefully and slowly. At work, you are suited to almost any career - but you excel in leadership positions. With others, you tend to be polite and formal. As far as looks go, you are traditionally attractive. You take good care of yourself. On weekends, you tend to like to do organized activities. In fact, you often organize them!

The Three Question Personality Test

Been hit twice actually

You Are Lightning

Beautiful yet dangerous People will stop and watch you when you appear Even though you're capable of random violence You are best known for: your power Your dominant state: performing

What Type of Weather Are You?

Free at last...

So my hell contract is finally over with... Oh wait it's "On hold while {insert company here} re-evaluate their options and priorities".

Yeah, I can't tell you how glad I am to be out of there.

As a contractor you are used to being in position where you have all the responsiblity, with none of the authority to get things done, and none of the power to change it. It's part of the job. That said, I've never seen a company so willing to throw away money and effort over it's own internal politics (excluding public universities).

We had an architecture, that if executed properly, would work jsut fine even given the RIDICULOUS constraints we were under (15 year old, unsupported hardware and OS. No hardware solution allowed. No upgrades allowed... even wrose than that really); IF THEY WERE WILLING TO DO THE WORK NECESSARY.

But they werent.

The entier company is nothing but project managers managing project managers managing other project managers etc... and no-one really has any understanding of how to get a damn thing done.

The few actual hands on people they have left are so enmeshed in the job security assurance mentality that they wont accept ANY changes to the environemnt.

THey're supposed to add 40% transaction volume over the next year; and if they restructured their jobs and actually used their capacity effectively they'd have plenty. As it is, they're going to break the system completely.

Worse, they are supposed to have a hard migration date off their current platform by the end of 2007. They havent even started.

Free at last...

So I've got a really good Full Time perm gig lined up in about six weeks; and I need to find something to do in that time. I'm going to be moving into a new house (still just renting) by the end of this month so I'm glad for the time off, but income for that six weeks would be a useful thing. I hate spending off of savings with nothing coming in.

Technomancers Lament

Why no .45 from Browning

Everybody makes a .45 these days. In fact, almost everybody makes a few of them, including a 1911 clone. Even SIG makes a 1911 (it's called the GSR, and it's a very decent pistol).

But Browning doesnt have a single weapon chambering .45acp in their catalogue... why is that?

Actually, at this point, the only cernterfire pistols Browning catalogues are the Hi-Power (the second greatest pistol design of all time behind the 1911):

and the Pro-9/40, which are pretty much gratuitous polymer frame SIG copies with the browning name on them.

Of course since SIG's copied their operating system from Browning, it's only fair that Browning copies back. I think I even remember there being some kind of deal between SIG and FN (Brownings parent company) about this gun, but I may just be halucinating again.

Parent company FN doesnt list any .45acp chamberings either... why on earth is that? The .45 is by far the most marketable choice here in the U.S. and we are by far the largest small arms market in the world...

There are a lot of folks out there who would just about kill for a .45acp version of the browning HiPower, including me.

See, I consider the BHP to be damn near ergonomic perfection (a small beavertail, a rowel hammer, a little lever and trigger tweaking, pull out the magazine disconnect if you are unfortunate enough to have one, and stick on a good set of grips and it's perfect). It's slim, it balances nearly perfect... overall it's a just plain excellent gun. In fact, in it's STOCK form, I'd say it's a better gun than the original 1911, 1911a1, and it's unmodified clones and variants. When it's done up right, as a custom gun... well I've got a pretty hard time picking between it and a custom 1911 really.

Problem is though, the BHP only comes in 9mm and .40S&W. Both excellent chamberings, but with everyone doing .45's why not Browning?

Now, if you want a BHP-like pistol; and dont mind a little extra bulk, you can get a CZ-75 copy chambered in .45acp. CZ, Tanfoglio, and IMI/Magnum Research all took the basic CZ-75 design (which itself was substantially based on the BHP only beefed up a bit and made a double action) and bulked it up considerably to take the .45 (and the 10mm in the case of Tanfoglio).

Honestly, that's not too bad a way to go. The CZ-97, and the Baby Eagle (the IMI CZ clone) are both excellent pistols, chambered in .45 acp. Unfortunately neither has quite the ergonomic feel and grace of the original BHP (both are a tiny bit thick through the middle and in the grip).

See the BHP is just a tiny bit too small for the .45acp. It needs to be slightly scaled up for the length and girth of the cartridge by a couple hundredths.

In manufacturing terms, a couple hundredths is a big deal.

Personally I would LOVE to see a genuine BHP in .45; but can it be done at a reasonable cost without ruining the lines and feel of the pistol? I don’t think it can be, at least not by Browning. It would have to be subbed out to a firm with a lower cost of labor and manufacturing overhead.

So, barring the .45, I’d like to see Browning take their .40S&W version of the BHP, maybe reinforce it just a bit, and release a factory .357sig version. After all, the entire purpose of the .357 sig, is to give me near .357 magnum power levels, in a .40 sized frame. If I can't get a .45 it's an adequate substitute.

Make it in "detective" length (as FN have done on their own branded version, and the Argentines have been doing for a while in their clones), with the 4” barrel and full size grip frame, and I’ll buy it for my daily CCW in a heartbeat.

Some Blog Pimping for awards

Okay guys, it's the last day of voting for the gunnies, and I'm up for most educational.

The voting link is here:

http://sf.demochoice.org/dcballot.php?poll=06gun04

It's an interesting instant runoff system with preference ranked voting (from 1-10 in this case). Everyone votes once, ranking candidates in their order of preference. There are a number of "rounds" of voting equal to the number of candidates who recieved a vote (and it automatically assigns preferences if you dont), and in each round, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, and that candidates votes are redistributed to the rest of the candidates in proportion to their preference order and number of votes recieved. Then in the next round the next weakest is eliminated and their votes redistributed and so on.

It's an interesting system, and several countries use it or a variant of it, in their electoral system (including Ireland - which produces some odd results).

The biggest thing about isntant runoff, is that it allows third party (or 15th party) candidates a stronger position than they would otherwise have, because they will frequently be the second choice of a strong first party supporter, while they rank their direct opposition party last.

This tends to produce results with both more consensus candidates; and with more extreme ones. Basically it punishes extreme partisanship, and encourages side parties.

In this context, and looking at the voting, I appear to be most folks first or second choice, as is Mr. Completely. Unfortunately for me, he seems to be more folks first choice than I do; or at least he is higher in more folks rankings than I am.

So get out there and vote early, vote often etc... (actually you can vote once per day), and if I'm not your first choice, at least put me in second hey? And Mr. Completely in last ;-)