Cupcakes are a Security Risk!

MSNBC reports

Frightening frosting? TSA confiscates cupcake

PEABODY, Mass. -- An airport security officer confiscated a frosted cupcake amid fears its icing could be a security risk, according to reports.

Rebecca Hains said the Transportation Security Administration agent at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas took her cupcake Wednesday. According to Hains, he told her its frosting was enough like a gel to violate TSA restrictions on allowing liquids and gels onto flights to prevent them from being used as explosives.

"I just thought this was terrible logic," Hains said Friday.

Hains said the agent didn't seem concerned that the red velvet cupcake, which was packaged in an 8-ounce mason jar, could actually be explosive, just that it fit some bureaucratic definition about what was prohibited.

Read the rest here

I admit that I wonder what Blogger Bob or one of his accomplices will have to say about it but for entertainment purposes only. And from a distance. In a regime of security theater managed by delusional fools, the TSA may be piss in the wind but it is toxic piss.

Jesus Save Me From Your Followers.

The Mad Orge has a rant about "Super Mormons" making a stink over his wife's producion of the school Christmas play.

In one number, children sang while holding hands. That was offensive. Third grade boys and girls shouldn’t hold hands. They shouldn’t sing “I saw Mommy kissing Santa Clause.” Even though its a family song about Mom and Dad having a tender moment together… But they think its about adultry. How thick do you have to be? And then their was the hanukkah song that was to immoral for their kids. It was nothing in the song, but because it was Jewish. Don’t get me started about everything wrong with that…

From: My Mormonism is better than yours

There are people out there who look for excuses to be offended. It is no suprise to me that a significant number of them latch onto religion as an excuse for their neurotic failings. In truth, most of the few Mormons I've met and whom I knew were Mormons were pretty decent people. However, they may have been good peoel but that does not necessarily make them good Mormons.

So what makes for a good Mormon?

Beats the hell put of me. I can no more answer than I can tell you what makes a good Catholic, Jew or Baptist.

I am fortunate that I was born with a hollow spot where my bump of reverence should be so all the talk of gods, goddesses, god-neuters, demigods, avatars, etc. leaves me yawning. I think I can recognize a good person but a good follower of whatever religion? I suspect it is like recursive, self modifying code. A religion is what its followers make of it so, if they make it into crap, then crap becomes the new salvation.

That might explain why so many of them act like think their shit don't stink.

Public Education and Epic Fail

Jerry Pournelle, writing on the subject of Roman Warm, Dark Age Cool, Viking Warm, and I’m taking the day off has this to say about a "Dark Age" and Public Education:

What is certain is that something horrible happened in 535 which ushered in a long period of cooling, shorter growing seasons, plagues, tribal wanderings, and the real Dark Ages, if you define a Dark Age not as a time when you have forgotten how to do something, but have forgotten that anyone ever was able to do it. As with the US in education, where we have forgotten what we used to accomplish with the public schools, and now strive to achieve goals that would have been considered failure by most teachers over most of the period of the public schools.

When future historians write about the history of the United States, the idea of government controlled, tax supported education will rank among the worst ideas ever.

Assuming the looming Endarkenment leaves mankind a future that can afford historians.

The 1911 and the Glock (Humor)

I don't have a dog in this fight -- I personally don't care much for either the 1911 or the Glock -- but this video really is funny

Find all Hard Links to a File

While writing a wrapper to submit files for batch processing I found a need to find all the hard links to a file. Like so many things in Linux, the solution turns out to be simple -- once I found it.

Use the find command

$ find <dir to start search in> -xdev -samefile <path to file>

For example, to find all the hard link to the file /home/buser/chosen.one.txt on the home partition, use:

$ find /home -xdev -samefile /home/buser/chosen.one.txt

The switch -xdev means to only search on the original volume. It can be omitted but, because a hard link cannot cross volume boundaries, the switch will save time by not searching where a linked file cannot be anyways.

Water Is Not Wet

At least not in Europe.

According to The Telegraph, water does not prevent dehydration and drink manufacturers cannot legally claim it does.

EU officials concluded that, following a three-year investigation, there was no evidence to prove the previously undisputed fact.

Producers of bottled water are now forbidden by law from making the claim and will face a two-year jail sentence if they defy the edict, which comes into force in the UK next month.

Just when I think that the nanny states have collectively plumbed the depths of human stupidity (or maybe human evil), one will bounce back and astound me once again. Maybe it is time to just toss the whole idea of the state on the dust heap of human history. I can only hope my descendants will look back on this time and see the obsession with the state as protector as just a silly an idea. Like a flat Earth or a geocentric universe.

Oh yeah. Drink Brawndo. Its got electrolytes!

Downed Spitfire's Guns meet an Ignominious End

BBC News Magazine reports on a salvaged Spitfire that crashed into a peat bog in the early years of World War 2. The anaerobic environment left it is a remarkable state of preservation. Amazingly, with some work, six of the plane's guns were in good enough condition that specialists in the Irish Army were able to assemble a working model. In the test, the gun spit a belt of ammunition (the article doesn't specify how many rounds were fired but the Spitfire had 300 rounds per gun) without a hitch.

The WWII guns firing after 70 years buried in peat

The article concludes with this observation:

The machine guns will now be made safe and join the rest of the aircraft on permanent display in Londonderry, where Wolfe was based, a city on the edge of Europe that played a pivotal role in the war.

When I got the to part about rendering the guns "safe" I asked myself, what the hell happened to the English? Seventy years ago brave men and women kicked Nazi butt at the Battle of Britian and turned the tide of WW2 in Europe. Today, their grandchildren live in dread of pointed kitchen knives.

I swear, if the modern British were to locate Arthur's tomb and unearth Excalibur, they would grind the edges flat in name of "safety".

H/T to Grant Cunningham among other.

Alliant's new 300MP powder in a carbine

About four weeks ago one of the local suppliers had some Alliant 300MP powder in stock so I bought a pound to try it out. Alliant lists 18.6 gr as the maximum charge for a 158 gr GDHP which I reduced by 10% to 16.7 gr for a starting load and 17.7 as an intermediate load if the lower load did not indicate any excessive pressure.

I finally got the range on Sunday to test them.

• Gun = Marlin 1894C 18.5" barrel
• Bullet = Magtech 158 gr JSP
• Case = Federal 357 magnum
• Primer = Winchester Small Pistol
• Powder = Alliant 300 MP
• Ambient temperature = 90F (prox)

Results from five measurements (feet/second):

Charge in grains	Average Velocity	Standard Deviation	Maximum Velocity	Minumum Velocity
16.7	1675	23	1684	1635
17.7	1765	24	1792	1736

None of the primers or cases showed any more indication of pressure than normal for a 357 magnum. In fact the Amercan Eagle 158 gr JSP (which clocked at almost exactly 1800 fps) had much flatter primers than the 300MP reloads.

All in all I am pretty impressed with the potential of this powder in a carbine.

No accuracy reports yet. About the time I was getting ready to try some guy started banging away with a neutered version of an M1919 and kicked up so much dust I just packed up and went home.

Twenty Five Years Ago

From Billy Beck

On this day, twenty-five years ago, Ronald Reagan signed the Income Tax Reform Act of 1986. Three months later and for the first time ever, my social security number was demanded by a prospective employer.

Do you understand?

For the first time in American history, it was illegal to work for a dollar without accounting for it to the United States Government.

I will never forgive Reagan for this atrocity, and it is why I do not tolerate anyone in my presence lauding his stand for "freedom".

To hell with him.

He also supported and signed the Mulford Act which was the beginning of the assault on the Second Amendment in California. Even if you can forgive his support for that POS (Oh no! Black peeples haz guns!) he supported the Brady Bill and even had the chutzpah to write an editorial for it in The New York Times.

Million Dollar Gun

Not quite a million but getting close.

1836 Colt Revolver Sets World Record Price For A Single Firearm, Bringing $977,500 At Greg Martin Auctions/Heritage Auctions In Dallas

DALLAS, TX – An exceptional, rare and fine ivory-gripped Texas, or Holster Model No. 5, Paterson Revolver from the Al Cali Collection realized $977,500 as part of Greg Martin Auctions/Heritage Auctions Sept. 18 Signature® Arms & Armor Auction in Dallas, setting a world record price realized for a single Firearm sold at auction.

I've never been a collector of much of anything, much less firearms. If I have a gun I don't want to shoot, I'll sell or trade it to someone who does. Nevertheless, looking at this revolver I can understand, even if I don't share, the desire. This gun is really one beautiful piece of workmanship.

I wonder if a first generation Glock 17 will ever sell to a collector for whatever the equivalent of a million bucks will be in 175 years.