Tor

I'm taking the day off to unwind after our weekend trip to Virginia, so naturally I'm playing around on the 'puter. ;)

Anyway, today I installed Tor on Rohan the MacBook Pro. As described by its developers:

Tor is a software project that helps you defend against traffic analysis, a form of network surveillance that threatens personal freedom and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security. Tor protects you by bouncing your communications around a distributed network of relays run by volunteers all around the world: it prevents somebody watching your Internet connection from learning what sites you visit, and it prevents the sites you visit from learning your physical location. Tor works with many of your existing applications, including web browsers, instant messaging clients, remote login, and other applications based on the TCP protocol.

Hundreds of thousands of people around the world use Tor for a wide variety of reasons: journalists and bloggers, human rights workers, law enforcement officers, soldiers, corporations, citizens of repressive regimes, and just ordinary citizens. See the Who Uses Tor? page for examples of typical Tor users. See the overview page for a more detailed explanation of what Tor does, why this diversity of users is important, and how Tor works.

To make using Tor easier I downgraded Firefox from the latest version 3 release candidate back to v2.0.0.14, and installed the Torbutton extension, which hasn't yet been updated for FF3. Torbutton allows me to "Torify" my Firefox traffic with a single mouse click, and to disable it just as easily.

Compared with going directly to the Internet, web traffic through Tor is markedly slower. Since you're routing your traffic through a network of onion routers to obscure your trail, that stands to reason. So, I don't plan to use Tor by default.

However, there may be times when I need to research or relay sensitive information, on behalf of myself or others. Tor will help me do that in a more secure fashion. Another reason for me to try it is to see how Tor traffic looks on a LAN, so that I can recognize it (if that's possible).

Checking In

I haven't been posting much here lately, though I have posted some over at the Survival and Emergency Preparedness Blog. Time to drop in here with some comments. This will be a bit rambling.

Not much interesting on the work front, except that last week I got my biannual CPR/AED refresher training. (I get this training because I am a floor captain.) This time they also included a section on choking. As someone who has personally had the Heimlich maneuver performed on himself (when I was a kid), I thought this was a great idea. I would like to see first aid training added as well.

I had a bit of a nibble for some legal work a couple weeks ago, but the matter apparently got resolved without my intervention.

Last week well and truly sucked. Judith and both the girls got sick. Alexandra had to stay home all week. I was feeling a bit under the weather a couple days, myself. Everyone is feeling much better now, thankfully.

The weekend had its own share of problems. Gory content follows.

While cutting the container off some flowers I was planting out front, I managed to perform an avulsion on my right index finger. I.e., I cut myself and removed all the skin from a spot on top of the last joint of the finger. So I now have a 1/4" hole where I can see what's supposed to be covered by skin. This was the result of getting careless with a very sharp knife, a Victorinox Explorer Swiss Army Knife I picked up last month, on which I had touched up the already sharp blade with a Spyderco Sharpmaker. I felt just a bit a pressure as it sliced through -- no pain. It's a very clean cut and no dirt got in it. Any dirt that might have gotten into it would probably have been flushed out by the copious amounts of blood, anyway.

I stopped the bleeding with pressure and elevation, and kept it bandaged with gauze pads for a day and half until I felt comfortable covering it with just a Band Aid. For the first couple days I cleaned the wound and surrounding skin with a benzalkonium chloride antiseptic towelette each time I changed the dressing. I also put triple antibiotic ointment on the Band Aid before I wrap it around my finger. I let the wound air for awhile each day and it appears to be healing. So far there are no signs of infection, and it doesn't hurt unless I apply pressure to the wound. I haven't done anything this stupid with a knife in about 25 years. At least I'll get a nifty new scar out of the experience. ;)

Sunday I was supposed to get together with a friend from TRP to do some shooting, which would've been very therapeutic. I wanted to wring out my stainless Ruger Mini-14GB, on which I've replaced the rear sight and put it back into the factory stock. I also wanted to try a 1944 Underwood M1 Carbine and a Polish TT-33 Tokarev pistol, both of which I bought last year but have yet to fire. Unfortunately, when we got to the range we discovered that it was closed until 13:00 due to an archery event that was being held. Insert pic of banging head against wall here.

Monday night I had to clean corrosion from the battery terminals on my truck, because I had a few incidents when it wouldn't start until I jiggled the negative cable. Not a big deal and it gave me a chance to get my hands dirty. ;) To protect my finger with the cut, I bought a box of finger cots. These look like extra-small sized rubbers, and go over a bandaged finger to keep it clean and dry. I'm using them when I shower, do dishes, or anything else which might result in contamination of the wound. For a few bucks, they are an excellent addition to one's home first aid kit. In an emergency you can use duct tape over the bandage, but the finger cots are much more convenient.

This coming weekend we'll be driving down to my uncle's in Arlington, VA for Passover. We're planning to take the truck, in which I had a new Yaesu FT-7800R ham rig installed a couple weeks ago. I am using the same Diamond MR77 mag mount antenna I used with my VX-5RS handy talkie, but the difference in Rx between the two radios is dramatic. As expected, the FT-7800R is a much better receiver, and the controls are much easier to use. I have it programmed with about 230 repeaters located in PA. I've created a repeater list for the trip to VA and need to get that uploaded before Saturday.

Numerous Updates to The Shooters' Bar(SM)

Tonight I made several updates and additions to The Shooters' Bar(SM), the Internet's oldest list of pro-RKBA attorneys.

iChatAV Desktop Sharing

Yesterday before heading down to Microcenter I spent a couple hours over at my parents' house showing my mother how to do various things on her Mac. E.g., how to setup rules in Mail and installing a few programs in her XP virtual machine. I also set her up with an AIM account, mainly so she could see my daughters when my folks are away on a trip.

After I got home she called me with a few more questions. I started explaining things to her when I remembered the desktop sharing feature added to iChatAV with Leopard. So, I initiated a sharing session by sending her a request, and was able to get her issue squared away in about half the time that it would otherwise take.

I've used a variety of remote control programs on Mac, Windows and Linux, including telnet, ssh, pcAnywhere, Remote Admin, and several flavors of VNC. IMHO, iChatAV's desktop sharing feature is by far the easiest remote control tool to use for someone who is calling someone else for technical support. Neither party needs to know the other's IP and it seemlessly worked through two firewalls which do NAT and SPI. On top of that, it automatically opens up a voice chat session so you don't need to keep a phone call going during the course of the support call.

If you're a Mac user and you support other Mac users frequently, or need to get remote support help frequently, this feature by itself looks like it could justify upgrading to Leopard.

New Monitor and Keyboard for my MacBook Pro

For some time I've thought about redoing the desk in my office, where I have my XP box Bagend situated. Bagend has seen hardly any use since I bought my G4 iBook back in December 2004. I much prefer working on the Mac platform and a laptop's ability to be used anywhere in the house is very appealing. This opinion was only magnified when I bought Rohan, my MacBook Pro back in January 2007.

However, sometimes I'd like to be able to use a full sized keyboard and a larger monitor with a higher resolution. The monitor on Bagend was my old ViewSonic GS771. I've had it for at least 10 years and it's been a workhorse. I got my money's worth out of it, but decided it was finally time to get something with a larger screen that would take up less desk space than a CRT. One of my goals was to setup Rohan with the external screen, keyboard, and mouse, and use the laptop with its cover closed.

So, today at Microcenter I picked up an Acer AL2016W 20" widescreen LCD display and a Macally Icekey Mac keyboard.

Initially, I was leaning towards a 20" widescreen ViewSonic, but it was about $100 more than the Acer and I didn't really want to spend the extra money. One of my clients has a similar Acer LCD and it looks nice, so after seeing the display model I decided to give it a chance.

The Acer has DVI and VGA inputs, and comes with cables for both. It's connected to Rohan via DVI. The Mac automatically detected it and set it to the max resolution of 1680x1050. The refresh rate is 60 Hz, which I'm hoping will be OK. Text and graphics look good so far.

The Macally keyboard came with a driver CD for OS 9 and OS 10, but I don't think the driver has been updated for several years. It may not be fully compatible with Leopard. For example, the volume control and eject buttons don't seem to work. If I can't get them working soon I'll return it and get something else. I do like the feel of the keyboard. It's somewhat reminiscent of the G4 iBook keyboard, though the keys take a bit more effort to depress.

While I was at Microcenter I checked out one of the new Apple keyboards, which was connected to an iMac. I hated it. I might be able to get used to it but I think there are better options available for less money.

The mouse I'm using is the same Logitech laser wheel mouse which I had connected to Bagend. I've found that my favorite mice are low-end Logitechs which sell for about $15.

Since Rohan's cover is closed I would like to have an external webcam and mic to use with iChatAV and Skype. I had a Logitech USB webcam connected to Bagend but neither IM program is recognizing it. I'll see if there's a Mac driver available, but I doubt it.

Ubuntu Musings

Last week I setup an old PC (2 GHz P4 with 512 MB RAM) at the office with Kubuntu 7.10. The PC was a Cisco MCS7800 but actually made by IBM.

I've been using it for web surfing on our lab network, mainly keeping Firefox open to my iGoogle and Google Reader pages. I wanted to install Gnome on it aside from KDE and was able to do so, but for some reason the default "human" theme would not load properly, even after I manually reinstalled it.

After much dicking around I decided to reimage the box with Ubuntu 7.10. While it worked better on my hardware than Kubuntu, I still couldn't get video to work like I wanted. The PC has an ATI Rage XL video card and is connected to a ViewSonic VA702b 17" flat panel monitor. I should be able to set screen resolution to 1280x1024 but couldn't get (K)Ubuntu to go higher than 1024x768. Unfortunately, at that resolution the display looks fuzzy.

The other day I finally said to heck with it, and loaded XP Pro on the machine. It went on smoothly, although I did have to manually download and install a driver for the Broadcom NIC. XP didn't properly detect the sound card so it's not working, but that isn't a big deal.

Certainly, I'd rather have some flavor of Linux on the box but I'm not going to waste time trying to get it configured if the hardware isn't easily supported. If it was easily configurable that would be different. I've got the box secured with AVG, a firewall, a hosts file, Spybot Search & Destroy, and run Firefox instead of IE. I don't engage in unsafe Internet usage, so I'm not worried about the box getting rooted.

The productivity apps which I've installed include OpenOffice.org, PuTTY, Cygwin, Pidgin, Core FTP Lite, Foxit Reader (for PDFs) and PDF Creator.

Live Coverage of Oral Arguments in DC v. Heller

Heads up...

Tomorrow, SCOTUSblog will be providing live coverage of the oral arguments in DC v. Heller.

Modern Times

One of the first albums I bought was Modern Times, by Jefferson Starship.  I got it shortly after it came out and wore out the record well before I got out of high school (this was several years before CDs came out).  It's probably been 20 years since I last listened to it, but for some reason it came to mind a couple of weeks ago.  So, I wound up ordering it on CD from Amazon.

Modern Times rocks.  Before Jefferson Starship morphed into Starship and put out crap like "We Build This City," they were a hard rocking band.  Modern Times contains two songs which were hits in '81 - '82: Find Your Way Back and Stranger.  The videos for both songs saw heavy rotation in the early days of MTV, back when they actually played music.

Check it out if you like late '70s/early '80s rock from before the age of hair metal.

Migrating the Parents Over to the Mac

As I posted last week, my parents' PC died last week.  Gondor was a PIII/733 which I built when that chip was right at the sweet spot for price vs. performance.

The day after I used the System Rescue CD to pull their data off the box a coworker informed me that he'd snapped a couple 120 GB WD 2.5" SATA notebook drives at Best Buy for $25 each, and asked me if I wanted one.  Since my folks' MacBook came with an 80 GB disk I took him up on the offer.

I had my father pick up a USB external enclosure at Microcenter for the original disk in the MB, to be used for Time Machine backups.  (I prefer FireWire for external disks since it seems to handle sustained transfers of many small files better than USB 2.0, even though the latter has a higher peak throughput.  But the USB enclosure will suit my parents' needs and was only about $15.)

On Saturday I went over and swapped out the drives, installed Leopard on the new disk, and used the OS 10.5 installer to import all their old data and settings off the original disk.  Once I'd confirmed that the machine was up and running with the new drive, I reformatted the original disk and configured Time Machine to back up to it.  All told, it took me about three hours.

Interesting Info From Last Weekend's Gun Show

Last weekend there was a gun show in Valley Forge.  I didn't go, but a couple friends did.  What they each told me confirmed my belief that people are concerned about a Democrat victory in November, and are stocking up accordingly.

#1 told me that he saw no more than 1,500 rounds total of 7.62x39 ammunition, as used in AKs and SKSes, at the show.  #2 said that he saw exactly three AKs there (all Yugos, two underfolders and one fixed stock).

From the 80s up until a couple of years ago 7.62x39 was as common as dirt and not much more expensive that it.  Supplies have fluctuated as people become concerned that it may not be easily available.  This was especially true in the run-up to the 2006 election when gun owners were worried that the Dems would gain control of Congress.

However, AKs have been plentiful for most of the past 10 years, even during the Assault Weapons Ban.  Since the AWB sunset in 2004, the number and variety of available AKs has increased.  If there were only three at a large gun show it means that people are snapping them up in record number.  I suspect that many folks are buying more than one.  There are two main reasons why this is so:

1. Folks are worried about a Dem president in January 2009 followed by another AWB and are counting on a grandfather clause to allow them to continue possession after a ban is enacted.
2. With the economy in poor shape and apparently getting worse, people are worried about unrest.  An AK -- even the neutered, semiauto-only AKs we can buy in the US -- is a perfect gun for defending the homestead if the SHTF.

Either way, it's an interesting peek into how people are viewing the near future.

Firefox 3 Beta

Today I downloaded and installed on Rohan, my MacBook Pro, the latest beta version of Mozilla Firefox 3.

As expected, a couple themes and extensions weren't compatible. One of the themes was iFox, which makes older version of FF appear more Mac-like. However, the new default FF theme for Macs which is debuting in FF3 is more Mac-like than previous defaults. So, I'll stick with that for the time being.

The extensions I had which don't yet work with FF3 include del.icio.us, DownThemAll, and Linkification. However, AdBlock Plus does work with FF3, which is great.

I'm not sure if it's having fewer extensions or if it's due to better code, but FF3 Beta is faster on Rohan than FF2. I've actually been using Safari 3 for the most part since I upgraded Rohan to Leopard, because it's quite a bit faster at page rendering than FF2, even when it has to display ads.

A neat new feature which I immediately noticed is an entry in the bookmarks bar: "Smart Bookmarks." FF3 automatically adds the bookmarks which you frequently visit to this folder, which makes it quicker to access them. It's not a killer app but it's a nice touch.

I think I'll stick with FF3 for a bit to see how it works. If anything blows up I'll post a followup.

System Rescue CD

Tonight I was glad I have a copy of the System Rescue CD. ("SRCD")

My mother called me tonight to let me know that Gondor, my old P-III/733 that I built about 8 years ago, would not boot. After turning on and displaying the POST messages it displayed a disk read error. (Naturally, she didn't say that "it halted after POSTing.") So, I headed over after dinner.

Sure enough, it wouldn't boot. I'm not sure if the master boot record just got hosed or something worse. The SRCD was able to boot the system and mount both internal hard disks, so it's probably the MBR. The XP install on Gondor is about 4 years old, so if it shit the bed I guess I shouldn't be too surprised.

Earlier this week my father picked up one of the 8 GB USB flash drives Microcenter has for about $30 and had started to copy some of his data to it. Unfortunately, he hadn't yet backed up all his stuff to it, even after all my nudging. I was able to copy over their My Documents folder using Midnight Commander running off the SRCD. (FWIW, the SRCD recognized the first internal disk as sda, the second disk as sdb, and the USB stick as sdc.)

Incidentally, my mom fitted Gondor with a Microsoft Ergonomic keyboard. Aside from hating those things with a passion, it would not work properly with the SRCD. Not all of the function keys worked properly, which made using Midnight Commander near impossible. My work around for this was to login to Gondor via SSH from Rohan, my MacBook Pro.

While the data was copying over, I went online using my Rohan and ordered a NewerTech Universal Drive Adapter from Other World Computing. This will allow me to yank the drives from Gondor, plug them into my laptop or my folks' MacBook, and more easily recover data and run diagnostics on them. (I've been thinking of purchasing one of these for awhile and this gives me an excuse.)

Before leaving I stressed the necessity of copying the contents of the flash drive over to their MacBook, seeing as how easily a thumb drive could get lost. As it is, they will probably have to recreate things like browser bookmarks and email addressbooks.

I'm trying to convince them to dump the PC entirely and migrate over to the MacBook as their primary computer. They can plug in their Sony flat panel monitor to make it easier on their eyes, and use an external mouse and keyboard. Additionally, I want them to upgrade the Mac to Leopard, buy an external hard disk, and use Time Machine so they don't have to think about backups. One less Windows machine for me to maintain would be damn nice.

Busy Weekend

We had a busy weekend. Saturday morning I got myself to the optometrist for the first time in 10 years. Yes, I was way overdue. That said, my eyes have barely changed since the last time I went. I am getting new glasses with the revised prescription, the main benefit of which is that I'll no longer have specs with scratches on the right lens.

Afterwards I went over to client to do some onsite server updates and discuss future needs. We have several things to do in the coming year: upgrade their LAN to a gigabit Ethernet core, replace an aging file server, and possibly install a VPN between two sites. To this we're adding a disk-based backup system to replace the Dell tape loader they're currently using. The problem with tape based backup for them is that it's too slow. They're a custom print shop which deals with a large amount of data in the form of graphic files. They've reached the point where a weekend doesn't contain enough hours to do two sets of full backups, as they want to do. Moving to external hard disks that are swapped out, with one kept offsite, will allow them to do so.

Aside from working, one my aunts was in from NY. It was nice to see her. While she was here we managed to get ahold of my cousin, currently on an assignment with IBM over in Milan, Italy. We chatted for awhile via Skype. It never ceases to amaze me how good the quality usually is, and the fact that it isn't costing me anything to talk to someone on the other side of the planet.

It looks like I'm going to make another Mac convert in the form of my aunt. She wants to get a laptop and I spent some time explaining the benefits of Apple's platform. My cousin is supportive of the idea, since there aren't any Windows-only apps she needs. Of course, what he's really excited about is no longer being her tech support person. Anyway, I will be pricing out a MacBook Pro (she wants a larger screen than the MacBooks) and related accessories for her. We may go up and visit her for a weekend so that I can help move her off her old PC onto the Mac when she gets it.

My First Experience With AppleCare

Since I returned to the Mac platform back at the end of 2004* I have not had the need to call Apple for tech support. However, I noticed recently that the battery life on my 2.16 GHz Macbook Pro, purchased in January 2007, was deteriorating drastically. I can pretty much watch the battery life percentage indicator in the menu bar drop second-by-second. I'm lucky to get an hour and a quarter out of it, and that's with the Bluetooth module and AirPort turned off, and screen dimmed.

Because my MBP is my primary machine, back in December I sprung for the AppleCare extended warranty. While I mostly used the machine while plugged in, I do sometimes need to run it off battery power. So, I called AppleCare on Thursday afternoon. It turned out to be one of the most pleasant experiences I've had with tech support from any vendor.

First, I was greeted by an automated system which asked me a few questions which required a "Yes" or "No" answer. After about a minute on hold I was then forwarded to Colin. It's a sad sign of the times that I was happy to get a native English speaker rather than someone claiming to be "Steve" or "Bob" but who's real name is probably something like "Mujibar."

Anyway, after getting my name and MBP's serial number, Colin walked me through a few troubleshooting steps and decided that I should get a replacement battery. He needed to get a supervisor's override to put in the order, which required me waiting on hold for about 5 minutes. But at the end of the call he confirmed my shipping address and put in the order. I should get the new battery Monday along with a return shipping label for the old battery.

To my surprise, the battery arrived yesterday, one day after my call to Apple.

Note that under the terms of AppleCare, laptop batteries are considered consumables so unless they are defective, Apple isn't obligated to replace them. But based on the reported behavior and information in System Profiler, it wasn't difficult to convince them to replace mine.

It was refreshing to get a competent tech support representative who spoke English well, and not have to throw a fit to get good service. I'm impressed.




* My first Mac was a Mac Plus bought in January 1997, but I primarily used PCs running Windows, Linux, or FreeBSD from 1992 through 2004.

A USB Thumb Drive for Emergencies

Like many people nowadays, my life involves dealing with a lot of data. Especially important items include the many usernames, logins, and account numbers for loans, credit cards, and various websites which I use. I keep a spreadsheet in an encrypted file on my laptop to keep track of them. But what happens if my laptop is stolen, lost, or destroyed?

For awhile I've carried a copy of the spreadsheet along with other important info in encrypted form on a USB flash drive on my keyring. This way, it's always with me even if the SHTF. The drive I've been using has been a Microcenter bulk 1 GB stick, and it's worked just fine.

The prices on USB thumb drives have plummeted over the past year. So, over the weekend I bought an 8 GB USB flash drive at Microcenter. Like my old stick, it's one of their bulk, house-brand units and the cost was only $29.99 + tax.

I keep only the most essential data on the USB stick, and I formatted the stick as FAT32 so that it can be read in any PC or Mac I may need to use. It's organized like so:

Root directory
-A plain text file with contact info, including next of kin and the number for my childrens' daycare.

Documents folder
-Backup of my Safari browser bookmarks
-Backup of my OS X Addressbook
-Backup of my iCal database
-Separate encrypted images for financial data, logins, client data

Installer files folder
-Contains installation files for several Windows programs (AVG Antivirus, Firefox, Foxit PDF reader, Spybot, and the anti-spyware hosts file from MVPS.org)

Mac Portable Apps folder (apps that can run directly from the USB stick when connected to a Mac running OS X)
-Portable Firefox
-Portable AdiumX instant messenger client

Windows Portable Apps folder (apps that can run directly from the USB stick when connected to a Windows PC)
-PuTTy (a telnet and SSH client)
-Portable Firefox
-Pidgin Portable instant messenger client

Over 6 GB are still free.

Running applications from the USB drive is quite a bit slower than from a hard disk, but this isn't for regular use. Since flash memory has a limited number of read/write cycles, and because I don't want potentially sensitive information saved in an unencrypted folder on the thumb drive, I configured both Firefox installations to not cache files locally.

The new thumb drive has replaced my old one in my pocket. It rides on a keyring along with a Victorinox Rambler SAK, a Countycomm.com Peanut Lighter, and a Countycomm.com SO-ARES LED light.

Thoughts on the Election

I was certainly disappointed but not surprised when I read that Thompson dropped out of the 2008 race yesterday. For the first time since I was able to vote, I actually had a candidate who I wanted to vote for, not just vote against. Unfortunately, the candidates left don't include anyone I can give my vote to in good conscience. Who's left?

Republicans:

McCain: Gun grabber. Has used the First Amendment for toilet paper. Pro-amnesty for illegals.

Romney: Has all the trustworthiness of the slimiest used car salesman you can imagine. Unlike Hillary Clinton, he has actually implemented socialized health care and an assault weapons ban.

Huckabee: Jimmah Cahtuh with an "R" after his name. Pro-amnesty for illegals. No offense intended to my Christian friends, but I don't want a preacher for a president (nor would I want a rabbi for a president, either).

Paul: I like his domestic policy agenda but his foreign policy would be a disaster. Shrink the military to 20% of its current size? WTF? Really, WTF?

Ghouliani: Mussolini on the Hudson.

Democrats:

Clinton: Two power-mad socialists who know better than you for the price of one. Gun grabber. Thinks we should look at Africa of all places as a source for inspiration on child rearing.

Obama: An empty suit. "Change." What change? How about something more than platitudes for the people? Gun grabber. Came out of the Chicago Machine, which should scare the crap out of anyone.

Edwards: Stinking rich populist, the epitome of the limousine liberal. Tear down the man. Prettier than Clinton, though.

Kucinich: The mothership is calling and will be here shortly to take you home.

With Thompson out of the race we're left with a bunch of candidates who -- except for Paul -- want to increase the Federal government's role in your daily life and sellout to illegal aliens, who are by definition criminals. Neither side is espousing fiscal responsibility, as we lurch into a recession. Paul and Huckabee are solidly pro-RKBA, but the former's foreign policy is more suitable to 1808 than 2008. He has next to no chance of even getting the nomination anyway. The latter is a tax and spend liberal.

The strongest argument I've read for voting Repbulican is so that a Democrat president doesn't get to appoint Federal judges, including one or two vacancies on the Supreme Court. However, I'm not swayed. Why should a liberal Republican appoint conservative judges? Look at Bush I, who gave us David Souter, for example. Granted, Bush II gave us Alito and Roberts, but hpoing for another Scalia is naive.

Unfortunately, most of the obnoxious legislation that emanates from DC won't even go to the Supreme Court to get the chance to be tossed out. The best we could hope for is a conservative Republican president, not afraid to use his veto power, to provide a check against the crooks in Congress. It ain't happening this time.

I am beginning to believe that the way we found ourselves in this predicament is due largely to the philosophy of voting for the lesser of two evils. We've been forced to do so for so long that we are left with no choice but evil. Even worse, the electorate has been conditioned to seek out those candidates who promise the most largesse from the public trough. We have an ever increasing mass of voters who contribute nothing yet influence policy which ends up being redistributionist. Remind me again why universal suffrage is a good thing?

It looks to me that we're heading for a repeat of the 1970s and the fiasco of the Carter presidency. We got Reagan out of that mess but there was a lot of pain while the Peanut Farmer was in the White House. I can only hope that after the next four years of pain there's enough backlash that we get some true statesmen, not just politicians, as candidates in 2012.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to all my readers.  May 2008 bring you health, wealth, and happiness.

Today was the final day of my vacation.  I got the chance to sleep in a bit, spend time with family and friends, and do some shooting.  I managed to make it to the range on 12/24, 12/27, and 12/30.

On the 30th I participated in the "Red December" practical carbine match at Langhorne Rod and Gun Club.  The theme of the even was a Kalashnikov match.  A couple people showed up in Soviet regalia and a Russian-type lunch of kielbasa and borscht was provided.

The course of fire at the match was:

• 10 shots in 5 double-taps at 25 yards.
• 6 shots fired from 3 magazines with 2 rounds each, requiring two mag changes, at 25 yards.  This stage was timed.
• 10 shots prone at 200 yards.
• 15 shots, 5 each from standing, kneeling, and prone at 100 yards.
• 15 shots, 5 per magazine requiring two mag changes, fired from the muddy 100 yard berm at targets posted at the 200 yard berm.
• Prone 200 yard gongs, maximum of 10 shots to hit all three.
• There was also a "casualty drag" and "Molotov cocktail throw" (water-filled soda bottles).  I didn't participate in this stage because I didn't want to throw out my back.

Results are posted here.  Pictures here.  I placed third amongst the Kalashnikov and SKS shooters, and was the top scoring iron sight shooter.  The guys who took first and second place with AKs both used magnified scopes.  Three AR-15 shooters using magnified optics also scored higher than I did.  Not bad for an "inaccurate AK" and iron sights, if I do say so myself.

I used my Arsenal SLR-101SG, which last week I fitted with an Ace side folding stock, and which has a Mojo peep rear sight.  The ammo I used was Golden Tiger 7.62x39, which shoot pretty well.  Of course, I had no malfunctions.

It was a lot of fun, more fun than I've had at the range in ages.  I hope to make future practical carbine matches at LRGC.

Thumbs Up for LA Computer Company

Because I use my MacBook Pro everyday and plan to keep it for a couple more years, I decided to buy an Applecare Protection Plan for it. An APP can be added to an Apple product either at the time of purchase or within one year of same.

If I bought the APP for the MacBook Pro directly from Apple, the cost would be $349 plus PA's 6% sales tax. My employer has an agreement with Apple so that I can get a discount roughly equivalent to an educational discount, but even that would be $307 plus tax.

In contrast, LA Computer Company sells the same APP for $235, plus about $9 shipping.

I placed my order from LACC on 12/21/07 and it arrived this morning via FedEx Ground. And no worries that the deal is too good to be true, as I was able to register it on Apple's website with no problems.

Mini-14GB and Marlin 336 Range Report

I went out yesterday with my Mini-14GB (pics) and my Marlin 336 (pics), which is pictured earlier in this thread. The GB gave me no end of trouble but the Marlin of course ran like a top. This was my first chance to get it out since putting a Williams Firesight and FP-336 receiver sight combo on it.

The Firesight works really well. It was overcast but the red fiber optic front sight showed up very well. It has a soft glow that makes it more visible than a plain bead.

I ran two kinds of ammo through the gun. First, a couple boxes of Wolf Gold (Prvi Partizan) 150 grain JSP to zero it. Then some Remington 170 grain JSP to verify the zero, because it's my go-to load. I think the Remingtons feed a little more smoothly. Anyway, when I did my part, the rifle will put them all in the 10 ring of an SR-1 target at 100 yards.

One change I made was to remove the Eagle Shooter's Stock Pack shown in the pics. It includes a cheek pad which made getting a proper cheek weld. (I may put it on my FAL if I scope that rifle.)

What a darn fine rifle this Marlin is.

Ruger 10/22 For Defense

Over on THR, a member posted about getting a Ruger 10/22 as his first gun and its suitability for home defense. This is my reply:

A 10/22 is a viable home defense weapon, if not the ideal one.

Keep it simple, don't go crazy accessorizing it if you're going to use it for HD. (Adding accessories can come later once you get something better suited for HD.) There are a few accessories that could be beneficial:

1. A clamp-on weapon light. Most HD situations occur at night and target ID is paramount.

2. Williams Firesight front sight. It's a fiber optic bead that captures ambient light and makes it much more visible. I would avoid a scope or even an inexpensive red dot sight for a defensive gun. A scope's magnification reduces your field of view and slows target acquisition. A cheap red dot make break, the battery may die, or you may forget to turn it on in a SD situation. A peep rear sight coupled with a Firesight bead up front will give you fast target acquisition but good precision as well.

3. RELIABLE 25 round mags. Generally, Ruger 10 rounders are the most reliable but Butler Creek Hot Lips and Steel Lips mags can be very reliable. You'll need to try them in your rifle. Don't rely on any mags until you've put a hundred rounds through them, though.

For SD ammo, avoid the cheap bulk pack stuff. It's often not reliable enough in either functioning the weapon and will have a greater number of duds. My first choice for .22 LR SD ammo would be CCI Mini Mag SOLIDS. .22 LR has marginal penetration so I wouldn't use hollow points. CCI Mini Mag ammo is very high quality. I've shot a lot of it, never had a malfunction in various semiauto .22s, and never had one that was a dud. Mini Mags are more expensive than the bulk packs, so use the latter for practice.