Sebastian – Page 1478 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Stuff Yer Face – I Am So There

Tyler Cowen gives us a snippet from Benjamin Barber’s New Book “Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole“:

There is actually [sic] a restaurant in New Jersey called Stuff Yer Face, and fast food generally is about stuffing your face: about nutrition, fueling up, taking in the calories, food as instrumentality, eaters as mere animals responding to biological imperatives.

I’m maybe 50 minutes away from New Brunswick. I think I will make it a point to go there so I can be infantalzed and swallowed whole. Their website has corrupted me into thinking their strombolis sound rather appetizing. I think washing it down with a beer, chosen from their large selection, is most definitely feeling like a biological imperative as well.

Thanks for the tip, Benjamin Barber. I’m always looking for new and fun places to eat. Stop by if you like.Â I’ll buy you a beer.Â Then explain to you the many ways you can go to hell for having the audacity to and gall to presume that your fellow citizens are nothing but a bunch of infants who can’t make rational decisions for themselves.

The Pesky Thing Called Physics

The gun blogosphere is pretty quiet today, so I thought I’d take some time to take a look at a new technology. While I’m a gun blogger normally, by training and profession I’m an engineer, so this will be a rare occasion when I get to use that skill in the blogosphere.

Instapundit points to a technology that claims to be able to make hydrogen from magnesium and water. This is interesting, but I consider this another example of a company cashing in on the alternate fuel craze. The big reason not to get excited about this is the second law of thermodynamics will always demand that you lose. You will need to put more energy into cleaving the water molecule into hydrogen and oxygen that you will ever get back from putting it back together either by burning it in a conventional internal combustion (IC) engine or fuel cell. In short, this system is essentially turning magnesium into an energy source, with hydrogen as an intermediary, to be turned into a usable form of energy in a fuel cell or IC engine. Interesting idea, but is magnesium cheap enough and sufficiently energy dense to be a practical motor fuel?

Magnesium seems to cost about $2.75 per kilogram. A kilogram of magnesium contains about 24.7 megajoules of energy. To compare to gasoline, we really need to measure energy by volume, which is 43 megajoules for a liter of of magnesium, compared to 34.6 megajoules for a liter of gasoline. Magnesium wins on energy density!

A liter of magnesium has a mass of 1.74 kilograms, and a cost of $4.79 based on recent pricing. It would take 1.24 liters of gasoline to have the same amount of energy that’s in a liter of magnesium. Gasoline in my area is about $2.60 a gallon, which comes out to about 69 cents per liter. Therefore the energy equivalent for gasoline comes out to cost 86 cents, compared to magnesium’s $4.79. So magnesium costs about five and a half times what gasoline does if you use equivalent energy.! If you do the unit conversions, to get the same amount of energy that’s in a gallon of gas, it would cost you $14.48. A little pricey for driving the kids to soccer practice, wouldn’t you say?

Also consider this is based on the current price of magnesium. No doubt common use of magnesium as a motor fuel would drive the price through the roof. Magnesium mining also requires energy, and is not exactly environmentally friendly.

So unless Ecotality has found a way to get around the second law of thermodynamics, this technology is a dead end. I’m sure the government would gleefully throw lots of grants (tax dollars) in their direction, but I certainly wouldn’t invest.

My source material was largely this Wikipedia article on energy density, plus a little Googling for prices. Someone go ahead and check my math if you want.

UPDATE: Glenn updated the article with a bit from a chemist who reveals where the energy is going in the process; making the elemental magnesium in the first place, and then recycling the oxides back into free metal.Â If you submerge magnesium in water, it will react with the water as a matter of course, releasing hydrogen. Â Didn’t know that.Â My background isn’t in chemistry. Â But the physics still says you lose.

Rick Perry Signs No Duty to Retreat

Rick Perry has signed the no duty to retreat into law.Â Texas is already one of the more friendly jurisdictions to lawful self-defense, and it just got friendlier.Â Expect hysterical predictions from the media and gun control groups that will never come true.

Haven’t Forgotten

I still have some Sheriffs to contact in the state to see whether they would release license information.Â They only answer the phone during the day, and I have to work during the day.Â Â Believe it or not, it’s easier to get on to make the quick post or comment than it is to get on the phone and call someone.Â I wish all the Sheriffs had e-mail addresses, because I find that easy, but that doesn’t appear to be the case.Â Kudos to Chester County Sheriff for being the only Sheriff’s Office in the area who appear to be living in the 21st century with the rest of us.

For some reason I find having to make a phone call during the day to be a lot more distracting to my work than computer related communication.Â Anyone else feel that way too?

Careful Throwing The ‘E’ Word Around

Despite the fact that I don’t look too highly on legislators placing themselves above the laws that apply to the rest of us, from Instapundit:

I agree that he seems to have broken the law. But it’s within a prosecutor’s discretion not to prosecute, and cases of inadvertence like this are often dropped — and should be. (It’s not clear that Thompson even knew the gun was in the bag.) Reader Larry Boykin thinks I’m an elitist (“So, it’s alright to have one set of laws for the common man and another set of laws for the ‘elite’? That’s what you are advocating if you believe that charges should be dropped. “) but I think that charges should be dropped for anyone in these circumstances. Would they be? Well, I don’t know. I know of some similar cases where ordinary people weren’t charged — but it’s true that they weren’t at the U.S. Capitol. If charges are dropped here under public scrutiny, of course, that’ll be an argument for treating ordinary people in similar circumstances similarly in the future.

I don’t think Glenn is an elitist. I agree that prosecutors should use discretion in cases like this, and I wouldn’t want to see anyone get the book thrown at them under similar circumstances, even if they were in Congress or were a staffer, just because they made an unknowing mistake (and who would knowingly put a briefcase on an x-ray machine if they knew they had a gun inside?).

I have no problem with shaming Jim Webb or his staffer for what appears to be carelessness. I have no problem with frowning on, or speaking out against politicians who carry guns in places the rest of us can’t, because they can get away with it, while we can’t.

But I can’t ignore the fact that I believe Washington D.C.’s gun laws are unconstitutional. I don’t want to see anyone prosecuted for a law that shouldn’t be on the books, whether they are an ordinary Joe, or whether they are Jim Webb. The constitution protects all of us, even politicians.

If we don’t like the idea of politicians flouting even unconstitutional laws that apply to the rest of us, and believe me, I don’t, we can remedy that at the voting booth.

UPDATE: Eugene Volokh suggests that Webb’s aide should not be charged because he may be flat out not guilty.

Representative Paul Clymer – Gambling Nazi

State Representative Paul Clymer, who wants to be everyone’s mom and dad, whether you asked for it or not, seems to have other pet issues that involve treating responsible adults in our Commonwealth like well cared for children:

Although Governor Rendell has signed legislation legalizing 61,000 slot machines in Pennsylvania, Clymer continues to lead an anti-gambling coalition in the Commonwealth. Made up of legislators, church, community and pro-family groups, the coalition seeks to have some oversight on casino gambling and is also working to repeal the gambling bill.

This is from his very own web site. OK folks, pay attention, because this will be one of those rare moments when I have something nice to say about Governor Rendell: he was right to loosen restrictions on gambling in Pennsylvania, not because they will pay for all the programs he wanted, or because they’ll pay for property tax relief. It’s clear now he was full of crap on that count. No, Governor Rendell was right to loosen restrictions on gambling because there’s no good reason for adults to be told how they can and can’t spend their own money. If the state can tax it and regulate it, why the hell not? Any extra money flowing into the treasury is welcome, and if people have a good time doing it, it’s a win win situation.

Representative Clymer should spend less time fighting Ed Rendell about how grown adults choose to spend their money and spend more time fighting Ed Rendell on his rampant tax and spend policies, his support for gun control, and support for a massive health care overhaul that will be damaging to businesses in the Commonwealth.

Add State Representative Paul Clymer…

… to the list of Pennsylvania politicians who can go to hell. Why?

A bill introduced last week in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives would mandate that every car sold in the state be equipped with a breath testing device. State Representative Paul I. Clymer (R-Bucks County) insists that every motorist must prove that he is not drunk before starting a vehicle. Clymer’s proposal would require that, by 2009, all new cars sold in Pennsylvania have a device installed to estimate the amount of alcohol on the breath of a driver. If the machine believes the driver’s BAC is greater than .025 percent â€” significantly less than the legal limit of .08 percent â€” the car will not start.

So does that mean that Paul Clymer will give me a ride to work or pick me up on days when the interlock device decides to read a false positive, as they are prone to do sometimes? Paul Clymer obviously has no respect for the citizens of this Commonwealth, as he apparently believes we are all, even those of us who are responsible drinkers, or who don’t drink, such a risk to become drunk drivers that we have to be parented over by the state.

If Pennsylvania wants to retain educated young professionals, which everyone keeps saying we’re doing a sorry job of these days, then they need to make this bill die a very quick death, because it’s so bad, I’d likely leave the state over it, and go to a place like Arizona that treats people more like adults. If you live in Representative Clymer’s district, I urge you to vote against him in the next election, or if you’re a Republican, unseat him in the primaries. You deserve better representation than this.

Hat Tip: Nobody’s Business

Selling Deception (Again)

Clayton Cramer does an excellent job tearing apart Brady Campaign President Paul Helmke’s latest statements against state pushing parking lot carry at work. I know I’ve come out against this bill for other reasons, but the Brady Campaign are still completely full of crap:

“This is not about personal freedom – getting shot in the workplace by someone who has retrieved a gun from the parking lot is the opposite of freedom,” said Paul Helmke, President of the Brady Campaign. “This is about preserving the ability of companies to make workplaces as safe as they can be, and free from gun violence.”

If I’m the kind of person who is going to go out to the car to get a gun to shoot someone, I’m not the kind of person who is going to give a crap about some HR policy. When are the Brady Campaign going to realize that rules and laws don’t stop these kinds of people? There is no policy that a company can make that will stop a employee who is intent on murder, save not hiring people with criminal histories in the first place.

While I don’t agree that employers should be forced to keep employees because they won’t respect the terms under which the employer agrees to continue their relationship, I absolutely agree that any HR department that thinks a no weapons policy does anything to stop workplace violence are as delusional as Paul Helmke.

Be sure to read Clayton’s entire post. It’s pretty good.

Windex Is Better

I’ve always heard for shooting corrosive ammo, the best thing to use for cleaning is soap and water. Straightarrow suggested ammonia solutions. Others have suggested Windex. After shooting the AK-74 in Texas, I tried Windex, and had no rust spots on the firearm. A few days ago I tried soapy water, and found the results to be less than pleasing, with rust splotches on the flash hider and in the gas tube. Windex would seem to win hands down.

But I doubt Windex is effective because of the ammonia. I think it has more to do with the fact that Windex has much more effective surfactants in it than plain soapy water. The ammonia is immaterial, other than its power as a detergent, which can be explained by the chemistry in the primers.

Corrosive primers contain mercury fulminate, which is strike sensitive, and an amalgam of potassium chlorate as an oxidizing agent, and rosin as a binding agent and fuel. The mercury fulminate gets the reaction going when the primer is struck by the firing pin, and gets hammered against the “anvil”. The potassium chlorate and rosin begin reacting violently to create a jet of hot, burning gas which then ignites the main powder charge. The problem with this reaction is that one of the byproducts is potassium chloride, which ends up on metal surfaces and attracts moisture, which quickly starts the corrosion process. The purpose of using warm water is to dissolve the potassium chloride, and wash it off of the gun. I suspect Windex works well because it has surfactants that will dig into the powder residue, get to the surfaces, and help wash away more of the potassium salt.

Another by product of of the primer reaction is elemental mercury, which can form amalgams with brass. If you ever wondered why the Soviets use steel cased ammo, this is one of the reasons. Over time, mercuric primers can leech enough mercury into the casing to weaken the brass, increasing the risk of rupture when it’s fires. Using steel casings minimizes this risk, even with very old ammunition.

Modern non-corrosive primers use lead syphnate, which doesn’t leave moisture attracting salts. The lead syphnate is bound up with ground glass as a frictionator, tetracene as a sensitizer, along with an oxidizing compound, typically barium nitrate, and a fuel source, such as antimony sulfide.

Non-corrosive primers are more prone to degradation than corrosive primers, in large part because tetracene makes the primer a lot more heat sensitive. There have been a lot of advancements in primer technology lately, particularly with non-toxic primers, and I won’t pretend to be an expert on this.

But I will say that Windex is definitely your friend if you shoot corrosive primed surplus ammunition out of your firearms. It seems to get the job done better than soapy water.

The Tangled Webb

The Jim Webb stuff is getting interesting just as I have to concentrate on stuff at work. Instapundit and SayUncle are on top of it. I agree that Webb should get on the repeal DC gun ban issue pronto. Some reciprocity would be nice too.

UPDATE: Should have been more clear.Â I don’t actually want Congress to derail Parker by repealing the ban either.Â I would like Senator Webb to acknowledge that the ban is an injustice to ordinary citizens and that he is against it, or something along those lines.