The difference between gunnies and non-gunnies

ASM826 has a post about a gunnie wanting a wheelgun

The line that jumped out at me was this one:

My non shooty friends said "you could get a huge, new TV for that cost!" 

I often make a similar comparison, but the other direction. For instance, I'm currently pricing new tires for the van, and  my first thought on seeing the projected total was "I could buy a new gun for that cost!"

I guess it's all about priorities.

I'm mad too, but for a different reason

JayG goes off on the biased coverage from CNN.

I agree with him mostly, but I'm just as frustrated with Perry.

If we knocked Obama for not having a plan, then shouldn't we be as up in arms at Perry, or Cain, or any other candidate that doesn't have their ideas fleshed out. This is not something you make up as you go along. Even though I don't agree with a lot of it, at least Romney has a plan out there, and has given it thought, and has had a chance to tweak it (whether or not it's what he'll actually do once he's in office is another question entirely).

But for Perry to say "I've only been working on it for 8 weeks" is flabbergasting. How long have you been Governor? I'm sure you've thought about running for President for quite a while. It would be nice if you'd fleshed out your policy positions a bit more during that time.

Gov. Moonbeam sees the light

From an AP article over at Yahoo! Finance:

Gov. Jerry Brown will propose sweeping rollbacks to public employee pension benefits in California, including raising the retirement age to 67 for new employees who are not public safety workers and requiring state and local employees to pay more toward their retirement and health care, according to a draft of the plan obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press.

Color me shocked, but it definitely provides some vindication for the Scott Walkers and John Kasichs of the world.

Outlook Express can compact messages

Every time I reboot my work laptop, I get a message stating "To free up disk space, Outlook Express can compact messages." That's an interesting trick, because I don't even have OE installed on this machine.

At first I assumed it was something in the Run key of the registry, but a quick perusal of the HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run key didn't show anything related to Microsoft Office, Outlook, or Outlook Express. I ran msconfig.exe and checked everything it said was loaded. No joy there either.

Finally, I turned to a Google search, and turned up this thread.

Basically, here's what's going on. When you install Windows Search, it has some default locations that it will index. Those include your "My Documents" folder, Outlook if you have it installed, and Outlook Express (apparently, even if it's NOT installed). But how does Windows Search indexing a non-existent installation of Outlook Express trigger a prompt to compact messages?

Well, each time OE starts or is accessed, it increments a counter that is stored in the registry. Once this counter goes above 100, it prompts the user to compact messages at the next reboot. If the user selects "Yes", the counter is reset. If they don't, it's not, and you get nagged each time.

So, the fix is a two-step process. First, we have to tell Windows Search to stop indexing Outlook Express. To do that, look in your System Tray (the spot at the right edge of your task bar with all those funny icons, next to the clock). There should be a magnifying glass icon down there (you might have to expand your systray to show hidden icons). Right-click on the magnifying glass, and then select Windows Search Options. In the Indexing Options dialog that comes up, you will most likely see two or three entries under "Included Locations". One of these will say something like "Microsoft Outlook Express: Main Identity". That's the culprit. Click the "Modify" button, and in the next dialog box, uncheck "Microsoft Outlook Express" and then click OK. Click "Close" to exit "Indexing Options".

Now, Windows Search will stop accessing Outlook Express, which will stop incrementing that counter. However, you will still get the "compact messages" prompt the next time you reboot. There are two ways to make the message go away. First, just click "Yes" the next time it comes up. Since you're not using Outlook Express, it won't have anything to do, but it will reset the counter back to zero. Alternatively, you can edit the registry entry yourself to reset the counter¹. To reset the counter yourself, run 'regedit' and then go to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Identities key. Under there, you should see one entry that is called a GUID. It's a big long scary looking alpha-numeric value in between curly braces ({}). There should only be one entry under there. Expand that, and then drill down into Software\Microsoft\Outlook Express\5.0. In the 5.0 folder, you should see a key that says "Compact Check Count". Reset this to '0' (zero) and you're all done.

The next time you reboot, you shouldn't get that annoying message.

¹Normal disclaimers apply. Intended for advanced users only. Back up your registry first. If you screw up your computer it's not my fault. If you're not comfortable doing it, take it to a professional.

P.S. - I'm still trying to figure out why the system does the Outlook Express Compact check if OE is not installed. My guess is that some Office service pack did a stealth or partial install of OE, because OE is nowhere to be found in my "Add/Remove Programs" dialog.

Quit stats

One year, four months, three weeks, and one day. 10186 cigarettes not smoked, saving $2,037.35. Life saved: 5 weeks, 8 hours, 50 minutes, according to SilkQuit

QOTD - Top Shot Edition

 Obviously, since Dustin was sent to elimination, there were some misjudgments about skills.


Yeah, I think that about sums it up.

Have car, will travel

Frank Bruni pens an article about the evils of state reciprocity:

Between deciding whether I should wear my sports coat or pack it, if I should go to the local airport or the one an hour away with cheaper fares, and trying to remember if I'd armed the alarm system, I thought I had this business travel thing down pat.

Well, not quite!!! Things could be much worse, especially if I had a vehicle operator's permit in my state, but wanted to drive around in some other state as well.

You see, my state merely requires that I pay a licensing fee and subject myself to the ignomity of proving I'm a resident. They might also require that I've never been convicted of felonious vehicular man slaughter.

Some states are tougher. They have different requirements regarding visual acuity, age, response times and recurring training required for the proper operation of a motor vehicle. Yeah, the rules are different in different states.

Thank the Good Lord Above for the Conveyance Association of Roamers, keeping a keen eye out for any Machiavellian institutions that might try to curtail the free travel rights of Americans.

The C.A.R is pushing a statute, the Diverse Roamers In Vehicles Extolling Reciprocity Act of this year, that would amelioriate the itinerant wanderer's concerns. Should Congress see fit to pass this bill, any state that allows a citizen to move from one place to another, regardless of the certification requirements, would be obligated to allow the citizen of another state to do the EXACT SAME THING, no matter the other state's rules.

Spike T. Wheel, C.A.R.'s chief spokesperson, recently said that the current legal environment "presents a nightmare for interstate travel, as many Americans are subjected to state laws that ignore the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the U.S. Constitution."

Nightmare? That could plausibly apply better to C.A.R, though it's not the first adjective I think of when considering their current agenda.

Contradiction, hypocrisy: those words rush in ahead. The bill thus far has more than 872 Republican co-sponsors in the House, many of them conservatives who otherwise complain about attempts by an overbearing federal government to trample on states’ rights in the realms of health care, tort reform, education — you name it. But to promote interstate travel, they’re encouraging big, bad Washington to trample to its heart’s content.

Imagine how apoplectic they’d be if, on certain other matters, Washington forced their states to yield to others’ values the way this bill, the D.R.I.V.E.R. act, would compel Oklahoma, North Dakota and Florida to honor more vehicle operator regulations from the South and West. As it happens these three states all allow 6-wheeled vehicles, which more conservative states do not have to recognize.

It’s not fair to talk only about Republicans. D.R.I.V.E.R has dozens of Democratic co-sponsors as well, and when Democrats controlled Congress for the first two years of Barack Obama’s presidency, they made no major progress on vehicle control. Reluctant to cross C.A.R., they let it slide.

In 2009, when Harry Reid, the Democratic majority leader in the Senate, was about to enter a tough re-election battle in Nevada, he actually voted in favor of legislation highly similar to D.R.I.V.E.R. It was defeated. That same year President Obama signed a law permitting vehicles in national parks.

The story on the state level has been just as sad over the last few years. Wisconsin recently approved expanded vehicle operator legislation, leaving Illinois the only state in which certain people can’t drive a car. Several states have enacted laws spelling out that cars can in many circumstances be driven to bars.

One was Tennessee, where a state lawmaker who sponsored the legislation, Curry Todd, sometimes drives a vehicle. I know this because he was drving it when Nashville cops pulled him over two weeks ago for drunken driving. They also charged him with operating a vehicle in public while intoxicated. At least that’s still illegal.

New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey and several other states don’t have reciprocity arrangements that allow someone like Todd to drive a vehicle in their state. That’s because New York officials can deny vehicle operator licenses on a case-by-case basis, whereas many other states — South Dakota, for example — don’t put much stock in such scrutiny.

The D.R.I.V.E.R Act, now in the House Judiciary Committee, makes a mockery of our diverse values and strategies for public safety. If it were enacted, off to New York the South Dakotan tourist could go, Mazda RX-7 churning along..

That’s not liberty. More like lunacy.

Oh, wait. He got confused on his deodands.