There are fewer undocumented immigrants in California – and the Sacramento region – because many are now finding the American dream south of the border.Obama economic policy seems to be solving the illegal issue. Although I doubt that was the intention of the Administration. How bad does the American economy have to be that Mexican criminals are fleeing the states because they can make a better living in the third world?
"It's now easier to buy homes on credit, find a job and access higher education in Mexico," Sacramento's Mexican consul general, Carlos González Gutiérrez, said Wednesday. "We have become a middle-class country."
Mexico's unemployment rate is now 4.9 percent, compared with 9.4 percent joblessness in the United States.
An estimated 300,000 undocumented immigrants have left California since 2008, though the remaining 2.6 million still make up 7 percent of the population and 9 percent of the labor force, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.
7/31/2011
Obama Fixes Illegal Immigration
I didn't think it possible but apparently its true. Obama is actually doing something to help fix the illegal immigration problem that has been destroying America. From Stephen Magagnini at the The Sacramento Bee:
WYO TRC
Last weekend I spent my time volunteering as a Range Officer for the Wyoming Tactical Rifle Championship. For those of you who know the WTRC is the son of the International Tactical Rifle Championship. What happened was the guy who ran the ITRC left the state and went to Arizona. Which meant that no one was running the competition. So a couple of guys in the industry put together a shoot on the same ranch with the same shooting concept.
I wasn't able to shoot this comp for the very good reason that I didn't have number 1 a team mate and number 2 $600 for the entrance fee. That and shooting with a group of Mil Spec and LEO's can seem intimidating. But after about 4 years of guys asking me to go I decided to offer my services as an RO.
As it turns out I enjoyed myself a great deal. I got to score the team that won on one of the 3 legs of the shoot. Talk about great shooting! These guys did very well and deserved the win. I also got to score for the team that came in dead last. I don't think I'm supposed to tell what everyone does for a living but last place belonged to the US ARMY. I also got to score for a team that came in, in the middle. Three days, three teams and three skill levels for the shooters. The number one thing that made the difference between the middle of the pack and the tail end was the mental side of the game. The guys who came in last just couldn't stop shooting at the targets.
The way the game is played is that there is a long range and a carbine shooter. Each shooter has a number of targets they have to engage at each station and each target has to be engaged twice. You get 20 points for a hit and 20 points for a miss with a 40 point deduction if you fail to engage a target. If you hit a target two times you score 40 points if you miss two times you get negative 40 points. If you miss twice and then hit it twice you score zero points. The guys who lost weren't bad shooters they just couldn't stop shooting after their two misses.
Like most things in life a winning mind set is in your head. I doubt that I'll be in good enough shape to run the course next year as a shooter. But if I was able to compete I wouldn't come in last. Which is comforting considering the level of shooters I saw.
Since this competition is aimed at guys who do this for a living, the sponsors tend to be upper crust of the industry. As a RO I happened to be in the right place at the right time and was allowed to play with some suppressed class III toys. Which is always a lot of fun, even better someone else (a manufacture) supplied the ammo.
I wasn't able to shoot this comp for the very good reason that I didn't have number 1 a team mate and number 2 $600 for the entrance fee. That and shooting with a group of Mil Spec and LEO's can seem intimidating. But after about 4 years of guys asking me to go I decided to offer my services as an RO.
As it turns out I enjoyed myself a great deal. I got to score the team that won on one of the 3 legs of the shoot. Talk about great shooting! These guys did very well and deserved the win. I also got to score for the team that came in dead last. I don't think I'm supposed to tell what everyone does for a living but last place belonged to the US ARMY. I also got to score for a team that came in, in the middle. Three days, three teams and three skill levels for the shooters. The number one thing that made the difference between the middle of the pack and the tail end was the mental side of the game. The guys who came in last just couldn't stop shooting at the targets.
The way the game is played is that there is a long range and a carbine shooter. Each shooter has a number of targets they have to engage at each station and each target has to be engaged twice. You get 20 points for a hit and 20 points for a miss with a 40 point deduction if you fail to engage a target. If you hit a target two times you score 40 points if you miss two times you get negative 40 points. If you miss twice and then hit it twice you score zero points. The guys who lost weren't bad shooters they just couldn't stop shooting after their two misses.
Like most things in life a winning mind set is in your head. I doubt that I'll be in good enough shape to run the course next year as a shooter. But if I was able to compete I wouldn't come in last. Which is comforting considering the level of shooters I saw.
Since this competition is aimed at guys who do this for a living, the sponsors tend to be upper crust of the industry. As a RO I happened to be in the right place at the right time and was allowed to play with some suppressed class III toys. Which is always a lot of fun, even better someone else (a manufacture) supplied the ammo.
7/16/2011
The Three "P"'s
Libertarians confuse me to a degree. I understand the basics of the philosophy, which amounts to live and let live with minimal governmental involvement. All of which I'm OK with. What I'm confused about is the strategy for implementing the philosophy as a basis for government.
Libertarians like to promote the three "P"'s. Now I know the first thing some of the more intellectual of the group will say is they also promote honest money and limited government and no public debt etc. All of which I will readily admit to be true and I'm ready to get on that bandwagon. Except that isn't what the guys I meet on the street are pushing. They're all about the Three "P"'s. For the uninitiated those are: Pot, Porn and Prostitution. Pot of course is a catch all for unlimited drug use and the other two are what they are. Now the Libertarian will quickly point out that it is the government that needs to butt out and that society would provide the necessary constraints to limit the use of the "P"'s in the world.
In Libertarian theory anyone would be able to discriminate against anyone else on the basis of any criteria that they chose. So an employer could drug test and not hire someone who does pot, or tobacco etc. Thus social mores would control most peoples behavior.
Rather than promote the philosophy on the intellectual merits of personal political freedom and limited federal law, the Libertarian activities I seem to meet all fit a specific mold that I think most Americans find less than attractive. Like the guy who accosted me out side of the store today promoting Ron Paul as the answer to making Pot legal. I believe a Ron Paul presidency would be a great answer to some of Americas ills but making it legit to get high isn't my first priority. In fact that issue doesn't make my list at all.
The limited government crowd needs a better mascot than the Potheads of Wal-Mart.
Libertarians like to promote the three "P"'s. Now I know the first thing some of the more intellectual of the group will say is they also promote honest money and limited government and no public debt etc. All of which I will readily admit to be true and I'm ready to get on that bandwagon. Except that isn't what the guys I meet on the street are pushing. They're all about the Three "P"'s. For the uninitiated those are: Pot, Porn and Prostitution. Pot of course is a catch all for unlimited drug use and the other two are what they are. Now the Libertarian will quickly point out that it is the government that needs to butt out and that society would provide the necessary constraints to limit the use of the "P"'s in the world.
In Libertarian theory anyone would be able to discriminate against anyone else on the basis of any criteria that they chose. So an employer could drug test and not hire someone who does pot, or tobacco etc. Thus social mores would control most peoples behavior.
Rather than promote the philosophy on the intellectual merits of personal political freedom and limited federal law, the Libertarian activities I seem to meet all fit a specific mold that I think most Americans find less than attractive. Like the guy who accosted me out side of the store today promoting Ron Paul as the answer to making Pot legal. I believe a Ron Paul presidency would be a great answer to some of Americas ills but making it legit to get high isn't my first priority. In fact that issue doesn't make my list at all.
The limited government crowd needs a better mascot than the Potheads of Wal-Mart.
7/13/2011
VBS
I don't know if you went to VBS as a kid. I did. and I have started taking my kids. We just finished up tonight and for the most part my younguns did ok. They all ready want to go again next year so I'll count the combination of behaved properly and want to go back as a parenting win.
7/02/2011
Too Fast
I remember being a little boy and not wanting to wait to grow up. All the good things in life that I could imagine existed in the realm of "big kids". Latter all that was good an grand belonged to those who could drive. Then I was 18 and an official adult. I could vote. I could join the military, although I never did. The last magic age was 21, when I got there it was anticlimactic. I had been drinking in bars since I was 16. Now that I was legal there was no element of rebellion in what I was doing and with that, the thrill was gone. I suppose the last great frontier to cross was marriage. Which I did. We were married for a number of years before having kids and I had begun to assume that we would be childless.
Then we had a little boy and a couple of years latter a little girl. Compared to the first half of my life, the second half is speeding by. This last week we, and by we I mean Mrs. Ipsa, began potty training our youngest. It seems that little girls prefer their mommy to help wipe that part of their body. Little Ms has long preferred her mom to take care of the "poopies". In retrospect that may be one of the reasons I love her so. Today being a Saturday I was home at nap time. So we went trough the whole potty time before nap time routine with little Ms. She seemed less than pleased that daddy was part of the process. Then to heap insult on to injury mommy informed her that daddy would put her down for her nap. She resisted long and hard and only the exceptional cunning of daddy carried the day and she slipped off to sleep.
I crept from her room and went to check in on Res Jr. He should have been fast asleep but he was playing on the floor with his cars and planes. As I walked in he turned and looked up at me. With a big smile on his little face he said, "I'm waiting for you daddy". We crawled up into his bed and he hugged me tight. "Rub my back daddy" he requested. As I did he closed his eyes and mumbled "I love taking a nap with you". We snuggled and soon he was asleep. I waited a little and slipped out of the bed and back downstairs.
Soon little Ms will go potty by herself and my son won't want a back-rub at nap time. Then there will be no more nap time and the hugs will be fewer. I will get scolded by both my wife and my daughter for wearing the universal uniform of fathers everywhere, shorts, back shoes and white socks. Dammit, kids in diapers went by too fast. No matter what my son says, he is not waiting for me, he is growing up 60 minutes an hour, 24 hours a day, every day. Everything I wanted to be be big for came to slow. Now its all going by too fast.
Then we had a little boy and a couple of years latter a little girl. Compared to the first half of my life, the second half is speeding by. This last week we, and by we I mean Mrs. Ipsa, began potty training our youngest. It seems that little girls prefer their mommy to help wipe that part of their body. Little Ms has long preferred her mom to take care of the "poopies". In retrospect that may be one of the reasons I love her so. Today being a Saturday I was home at nap time. So we went trough the whole potty time before nap time routine with little Ms. She seemed less than pleased that daddy was part of the process. Then to heap insult on to injury mommy informed her that daddy would put her down for her nap. She resisted long and hard and only the exceptional cunning of daddy carried the day and she slipped off to sleep.
I crept from her room and went to check in on Res Jr. He should have been fast asleep but he was playing on the floor with his cars and planes. As I walked in he turned and looked up at me. With a big smile on his little face he said, "I'm waiting for you daddy". We crawled up into his bed and he hugged me tight. "Rub my back daddy" he requested. As I did he closed his eyes and mumbled "I love taking a nap with you". We snuggled and soon he was asleep. I waited a little and slipped out of the bed and back downstairs.
Soon little Ms will go potty by herself and my son won't want a back-rub at nap time. Then there will be no more nap time and the hugs will be fewer. I will get scolded by both my wife and my daughter for wearing the universal uniform of fathers everywhere, shorts, back shoes and white socks. Dammit, kids in diapers went by too fast. No matter what my son says, he is not waiting for me, he is growing up 60 minutes an hour, 24 hours a day, every day. Everything I wanted to be be big for came to slow. Now its all going by too fast.
Sundance
Last weekend was the annual Cold Turkey 1,000 yard handgun shoot in Sundance Wyoming. I went. I shot. I was soundly beaten. I had hopped to have better news to post. After all, this year was my first year with corporate sponsorship. I wanted to come home with at least a couple of first place prizes and maybe pick up a couple more sponsors.
Here is the story of those of you who care. Other people did a much better job of preping and shooting than I did. Sure I've got a couple of alibi's I could share, but frankly some of the guys who showed up this year came to shoot and they did very well. If I was on my "A" game I would have done better and been much more competitive than I was. As they say, "would of, should of, could of, never got me stuff". Truth is that I'm very proud of the job some of the guys did, they really worked hard to prefect their equipment, loads and technique and they deserved to beat those of us who didn't put in the same amount of work they did.
I'm all ready working (much harder btw) on next year.
Here is the story of those of you who care. Other people did a much better job of preping and shooting than I did. Sure I've got a couple of alibi's I could share, but frankly some of the guys who showed up this year came to shoot and they did very well. If I was on my "A" game I would have done better and been much more competitive than I was. As they say, "would of, should of, could of, never got me stuff". Truth is that I'm very proud of the job some of the guys did, they really worked hard to prefect their equipment, loads and technique and they deserved to beat those of us who didn't put in the same amount of work they did.
I'm all ready working (much harder btw) on next year.
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