dawgdoc

By the way, you have to really hate someone to commit suicide just to turn into a walker in the hopes of getting a bite or two in before getting head shot.  In her case, she could be reasonably sure that she wouldn't be trapped as walker for eternity, though.

  She had scissors near her one remaining hand; I think she cut her own throat, but I'm not sure.

  I lived in Richmond Hill, and my father-in-law was at Hunter for a time before being transferred to Ft. Stewart.   As for other legislative goals, removing the signs law would be ideal, but if I were to have a reachable goal, it would be college campus carry.  It makes no sense at all why we ask people to risk their lives fighting the Taliban, and then tell them they can't be trusted to defend themselves because they cross a magic boundary.  I think many legislators automatically think of hard-partying frat boys (age 18-20) when you talk about campus carry, and ignore the thousands of "non-traditional" students who attend classes, sometimes at night in crappy parts of town, and are the ones who actually have the HCP.

    Works in Georgia this way.  Try to appeal to the legislator's state pride--anything Georgia can do, we can better type of stuff.  I just picked up my new Mini 14 last week with just my Georgia Weapons Carry License, which was fortunate because they were experiencing long waits on the background checks that day.   Since I spend a lot of time in Chattanooga and East Ridge, I would like to see the authority to ban guns in parks stripped from the local governments (which is how it is in Georgia; same argument as above).  A snarky person might ask, "Well Georgia likes to lose to Florida, but that doesn't mean we should too." (not applicable this year).

They need to show the point of view of Daryl and Carol as they follow the car--as in the pucker moment when they realize they have to go back into Atlanta.   I wonder if the cops just happened to discover Beth outside the funeral home, or were they really staking it out?  According to the story, the cop said they found Beth fighting off a walker in the middle of the road.  The funeral home was so well-stocked, you would think they would have taken the food if they knew about it.  Or maybe it was stocked as a bug out location in case the hospital got bad.  That one cop looked a little big for someone eating greens and guinea pigs.   For those of you wondering what to do if Direct TV drops The Walking Dead:  I don't have cable, so I buy each episode for $1.99 from Amazon Instant Video.  I got up at 6:15 am this morning to eat, shower, get ready, and then watched the show before going to work.  The episodes become available sometime in the early morning after each one airs.

There is Zoo Atlanta and the Georgia Aquarium.  The Aquarium goes to great lengths to keep out guns and other weapons.  The Zoo, courtesy of HB60, now has to allow licensed carry on their premises.   Personally, I think the only thing the Georgia Aquarium has going for it is the whale sharks, which you can't see anywhere else in America.  I thought it was cool when I went there after hours (for free) to an event, but I would probably not pay to go back (costs too much).   Atlanta (as in, the general area and its people, not necessarily just the government) has an inferiority complex, and tries to out do other places because of it.  Examples:  the Olympics (criticized for excessive commercialism and a weird mascot).   Also, the Aquarium (as in, Hey!  We're landlocked! Let's put in a giant saltwater aquarium to outshine all those other aquariums!  We'll have whale sharks and beluga whales.  Meanwhile, two whale sharks and two belugas die.  Also, they've decided to "spice up" the Aquarium with a theatrical dolphin show, you know, just because).  

  Why, you've got Turner Field, the Coca-Cola bottling plant, the, uh, the airport.  (Futurama reference from one of my favorite episodes).   Seriously, reading through the Atlanta tourism guides are heart breaking.  The stuff they focus on as "attractions" are laughable.  I was born there, and I thought I would never want to leave when I was a kid, but now I look at it as giant obstacle on my way to other places.  There are few cool things that you can only see in the Atlanta area, like Stone Mountain or Walking Dead filming locations.  I once heard it described as an island of civilization in a sea of rednecks, but I would rather be in the sea now.

I noticed in the mailer they sent Thursday that they now sell ammo online.  When I went to the website, it seemed like the categories were different; I think they used to lump all gun stuff under hunting.  Maybe they were right in the middle of the change in the website when you were there.

There is probably more than a little satisfaction in seeing Rahm's signature on that check.

Oh Shoot, does the vertical foregrip change the classification of that AR pistol?  I thought I had a handle on what makes an AR gun a pistol vs a rifle vs any other weapon, but now I am confused.

Bob was under water for a few seconds, long enough to be bit without anyone seeing.  How else to explain his turn from sunny optimist to crying alone?  My theory on the bites is that a toxin (toxic bacteria) is transmitted through the bites, and it kills you, but there is something else (walker germ) that re-animates the corpse.  So far, being bitten is really no different than dying from any other disease--you die, then you rise.   So if Bob is bitten, and the cannibals keep him alive, then the toxin could spread through his body and contaminate his meat.  "Bob taint" instead of "Boar taint."  So eating human flesh infected with the walker germ doesn't affect the cannibals, but eating human flesh contaminated with a toxin (whether walker saliva toxin or antifreeze or whatever) will spell trouble for the cannibals.  I predict that the cannibals have been studiously avoiding eating flesh bitten by walkers, and when (or if) they find out Bob has been bitten, they will think (and may be right) that it is a death sentence.  Perhaps there will be a scene when they go to cut his other leg off and they find a bite mark, and Bob gets to rub it in their faces before dying.   Reminds me about a joke in which Indians give a last meal to an Englishman, a Frenchman, and an American before killing them and skinning them to make canoes out of their flesh.  The Englishman asks for tea and says, "God save the King," before being executed and skinned in front of the other two.  The Frenchman asks for wine and says, "Viva la France," before the same thing happens.  The American only asks for a fork.  Then, while stabbing himself repeatedly, he yells, "So much for your effing canoe!"

  The doctor on ABC said that confirms the idea that the patient is spewing less virus particles early on but produces the most virus right before death.  It makes sense that death is preceded by the virus replicating like mad--either because the immune response to all that virus ends up killing you, or the virus is programmed to have a replication spurt as a last gasp, so to speak, before the host dies.  His point seemed to be that all those people on the airplane with the nurse should not have to worry (as much).  The unspoken part was that the healthcare providers, who were already at a greater risk relative to the average person an Ebola patient contacts, have even more to worry about.  If they could peg down the exact life cycle, then they could formulate more rational quarantine and monitoring plans.    Some viruses, such as rabies, are only transmitted the last week of life before an animal dies, whereas others start being shed early on.  Each virus is different.  They talk about Ebola being an inefficient virus in humans because ideally the host should survive and transmit the virus continuously, but Ebola "burns itself out" by killing people before they can transmit the maximum amount of virus.  So the death spiral/last gasp theory sounds like what an inefficient virus would do.

  The city of Atlanta would like to think that state pre-emption doesn't apply to them when it came to the airport (they lost that one), special events in Centennial Olympic park, the zoo, etc.  After HB60 was passed, the mayor wanted to put in screened security at every city-owned building such as recreation centers in order to keep out lawful carriers.  I'm sure the attitude bleeds over into the private businesses.  Also, those businesses might be legitimately afraid of the unlawful carriers who probably frequent those areas, although why a gang banger would want to go to the World of Coke is beyond me.   If I had a car with a license plate that was out of state (or even a Georgia tag from outside the metro area) along with pro-gun stickers, I would be very hesitant to park it anywhere in that area because the criminals might correctly guess the high likelihood of a gun being found inside.

I was looking at the PVC rainsuits in Wal-Mart the other day and wondering if they would be an alternative to Tyvek suits.  Ideally you wouldn't want to reuse anything, but realistically we can't all have a ton of disposable stuff.  You could shower in bleach with a rain suit on.  Lowe's has chemistry-lab goggles for $3 (the kind that seal around your eyes).  I also notice that they had chemical face shields that look like the type they have in the hospitals (not that those worked out too good for the two nurses).   I worry about either having to self quarantine because things get bad like in "Contagion," or worse, someone in my family getting infected after all the hospital resources have been exhausted.  Right now, if you get Ebola, you'll get sent to Emory or the NIH.  When you get infected half-way through an outbreak, you might be lucky to be treated in a tent on the lawn of the National Guard Armory.   I'd be real interested in what they have learned about treating Ebola, other than serum from an Ebola survivor seems to help.  Is it simple supportive care like IV fluids that can make the difference in survival in the US vs Africa, or is it a lot more complicated?  Nurse Pham didn't look too bad on the video they showed the other day.   Also, if it came to an expected period of long-self quarantine, I would first use the food that gives off the most odor when cooking, and save the freeze-dried stuff and cans for later when there might be more "mouths with feet" wandering around.     On a whim one day, I made a solar cooker using one of those reflective auto windshield shades just to see if we could cook without any fuel at all.  The water got real hot.  I also made a rocket stove using a large popcorn tin.

    5 different factory mags, with brass ammo, and no modifications.  The first time it started having failure to extract issues was approximately 2 months after I bought it.  I got it back the day Sandy Hook happened, so I ended up not shooting it much for the next year.  Just started shooting again in earnest, and I was having a 10% jamming rate (mostly FTE, but a few stovepipes).  Sent it back again (they replaced the bolt a second time), and the jamming rate had decreased to 5%.  Now they are sending me a replacement.  I specifically bought a Mini-14 because of the reputation for reliability.  A Google search turns up several people with 582 series with the same problem.  I hope they have fixed whatever problem has been the newer ones.   So all that means that I'm glad they have good customer service, but I'm wondering if their manufacturing has developed problems.

I have sent them the same Mini 14 three times in the last 2 years (bought in October 2012), each time at no cost to me, for a jamming problem.  Unfortunately, they have not fixed the problem, and now they will be sending me a replacement.  Also, it will take 4 weeks before they have one to send.  So yay to the customer service, but I'm a little worried if the replacement will have the same problem.   They are definitely quick to try to fix the problem (didn't try to yank me around, question if the problem actually existed, etc.), but they just haven't been able to actually fix it.

  Anyone who has played Resident Evil knows that the only thing worse than a zombie is a zombie on fire.  They're always setting off explosive barrels and such.

I had heard that the Georgia Aquarium used metal detectors, but I didn't know they had a place to store guns.  The people I know apparently went back to their cars.  The locker solution is relatively reasonable.  I assume that they are pretty paranoid about anything metal being used to scratch of break the glass (although they let in the Ghost Hunters that one time).   I wish more places that can functionally prohibit guns (whereby using metal detectors or the law) had such a system.

I assumed AKs were easier to convert to full auto than ARs because I assumed they were simpler guns to build, like that one made from a shovel. It is ironic that they featured dialogue where one guy is concerned about round counts and then show bottomless mags not too long later. If you want a plausible answer, we'll just say they picked up mags from the bodies of the fallen cannibals off camera.

It looks similar to gun one of my co-workers inherited.  When we researched it, we found out if was a Saturday night special that had a reputation of sometimes firing when you pulled the trigger, and sometimes firing when you didn't.  I suggested that she take it to a gun buyback.  It was made by some company in Florida in the 80s, I think.   I'm no expert, and I can't say what your gun is, but it had a similar appearance, for what it's worth.  My co-worker's inherited gun had a funny magazine release on the bottom, also.

Is it like a drawer safe?  I have a night stand drawer safe with the door that opens up and it fits in a relatively normal-sized drawer.  I have to pull the drawer most of the way out in order to fully open the door.  It is bolted to the drawer, so it can be stolen with a little extra effort, but the drawer would slow down a smash and grab.

My realization after reading "Patriots"--did I just read a recipe for thermite grenades?

I'm partial to mutts because I get to see the same problems over and over in the same pure breed dogs.  Name any breed and I can give you a list of common problems.  Mutts can still get the same problems because their genes come from other breeds, but they have more genetic diversity, and thus less frequently.   My family has always loved Golden Retrievers, but so many die of cancer too early.

Loren Coleman prefers Bigfoot for the plural, as in, "look at those two Bigfoot!"  Similar to "look at those two deer!"    There are lots of other animals that have the same form for plural and singular, such as bison, sheep, fish, etc.   As for scat, theoretically you could prove that a large unknown ape deposited a mystery pile by analyzing the parasites. A certain species of pinworms, for example, is known to infect only humans and chimpanzees, so if that species was found in some feces, it would narrow down where it came from.  As for differentiating human feces from Bigfoot feces, I assume it would be based on size; otherwise, I would expect it to look the same, possibly with more berries.   The counter argument as to why deer cameras have not caught Bigfoot is that presumably Bigfoot is intelligent enough to avoid the obvious human-made artifact coupled with the rarity of individuals in general.  

Lessons learned:     *Even four incompetent zealots can do a lot of damage.  They killed 63; competent soldiers would have killed many more.  The terrorists ran out of cell phone minutes and asked a hostage to get a refill card; they were using the phones to communicate with their handlers in Somalia.  They let go some Western women who had children; I don't think ISIS would be so kind.  We could ban all private gun ownership, and terrorists could easily obtain an AR using a baseball bat to ambush a cop who parks his car at home.  After seeing what four jackwads can do, I truly fear what a more motivated enemy could accomplish.   *Almost every mall I know has a service corridor that the stores exit to--head there first, but be careful, because the terrorists may have staged someone at the exits.  In this case, they just did a frontal assault.   *On the documentary, it was amazing the number of people who were walking away from nearby gunshots; one guy was still pushing his buggy in the grocery store.  Smart, defenseless people run (but try not to get trampled).  They also showed an office with one door that a bunch of people hid in; if the terrorist had found that room, it would have been fish in a barrel.   *The few cops and two civilians who entered the mall did make a difference; although they did not hit any bad guys with their handguns and AKs, the firefight provided distraction that let a lot of people escape out the service bay of the large grocery store.  They also rescued a fair number people in the mall itself.   *Never be in a situation where you need "rescue" by a third-world army (Kenyan army waited for hours, then shot at hostages, and even killed one of their SWAT cops).  They only succeeded (after 40 hours) by killing the terrorists (and much of the mall) with an explosive projectile.