Blog News

It seems like I am forced to remind my readers of this from time to time. The last time I was forced to do so was more than 2 years ago, so we are doing pretty well. We discuss a lot of controversial topics here. Everyone’s opinion will vary on these topics.

I encourage debate here. Whenever there *is* debate, you can expect that people will vigorously defend their positions. That’s the nature of the beast. I allow comments here, even those who disagree with me. It was Ronald Reagan who had my two favorite quotes about disagreement:

“Harmony requires differences to be joined in pursuit of higher ideals.” 

“The person who agrees with you 80% of the time is a friend and an ally, not a 20% traitor.”

So it’s important to remember that as we comment here. I want to maintain a level of decorum and civility on the blog and its comments. That’s why I have established rules for commenting on this blog.

The heat here has been increasing for months, and I have decided that this friendly reminder is needed.

One of the biggest rules here is- no personal attacks, and especially not on the person who is paying the bills here- me.  This is a permanent link to the rules of commenting here at the blog. They are there permanently for your reference. They are simple and easy to follow. I like the way that Miguel over at the now defunct gunfreezone put it: don’t be a dick. If you want to know what it means to be a dick, read on.

The overriding concept here is that I am paying for this server, the software that runs it, and providing the content. Since I am the one paying for it, that makes it mine. Some people have a problem with this and begin shouting about free speech. Free speech doesn’t apply here on my property. Want free speech? Pay for your own blog. I will even rent you some server space. You can say whatever you want on there, including calling me names. Your space, your rules.

I allow comments here because I enjoy the back and forth of a good debate. However, commenting here is the virtual equivalent of talking to me while sitting in my living room. Debate is a good thing. A well reasoned debate changes minds and can influence the opinions of others. If you make a good case for your opinion, you can win over the opinions of others by presenting them with a perspective or situation that may not have occurred to them. Name calling and shouting at people does not change the opinions of others, generates hard feelings, and is nothing more than chimps shouting and flinging poop at each other inside of the monkey house. It accomplishes nothing but the generation of hostility.

If you and some of my acquaintances are sitting with me in my living room having a conversation, there are things that you wouldn’t say without expecting either a punch in the mouth or being asked to leave and never return. Try to think of comments here as a face to face conversation and don’t type a comment here that you would not say to someone’s face while sitting in their own home.

So with that out of the way, here are the rules for commenting on this blog:

1. The owner of this blog (me) has the final say on what you can and cannot post. It’s my house, I make the rules. Content here is moderated, and I will not be approving any comments that I find, in my sole judgement, to be unworthy. If you make a comment here and it doesn’t appear within a few hours, it likely wasn’t approved for some reason. Or it wound up in the SPAM filter for some reason. You can always drop me an email and ask.
2. Deliberately posting statements that are aimed at insulting the blog owner (me) will get your comment tossed in the trash. Feel free to disagree with me, just don’t call names or impugn my character. If I wanted someone to purposely insult me, I don’t need to pay for a blog server, I can just go to my ex-wife’s house for free.
3. Don’t deliberately insult others. No personal attacks. Feel free to attack ideas. Heap scorn on silly or illogical opinions, just don’t make it personal.
4. If you are making a comment about one of my posts, it should be made on the post that you are commenting on, not on another, unrelated post. Offending posts may be deleted or disallowed, purely at my discretion. This is an attempt to both maintain readability and to reduce trolls.
5. No spam. If you come on here to sell your product or website, that isn’t going to be allowed. This is an ad free site, because I hate all of the ads on the Internet. I don’t make money on this Blog, and no one else does, either. Including you.
6. If you demand that anyone provide evidence for an assertion that they are making, then you must hold yourself to the same standard when making a counterargument. It takes time and effort to research sources, and replying with “Nuh, uh, I refuse to believe that” while not providing sources of your own to refute them is how an 8 year old debates. If you demand that the person with whom you are disagreeing show their work, so do you.
7. Usually, I just don’t approve comments that are out of bounds. If you are close to the line, I may approve it with a warning. If repeated out of bounds comments become tiresome, I will warn you.
8. If warnings don’t work and you keep at it, I will ban you from ever posting on this site again. I know that you can pull tricks like IP spoofing, changing your name, etc. So don’t think doing that is going to earn you “I’m so clever” points. It doesn’t make you clever, it makes you an asshole.
9. Too many people using those tricks to circumvent the rules is what got us full time moderation, which is a major pain in my ass, and a major time waster for me.
10. When in doubt, please refer to rule #1. These rules can change with no notice, and rules may or may not apply retroactively. That’s up to me. See rule #1.

Sometimes, your position isn’t based in facts. Some arguments, by their nature, can’t be based upon facts. They are opinions. Opinions, being not factual, can vary widely. Yours can be true for you while not being true for others. That doesn’t mean that you get to insult others for having an opinion different from yours.

Look, I work a full time job, run 2 businesses, and I am now back in full time college student mode. In my remaining time, I have husbandly duties, household maintenance, personal maintenance, the duties of being a grandfather, and I still need time for hobbies and sleep. The maintenance of this blog takes time from all of that.

I have always said that, should this blog become too much of a time waster and no longer be fun, I would pull the plug. I have also said that too many people dodging the rules would result in me requiring registration of user accounts. I don’t want to do either of those, but I can’t let arguing with strangers on the Internet become a full time job.

I have locked comments on the most recent post that has been generating overheated comments. Don’t try to dodge the lock by commenting on that topic on other posts. That comment will not be posted, and you may catch a warning or a ban- even a ban without further notice.

Today marks 18 years that this blog has been active.

I have decided to begin doing some testing of ammo and posting my results here at Sector Ocho. I have recently procured a Garmin Xero C1 Pro chronograph. I will start doing some real world testing at the range, using actual EDC handguns to obtain muzzle velocity and bullet data, as well as shooting into ballistic gelatin to measure terminal performance.

This just tickles my data driven side. I love data, and this will give me plenty of it.

The chrono uses radar to measure bullet speed, and I am looking forward to playing with it. Expect an article on defense ammo to be coming soon. I am thinking that this will spark some interesting caliber/brand wars.

Just let me pass those boards first.

Xfinity can lick my taint.

I have been paying $40 per month for 300 mbps Internet since we moved in. I am lucky to get 60 mbps most of the time. So this morning, I saw a deal on their website to increase speed to 800 mbps for $60 per month. I took the plunge.

A couple of hours later, I got an email confirming that I was now on 1000 mbps for the low price of $127 per month. WTF. Even worse? I was still only getting 56 mbps. (The BS clause of “speeds of up to” means never actually hitting that speed, but you would think paying 3 times as much would get you SOME kind of speed increase)

I called the customer service number and got some middle eastern moron who couldn’t really speak English. I got up and drove 45 minutes to the nearest Xfinity location. When I got there, they told me that there was no 800 mbps plan offered, only 300, 500, or 1000. So I told them to put my account back the way it was before they did this.

They said that price is no longer available. I can have the 300 mbps for $60 a month if I sign a 2 year contract, or I can pay $80 a month without a contract. That’s it, and fuck you very much. So now I am paying DOUBLE what I was for the same shitty service. I have few choices- I can stay with Xfinity, or I can opt to pay for Tmobile 5G internet, or try Starlink. The thing that makes me leery of Starlink being my primary Internet provider, because of the service disruptions that happen during thunderstorms, which we all know happen virtually every afternoon here in Central Florida.

Here is the thing- I have proof that they sold me a plan that they had no intention of actually giving me before putting me on a different plan at double the price. I took a picture of the screen- proving that they DO offer 800 mbps.

On Monday, I am calling Florida’s Attorney General’s office to report this obvious “bait and switch” scheme.

The purpose of society, and in particular of government, is to protect the rights of others. Even more specifically, to protect those who cannot protect themselves. The person commenting from Live Oak, Florida, a commenter that I am calling Odd Poster, has been advocating sex with minors.

Yet 100 years later with better nutrition human brains are maturing more slowly now? How did that number of 10-12 get picked by the legislatures, were the majority of American voters in 1880 all pedophiles? Today some 16 and 17 year olds are more physically developed than 25 year old women, but their brain development doesn’t keep pace with their body development? Does that make medical sense?

wikipedia: Restricted by age difference: younger partner is deemed able to consent to having sex with an older one as long as their age difference does not exceed a specified amount.

Today that age is 14 in Indiana, and 13 in some other states. Because the “child” does not have a child’s immature brain if she picks another high school age person as a partner? Or you’re less pregnant if the father is under 18? Gee that makes sense.

Rule 1 of posting on this blog:

The owner of this blog (me) has the final say on what you can and cannot post. It’s my house, I make the rules. Content here is moderated, and I will not be approving any comments that I find, in my sole judgement, to be unworthy. 

Then there is also Rule 10:

These rules can change with no notice, and rules may or may not apply retroactively. That’s up to me. See rule #1.

I try to support the free exchange of ideas on this website, but I cannot support people advocating sex with children as young as 12 years old. Accordingly, I am banning the entire IP address 71.29.27.11 because I will not allow comments that defend preying on children.

I do so as the owner of this blog. You want to diddle children? You aren’t going to do it on this blog, or on this server, nor will you advocate for that. The last thing I need is more of a spotlight on this blog by the Feds, especially not for pedophiles. Anyone who has a problem with that, there is the door- Go do that shit somewhere else.

My son testified in court against his best friend, a kid we had both known since he was 8 years old, because that friend was screwing children, filming it, and posting the film on the Internet. That friend is currently serving 30 years in Federal Prison, and I fully support that. I would do the same thing my son did in a heartbeat.

A series of comments were just posted by an “anonymous” poster. They are a bit odd because all of the comments are on the same post, all come from the same IP address, and just read a bit- oddly. I am allowing them, but I am editing the name of the poster from ‘Anonymous’ to ‘Odd Poster’

This is the kind of stuff that makes me want to require signing up in order to comment.

There has been a dick of an Egyptian leech who has posted in comments here for quite a few years. He has been banned from this site more than half a dozen times over the past two and a half years, but each time he comes back under a different IP address, different user name, using a different email address. He has posted here under the following names:

• Thatguy
• TheMan
• Earthsurfer
• Hedge

and a few others. His real name is Tarek, and he is a student at the University of Oklahoma. Let me refer you to rule 8 of the commenting rules on this blog:

If warnings don’t work and you keep at it, I will ban you from ever posting on this site again. I know that you can pull tricks like IP spoofing, changing your name, etc. So don’t think doing that is going to earn you “I’m so clever” points. It doesn’t make you clever, it makes you an ass.

I have added yet another ban to the list. That makes 8 different names that I have banned you under.

For the past 36 hours or so, I could not access the blog’s admin pages. I could access the website as a viewer, I could access the server. As near as I can tell, all of the other websites hosted here on this server were functioning.

Looking at the server, we were not experiencing a large amount of traffic, so this wasn’t a DDOS attack. Still, every time I tried to log in, I got an error saying that my database was missing. I logged in to the server last night, intending to restore the site from a backup, and it was working again.

Odd, that.

A search for the original claim or story about pets being killed and eaten in Ohio reveals nothing but ‘fact checkers’ calling Trump a liar from the past 48 hours. If anyone knows where the story originated, please place it in comments.

Thank you.