Month: July 2025

Finishing The Job

Hunting, Science!

This is interesting:

Burmese pythons, one of the world’s largest snakes, are also one of the most problematic invasive species in South Florida. First spotted in the Florida Everglades in the 1970s, the snakes were introduced, either accidentally or intentionally, through the exotic pet trade.

Since then, pythons have become top predators in the local food ecosystem. Despite the fact that they now exist throughout much of South Florida, they remain difficult to track down. That means researchers and conservationists need to find creative ways to lure them out into the open. 

And by creative, we mean really creative—and University of Florida (UF) researchers clearly understood the assignment.

Researchers led by UF professor of wildlife ecology and conservation Robert McCleery have released 40 solar-powered, remote-controlled robot bunnies in South Florida this month. The researchers replaced the plush toy’s stuffing with motors and heaters to imitate the motions and body temperatures of one of pythons’ favorite snacks: marsh rabbits.

I’m no professor of anything, but it seems to me that these boffins are missing a trick, here.  It’s all very well to “lure” these giant worms out into the open, but it’s pretty much useless when it comes to actually killing the loathsome creatures.

My suggestion:  a small explosive charge — it doesn’t have to be greater than, say, that of a large bottle rocket — inserted into the robo-bunnies, triggered by pressure on the outer frame.  This will do one of two things:  blow the snake’s head off when/if it bites the bunny;  or else blow the snake apart when it crushes the thing prior to ingestion.  Either outcome is satisfactory.

Of course, this will never happen because reasons.

Gratuitous Gun Pic: CZ 457 Lux

Gratuitous Gun Pics

Several years ago, Mr. Free Market and I were talking about guns — yeah, no surprises there — while sitting around an open fire in the garden behind the guest house while — surprise, surprise — drinking the occasional whisky.

One of the topics was:  if you’re facing retirement and decide that your shooting life thereafter is going to be only rimfire, which rifle would you choose as your final shooting companion?

As I recall, Mr. FM’s choice was the Anschutz 1712 HB (he hates set triggers), and I can’t argue with his choice except to note that said rifle retails for nearly $3,000.  (Being one of the Landed Gentry / Filthy Rich Set, he doesn’t concern himself with silly things like price.)

All jokes aside, one could only agree with him — Anschutz make wonderful rifles, and that thing positively screams “one-hole groupings, all day and every day”.

I can’t remember what my choice was — I think it was the CZ 457, which is a far better rifle than I am a rifleman — but I was thinking about the topic on my own the other day;  not in front of a fire, but certainly with the occasional single-malt in hand, and I thought:  “Why only one rimfire rifle?”

Well, that led me down a rabbit hole (the usual one) and I came up with this idea:  not just one CZ 457, but two of the lovely things — chambered in .22 LR and .22 Win Mag:

I cannot say exactly why I love the .22 Winchester Magnum Rimfire (WMR) cartridge so much, but I do.  And the fact that the price of the two above rifles combined is less than $1,500… well, I think you get my point.

That’s not to say that my existing .22 pair (Marlin 880 SQ and 882 SSV) is anything to sneeze at:

…and for a combined price of about $600, if memory serves correctly, they too are far more accurate than I can shoot them.

Yet there’s still a small voice inside my head that whispers evil thoughts to me…

Tomorrow I’ll talk about the .22 handguns.

Not-So-Greener Pastures

Immigration

I read the following article with interest:

More than half of young people have considered leaving Britain under Labour, a think tank has found.
Adults between 18-30 years old said they had “serious concerns” about housing, personal finances and their future in the UK, leaving them “overtaxed, underhoused and undervalued”.
According to The Adam Smith Institute poll, 28 per cent of young Britons are either actively planning (8 per cent) or have seriously considered (20 per cent) emigrating. A further 30 per cent have briefly considered it.

But:

The researchers found that Australia, the USA, Canada and Italy were the most popular destinations for young people considering emigrating.

Well, okay then.  Certainly, anyone looking for better prospects that they have in once-Great Britain might certainly consider the USA — although the current MAGA attitude of Americans might well stick in their craw, if they believe everything they’ve been told by the BBC et al.

But Strylia and Canuckistan?

I don’ thank so, Scooter.

There are good reasons to suspect that Down Under and the Great White Place provide, if anything, even worse prospects for the more youthful than their home country.  (Just wait till they try to find affordable accommodation in Sydney / Melbourne or Toronto / Vancouver.  Might as well go to Chelsea / Knightsbridge.)

As for the socio-political world… oy.  Both Strylia and Canuckistan almost define the term “woke” in terms of their attitude, and their respective national governments are on a par with Britishland’s when it comes to dismal economic prospects.

And finally:  I’m not sure that Murka really wants a bunch of young Brits transplanted Over Here, given that said demographic group is in thrall to working from home (WFH), wokeness and similar nonsense.  Now, if we were talking about their parents (e.g Mr. Free Market and his ilk) — now that’s a more acceptable prospect;  but those worthies have already made plans to move to Switzerland, Monaco and other exotic, low-tax or tax-free locales.

Try Italy, kids.  Just deal with the fact that you’ll have to learn to speak Italian because surprise, surprise:  not everyone wants to speak English, or is prepared to put up with people who refuse to speak anything but.  Also, I have a suspicion that your Italian peer group probably feels about their prospects in Italy in exactly the same way that you do yours in the UK.

Good luck with that.

Quote Of The Day

QOTD

From TTAG:

Groups like Everytown’s “The Smoking Gun” project are calling out gun companies for daring to market to women. Their big gripe? That the firearm industry is trying to “normalize” women and guns.

Damn right we are.

In my earlier, busier times, I must have taught about four- to five hundred women to shoot — my record being a class of over twenty, at a schutzenfest  in southern Virginia (or Tennessee, my geography was kinda scrambled by the time we got to the “range” at some guy’s farm).

All my teaching sessions involved starting off with a .22 pistol or revolver (usually one of mine, unless they’d brought their own), and a gradual transition to something a little more powerful, each woman at her own pace of acceptance, familiarity and acquired skill.  All the ammo was on me, and I refused to accept payment.

As a rule, I find it easier to teach women to shoot;  they’re more attentive, more obedient and less squeamish about asking “stupid” questions than men are.  Men are all tangled up in both testosterone and, I think, embarrassment (at not knowing how to shoot), so they tend to be more difficult pupils.  Where possible, I segregated the men from the women.

Also, quite a few ladies didn’t want their husbands or boyfriends to teach them;  they preferred a neutral third party to avoid any impatience or emotion.  That’s a very mature attitude.

The best part of teaching Teh Girls?  That look of quiet confidence, of self-assuredness and self-reliance they get after they’ve become comfortable with The Gun Thing.  (One woman, who’d been fleeing from an abusive ex-boyfriend for over two years, later wrote to me and told me that after the last of our classes — as I recall we’d had half a dozen — she’d had her first proper night’s sleep in years.  Her gun?  A Ruger SP101, loaded with .38 Special+P hollowpoints.  Pity the fool.)

Golden moments… it’s too bad they don’t happen as often as they used to.

Rollback

Resistance, Wokism

Right off, I have to admit that I don’t really have a dog in this particular fight.

I don’t follow the NFL, never watch any of their games, and could not possibly care less what or how this little cartel names their teams.

That said:  I am concerned about the reasons behind this name change.

“Ooooh, we can’t bear the thought that eeevil old White men named their football team using a disgusting racist slur!”  (This despite the fact that No Actual Indian Felt Insulted By The Name, Ever.)

So on that basis alone — just to stick it to the Perpetually Indignant — I support changing the name back to one which has a proud heritage and, lest we forget, was the first football team to win a Super Bowl behind a Black quarterback, at a time when few if any of the other teams even had a Black quarterback.

It’s really time we pushed back against this fucking wokism — including the re-erection of all those statues the Leftoids pulled down because raaayyyycissss or slaverrrryyyyy or some such nonsense.

And while we’re on the subject of renaming, let’s get all those institutions back to their original names which honored past heroes.  (Frankly, I’d support renaming the pitifully-woke VMI to the Robert E. Lee Military Institute, as long as they also kicked out all the G.I. Jane wannabes in so doing.  Fuck it, let’s also go back to our proud heritage of men-only military colleges.)

Of course, The Donald is behind many of these initiatives, because it’s all part of Making America Great Again, and I am all for it.

Screw the wokisti.