Ohio State Knife / Car Attack by Islamic Terrorist

This story is going to get dropped like a hot potato now that the media has found out the guy is Muslim, and he used a knife and a car.

We will be instead deluged with stories about how Muslims Fear Backlash.... because they are always the victim.




In the August 25th issue of the student newspaper Lantern, the same killer was playing the victim card. :
"On Monday afternoon, the Ohio State Department of Public Safety released the name of the suspect involved in the violent incident near Watts Hall — Abdul Razak Ali Artan, a third-year in logistics management. The Lantern had interviewed Artan as part of Humans of Ohio State, a print-only feature in The Lantern’s Arts&Life section. Below, The Lantern has reproduced the same interview that appeared in the Aug. 25 issue of the paper. The text below is a direct quote from Artan.
“I just transferred from Columbus State. We had prayer rooms, like actual rooms where we could go pray because we Muslims have to pray five times a day.
“There’s Fajr, which is early in the morning, at dawn. Then Zuhr during the daytime, then Asr in the evening, like right about now. And then Maghrib, which is like right at sunset and then Isha at night. I wanted to pray Asr. I mean, I’m new here. This is my first day. This place is huge, and I don’t even know where to pray.
“I wanted to pray in the open, but I was scared with everything going on in the media. I’m a Muslim, it’s not what the media portrays me to be. If people look at me, a Muslim praying, I don’t know what they’re going to think, what’s going to happen. But, I don’t blame them. It’s the media that put that picture in their heads so they’re just going to have it and it, it’s going to make them feel uncomfortable. I was kind of scared right now. But I just did it. I relied on God. I went over to the corner and just prayed.”




So if people looked at him, and thought "he'd drive his car into a crowd of people and then start knifing them, they would have been spot on.

Thoughts on the Election

• Wow, Trump won. After all the final votes get tallied, it’ll be interesting to do some analysis about how Trump in states compared to both expectations and against previous elections. Trump won in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin: pipe dreams in the previous elections, but the margin of victory in previous Republican strongholds was diminished. Ohio went for Trump by 8.6%, but Arizona was only 4.3% (it went for Romney by 9.1%)
• Trump wasn’t my #1 choice for President, but he was still better than Hillary. My primary reason for wanting Trump was for the future of the Supreme Court. Trump has floated potential names for justices and by all account, they are reasonably originalists. Hillary clearly stated she would appoint justices that would ignore the Constitution and decide important issues that should be left to the people via the 10^th amendment. Our country suffers when a democratic debate turns into a mandate from the Supreme Court, no matter how unpopular. Who knows what 7 liberal justices would do to gun rights, perhaps buying into the conventional liberal arguments that the 2^nd amendment is about muskets or only if you are in the National Guard. There is nothing to prevent them from overturning Heller. Concepts like stare decisis (precedence) are often touted by the media if a liberal ruling is in jeopardy, but they wouldn’t bat an eye to overturn Heller and impose strict gun laws.
• Liberals I know on Facebook were gloating so much before the election. If they won, they’d be taking victory laps. Now they are in meltdown mode, cursing all Trump voters. Liberals demonize their opponent and then wrap themselves in a cloak of moral superiority. My reaction is a mix of schaedefruede and annoyance.  Republicans didn’t become unhinged when Obama won.  We were forced to sit silently while everyone did victory laps around “the first black President.”
• A Clinton victory would have been a victory for the media. Almost all of the news and coverage was heavily slated to Clinton. Sure, they were able to push in the inexperienced Obama, but at least they couldn’t push someone under constant FBI investigation.
• When Democrats win, the talk is how Republicans need to change their policies to be more electable. When Republicans win, the media talk is that Republicans are angry, or at worst, a stylistic complaint about their candidate, e.g. People didn't like candidate's clothes. The fault never lies with their policies.
• Trump won’t be as great as his ardent supporters claim, nor will he bring about the calamity that his detractors fear. He is more of an old-school Democrat like Al Smith or Harry Truman. Even if he does just a decent job, he will cruise to re-election (if he chooses)  because the fear-mongering about him “being racist, sexist, xenophobic bigot, who will go house to house to deport anyone who isn’t white” will prove to be grossly false. Then the liberals will be left with nothing.
• The market is up tremendously despite all of the negative stories about how the market would react if Donald won.

Election Eve: RealClearPolitics Historical Accuracy

RCP gives Clinton a 3.2% advantage in the popular vote and a 301-237 edge in the electoral college. 3.2% nationally is a healthy margin, but RCP was only off by that much in 2012, to Obama's favor. If you drill down on a state-by-state level, it is much less clear. Two states, FL and NH,  which would deliver Trump a victory are within 0.2% and 0.6% chance. State polls are routinely off by 2% or more.

The below table is a comparison of final state polls in 2008 & 2012 versus their actual. I only examined polls where the lead was less than 5%, as those states would have more frequent polling. Polling is a lagging indicator.  National polls are more frequent, so state polls can be supplemented with national trends. Both times, national polls showed late momentum for Obama and the results broke for Obama. Last nationals polls have broke slightly for Clinton.

The results are uncertain but I think Trump is in a better spot than Romney was. For Romney to have won in 2012, he would have had to pickup five states, three of which Obama was leading by 2% or more. Trump has to win two states where Clinton is ahead by 0.6% or less.  The outlook is certainly worthy of 31.5% chance of winning that FiveThirtyEight gives Trump.

One misconception is that margin of error is absolute - i.e., if a poll has a 4% margin of error, and the poll shows candidate A down by 3.7%, many pundits will say that is a complete tossup. The 4% likely represents three standard deviations, so a 3.7% deficit really means about a 5% chance of winning, not a 50/50.  Being down by 0.2%, however, is very close to 50/50.

2016 Data

 

For comparison, Electoral-vote.com gives NC and ME#2 to Clinton for a 317-221 edge.

 

2012

Realclearpolitics was the least accurate for the popular vote, being off by 3.2%. For the electoral college, they only called Florida wrong, which they had a 1.5% margin for Romney, but it went for Obama by 0.8%. Virgina was correctly called, though they called a 0.3% margin for Obama when the actual margin was 3.8%.  Electoral-vote.com had the same for Obama (303), but put NC as a tossup.

 

 

 

 

2008

The 2008 race was quite accurate: They were off 0.3% on the popular vote in Obama's favor, and put two states, Indiana and North Carolina, in the McCain column, when they ultimately went to Obama. McCain lead Indiana by 1.4% and went for Obama by 1.1%. McCain lead North Carolina by 0.4% and it went to Obama by 0.3%.

 

 

 

2004

The 2004 race, the popular vote err'd in Kerry's favor by 0.9%. Realclearpolitics didn't have a electoral state map which I was aware of, but I was following electoral-vote.com at the time which gave the edge to Kerry. The err'd on Iowa, New Mexico, Wisconsin, and completely missed the mark on New Jersey.

Ithaca Model 37 - 18.5" vs. 28" Barrels

I test fired my Ithaca Model 37 shotgun using Remington reduced recoil 00 buckshot ammo with both my 18.5" barrel and my 28" barrel.

 

I wanted to see what the spread was for the different barrels. When do you start seeing a noticeable spread. I also want to see what the difference in recoil between "reduced recoil" and standard shells were.

 

A little background: I've never owned a shotgun prior to this, and has shot one less than 10 times in my life. This was my first outing with it, and my first usage of a shotgun in 2-3 years. I have substantially more experience with pistols and rifles.

 

The targets largely speak for themselves. My takeaways:

1. Noticeable spread won't happen until starting at 10 yards.
2. If you have home defense shotgun, the myth of pointing anywhere is bunk. There inner cicle was about 5 inches in diameter. Since nowhere in your house will there be anything longer of a shot than 7 yds, there is a small amount of forgiveness for inaccuracy, but that's about it.
3. The forgiveness from a shotgun comes from the fact that if you are off the mark, the force would be so huge, that you have time to follow-up. Take the 18.5" barrel, lower left shot. I was aiming for the center of the circle, but the result would be have hit an intruder's shoulder. It wouldn't likely be a fatal wound, but the stopping power allows you to have a follow-up action.
4. I can say I have poor aim, as I generally shot high. Having only a front sight takes a little getting used to. Practicing is key.
5. I don't like the results of the 15 yard try, and would like to go back with a fresh shoulder and some clean targets. I am a bit surprised the change in spread from 10 to 15 yds, but I think a reshoot is required to make any real conclusions.
6. Reduced recoil is marginal - 1200 fps vs 1275 fps, which is 5% less energy. I shot both, and you could tell that the difference was only marginal). While I likely need a new recoil pad (who knows how old this one is), my shoulder is sore after 9 shots of reduced recoil, and 1 of  standard. I'm also 6'2" and 200 lbs. I