Washington Will LOSE Money With New Liquor Stores

Our governor here in Washington, Christine Gregoire, has come up with a wonderful new plan to raise additional money for the state government to squander. She's decided to open up to ten more state run liquor stores. Unfortunately The "Gov" must have skipped classes when she took economics, or maybe just never took the class at all.

Here's the deal: In Washington we have roughly 320 liquor stores. Half of them are run entirely by the state liquor control board, with state employees. The other half of the stores are officially called Contract Liquor Stores and are run by private citizens very similar to a franchise operation. The state provides them the inventory, and the contract store gets a percentage of the gross sales. Regardless of the size of the contract store or their sales volume, the State always makes money, since all operating costs, rent, payroll, etc., are paid by the store owner, not the state.

Overall, considering all the liquor stores together, they show a positive income for the State. However, and it's a big however, the State run stores barely break even, or lose money, but the contract stores all make money, some more than others, but all are profitable by the nature of the contract.

The governor has decided that to bring in more money, she would authorize and open up as many as ten more STATE stores. Assuming that the total amount of liquor purchased, regardless of the type of store for the purchase, is a constant for any given year. The argument that more liquor store will produce more liquor consumption may be true, but the change overall will likely be fairly small.

If you open more stores, their sales will have come from sales that would have been made at another liquor store at some other location. So we have two possibilities. First, the sale otherwise would have been made at another State run store. Net financial gain: ZERO, and additional operating costs have been incurred to run the new store. Bottom line then is the State LOST money on that sale.

The second possibility is that the sale otherwise would have occurred at a Contract store where the state would have received a guaranteed profit from the transaction. By moving this sale to one of the new State run stores the profit from the sale, if any, will be greatly reduced.

In short, there is no way that new State run liquor stores will increase the State's liquor control board's revenues. What the new stores would add is more State employees. Did I mention that the State store employees are unionized?

What the governor SHOULD do, which would increase liquor control board revenues and reduce costs at the same time is obvious. Convert ALL of the State run store into Contract stores and let private enterprise take over.

That would reduce the number of State employees, however, so that will never happen..................

Other than that, not much........................

Since finally getting somewhat back on my feet, I have been working 16 or 17 hour days 7 days a week trying to get caught back up and trying to bring in some money to cover some of the medical costs. My insurance covered a portion of the bills, but the deductible is very high and I still have to pay a significant percentage of the costs myself. Better insurance coverage would have been nice, but you go with what your income level will allow you to buy. Being self-employed, my income is directly related to work done and out the door. Not being able to work for nearly two months meant zero income for those two months. Now I've got to put in some extra hours to catch up a bit. Much of the work I'm doing is somewhat speculative, though. One of the things I do is write software for a small niche market. I am re-writing my main software product in a new and significantly different programming language, so I am learning the language as I go ,which does tend to slow down the development process! The software, actually an application suite, hopefully, will be ready for market before the end of the year. Sooner, I hope, but considering time spent running it in beta and multiple mini-rewrites as expected along the way, it's going to take some time. I'm sure there will be a bit of "Feature-Creep" to, as I come up with features to add that I just HAVE to include! So far the project has been coming along reasonably well, and I may just have a complete beta ready for initial testing in the next 3 or 4 weeks, if I can keep putting in the hours as I have been doing. If all works out as planned, this particular piece of software should provide a small but fairly steady income stream for the net five years, or thereabouts. Needless to say, I haven't been doing much blogging.......................................

You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.

Possibly the quote of the decade:

You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation.

You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.

Dr. Adrian Rogers , 1931 to 2005

J-22 Jennings With a Scope? Sure!

The Jennings J-22T Terminator

In a comment to the previous post, US Citizen wondered if you could add a scope to the Jennings J-22 pistol. A while back this was done in the super secret Mr. Completely skunk works, as shown in the above picture.

For a full write-up on the J-22 Terminator, here's the original post.

Jennings J-22 Info

Jennings J-22 Semi-Automatic .22 Caliber Pistol.

A while back I did a post on the Jennings J-22 pistol. That post still gets visitors, and a great comment about the J-22 was left by "FergusonTO35". Since the comment is unlikely to be found without specifically looking for it, I decided to post his comment verbatim in a post of its own.

Jennings enthusiasts, here you go:

Hey guys, I own 3 Jennings J-22's and 2 Jimenez JA-22's. Jimenez Arms is the current version of Bryco/Jennings, they are based in Las Vegas, NV. Being a J-22 fan, I can usually make one of these pistols as dependable as another .22 autoloader.

My first suggestion is to first put at least 250 rounds through the gun before making any judgments about it. These guns really do need a break in period before they give the best dependability and accuracy. As far as ammo goes, any common high velocity round nose ammo will work. Federal Champion #510 (available cheap at Wal-Mart) is the best I've found. CCI Mini Mag is great too, but costs more. Rounds that have long or very flat nose bullets generally do not feed in these guns.

After your pistol has fired a couple of hundred rounds it should be well broken in. If you are experiencing weak ejection or stovepipes (empty shell stays in the slide) examine the length of the firing pin nose which strikes the cartridge. Approximately 3.0-3.1 mm is right for most of these. Many of them come from the factory with a pin that is too long. This causes the empty shell to eject too early, causing a jam.

The feed lips of the magazine are another area which requires attention. My experience is that these mags function best when the spacing between the mag lips is .200-.205 inch. Too close together and the lips pinch the slide, impairing function. Too wide and the round will hit the top of the chamber mouth and jam instead of going into the chamber. The lips are supposed to aim the round right into the chamber, so with this in mind you can adjust accordingly.

These pistols are way more accurate than most people give them credit for. The key is to find its favorite ammo and to practice good trigger control. Remington Thunderbolt is hands down the most accurate in all my J-22/JA-22 pistols, I can shoot golf ball size groups at 10 yards all day. From the factory, these pistols have very stiff triggers and there's not a whole lot you can do to change it without creating potential safety problems. DO NOT under any circumstances modify the sear or sear spring in these guns. The good news is that the trigger pull tends to improve a great deal the more the gun is fired.

If you need help with your J-22 or any other Saturday Night Special type firearm, please visit us at www.bryco-jennings-jimenezarms.com and go to the chat forum.

Thanks, FergusonTO35, for all the info!

Most powerful pistol - the Pfeifer-Zeliska .600

For those of you who have become bored shooting your wimpy .454 Casull or your anemic S&W .500, you now have a choice to move on up to something a bit more manly, the Austrian Pfeifer-Zeliska.

Austrian Pfeifer-Zeliska .600 Nitro Express Magnum

Vince Lewis has the whole story of the Pfeifer-Zeliska on his website, along with a large section on interesting guns, and also a lot of stuff in other categories.

Here's a couple of short quotes from his site on the Pfeifer-Zeliska:

The worlds most powerful pistol is the Austrian Pfeifer-Zeliska .600 Nitro Express Magnum. It is chambered to fire the British developed .600 caliber rifle bullet originally made by Holland and Holland. This revolver was not originally a full production model but a one off, built especially for a wealthy Swiss gent...Mr. Zeliska.

With a Bullet Weight of 900 grains and a Muzzle Velocity 1950 fps, it produces Muzzle Energy of 7591 ft/lbs or 3½ tons !! the Pfeifer- Zeliska .600 Nitro Express Magnum is 8 times more powerful than a Smith and Wesson.44 magnum and 3 times more powerful than the Smith and Wesson .50 Magnum.

That figures out to a power factor of 1,755! Personally, I think I'll stick to my Ruger SRH .480 when I want a bit of horsepower..............

Hat tip to Luke for the website!

A Pet's Ten Commandments

Over the last couple of months dealing with the surgery, complications, and working my way to recovery one thing has been a constant comfort to me has been my cat Rocket. Twenty four hours a day and seven days a week Rocket has never been more than a few feet away from me, excluding trips to the food dish and litter box, of course.

Your pets know when you aren't feeling well, and they get concerned about how you are doing. Cats can see infrared, so if you have a fever you are, at least to the cat, a slightly different and abnormal color. Rocket would curl up on the foot of the bed, sphinx-like, and watch for anyone or anything approaching. It was obvious that he was clearly doing what he could to guard and protect me from whatever threat might appear. Dogs will do the same thing.

If I was having trouble sleeping he would purr until I finally would doze off, then he would go back into "Guard-Cat" mode on the foot of the bed.

When I read this Pet's Ten Commandments I thought I should pass it along in the form of a blog post. When you think of your pets, remember that they depend on you to make their life a quality life!


A PET'S TEN COMMANDMENTS.........

1. My life is likely to last 10-15 years. Any separation from you is likely to be painful.

2. Give me time to understand what you want of me.

3. Place your trust in me. It is crucial for my well-being.

4. Don't be angry with me for long and don't lock me up as punishment. You have your work, your friends, your entertainment, but I have only you.

5. Talk to me. Even if I don't understand your words, I do understand your voice when speaking to me.

6. Be aware that however you treat me, I will never forget it.

7. Before you hit me, before you strike me, remember that I could hurt you, and yet, I choose not to bite you.

8. Before you scold me for being lazy or uncooperative, ask yourself if something might be bothering me. Perhaps I'm not getting the right food, I have been in the sun too long, or my heart might be getting old or weak.

9. Please take care of me when I grow old. You too, will grow old.

10. On the ultimate difficult journey, go with me please. Never say you can't bear to watch. Don't make me face this alone. Everything is easier for me if you are there, because I love you so.

Take a moment today to thank God for your pets. Enjoy and take good care of them. Life would be a much duller, less joyful experience without God's critters. We do not have to wait for Heaven, to be surrounded by hope, love, and joyfulness. It is here on earth and has four legs!