u/Asatmaya

#Uncomfortable Facts About Hunting

1. Your rifle cartridge doesn't matter as much as you think.

2. Does taste better than bucks.

3. Camouflage clothing doesn't do much.

4. The animals you see at night on trail cameras are nowhere near there during the day.

5. 2 MOA is fine unless you are shooting 400 yards on a windy day... and you're not.

6. Your expensive call isn't "working," the animals are just curious about the weird noise.

7. The scent animals pick up on is your breath, all that scent remover isn't fixing that.

8. Opening day is "lucky" because more people are out driving the animals to move.

9. The only person who cares about your trophies is you.

10. What will haunt you isn't the shot you didn't take, but the shot you shouldn't have taken.

This is basically an update of my ongoing process of finding the "best bang for the buck" by starting in the basement and working my way up.

Scopes: Nikon (old) Buckmaster, CVLife Something-Or-Other-Who-Gives-A-Crap, Monstrum Panzer, Monstrum Ladon, Vortex Strike Eagle gen 2.

The Nikon is a 4.5-14x that came on my used M700, and if it weren't so high-powered, I would have just stopped there. Excellent scope, although it has mostly been used at the range. Sig bought them out, and supposedly uses the same tooling, but reportedly inferior parts, enough that I haven't bought a Sig scope.

The CVLife is their cheapest centerfire rated 1-4x, I literally just wanted to know if it would work at all, and it's probably a QA issue, but it just wouldn't hold zero, on a standard AR-15 shooting 55gr. It's sitting on a shelf in the closet and may wind up in the trash.

The Monstrum Panzer I got at the same time, as it came a little better recommended, and is a 2-10x on a 6.5 Grendel. It works quite well, decent glass, holds zero, but it's set up for deer and I won't be able to field test it until November (well, I could, but 115gr copper monos are a little excessive for coyote).

Monstrum Ladon was the replacement for the CVLife, and since the Panzer was good, I got a 1-6x with some features; it is OK, not as good as the Panzer, holds zero while shooting, but doesn't take even slight knocks well. It's a plinking scope, that's about it.

Vortex Strike Eagle 1-6x gen II have been on sale, so I snapped one up last month for only a little more than the Panzer, and I can see the difference, but I'm not sure I would have been happy to have paid full price for it. It's a little brighter, the illuminated reticle is more refined, the turrets are firmer, etc.

So I did some digging, and here are the brands that make scopes in the same factory as Monstrum:

-Primary Arms

-BSA

-Athlon

-Atibal

-NikkoStirling

-Discovery

-West Hunter

-Falcon

-Lancer Tactical

-Ohhunt

-Blackhound

-Sniper

-Honor

Now, this doesn't mean that every scope by those brands comes out of the same factory, or that the ones that do are using equivalent quality parts, or that they are going through the same QA process... but for at least some tier of their product lineup, they are being built by the same people (robots?).

What I think you get from Vortex is some reasonably higher expectation of quality; any of the brands above might give you a perfectly good scope, or you might get a lemon, or you might get one that works for a while then fails.

I think I would be willing to give another (higher-end?) Monstrum a chance, though, depending on the use case.

"the Commission voted to approve a 7-day straight wall cartridge season on private lands only. This season will start the second weekend of the muzzleloader season and run until the Friday before the gun season opener. Season dates for 2026 will be Nov. 14-20."

Is one extra week a good enough excuse to buy a big bore upper receiver for my AR?

In 1964, Robert Kearns patented the Intermittent Windshield Wiper, and presented the invention to Ford in 1967, who rejected it, but in 1969, Ford introduced their own version in the Mercury line and offered Kearns a pittance in compensation. After years of negotiation and then litigation, Kearns finally made about $30 million, collectively, from automakers who had used his invention but refused to pay him, between 1992 and 1995, although about $10 million of that went to legal fees.

Note that Ford spent more on their own legal costs than what Kearns wanted in the first place; the entire point was to drag the process out so long that Kearns would be too old to enjoy it, specifically to deter future inventors.

Cuba invented a vaccine for lung cancer in 2011; the US pharmaceutical industry spends Cuba's entire GDP on cancer research every year, and hasn't even been able to reproduce it, much less improve upon it.

China has 25,000 miles of high speed rail (up to 240mph); the US has no true high speed rail (186mph), and only about 50 miles of limited HSR (120mph).

In 2020, Apple paid $500 million in a settlement for pushing updates to older iphones that did nothing but slow them down in the intent to frustrate users into upgrading.

In 2025, the US National Bureau of Economic Research estimated that between 200 and 800 new uses for existing drugs are not being followed up on, because Intellectual Property laws prevent private companies from recouping the costs of clinical trials; and, of course, public funding for research effectively disappeared between 2013 and 2021.

Capitalism hates innovation, because innovation fixes problems that capitalists find profitable to exist.

There are, fundamentally, three basic political questions:

1. Do some people, groups, or entities deserve more rights and/or less civil or criminal liability than others? This may be racial/ethnic, religious, political, familial, or even Calvinist (i.e. you know the superior people by their obvious success), and even includes such notions as immunity, whether for presidents or police officers.

2. Does the public have the right to regulate commerce? Or should market forces be allowed to dictate the economy? There will always be a balance, of course, but most people tend towards one attitude or the other.

3. Does the state grant rights, or does it recognize rights? That is, is individual liberty restricted to a set of listed rights, or is government authority limited to a set of listed powers?

This results in eight general political philosophies (labels are somewhat loose, of course):

Classical Liberalism - Free markets, civil liberties, and classist; egalitarianism was given lip service, at best (they ran the slave trade!). These were Calvinists who believed that God's Elect would naturally rise to the top and rightfully exert political authority over others, and Capitalism was seen as the method by which that sorting happened.

Classical Conservatism - Regulatory, authoritarian, and classist; they prioritized social order over either economic or civil liberties.

Neoliberal/Neoconservative - The liberals ditched the civil liberties part, and the conservatives ditched the regulatory part, so now they pretend to fight over social issues that neither side actually cares about, so that no one notices that they are identical: Classist, free market, and authoritarian. This is the Establishment in control of most major political parties in the West.

Progressive - Classist, regulatory, libertarian (sort of); these are the most dangerous, precisely because they are self-righteous, are unwilling to debate issues, and will ruthlessly exploit anything to win. Note that the "libertarian" part is "sort of" because it only applies to some classes; wrong/bad people don't deserve rights. Fascism is technically a subset of Progressivism, taken to an extreme.

Communism - Regulatory, authoritarian, egalitarian; note that this is the modern connotation, Marx didn't approve of the authoritarian part, at all.

Socialism - Regulatory, libertarian, egalitarian; this is kind of the catch-all for the Western left, for whom the word "Communism" has become associated with authoritarian regimes.

Anarchism - Free market, libertarian, egalitarian; not much to say here, other than that it is the least stable political structure, as it falls apart at a touch. Or, viewed another way, this is the actual situation of the world which all of these other systems are desperately trying to undermine.

Market Communism - Free market, authoritarian, egalitarian; China, basically. They let business run wild, over there... up to a point, which is where it starts harming people or the country, then the hammer comes down, hard.

This is not to say that everyone falls neatly into one of these categories, and, of course, none of them are perfectly stable; Liberalism and Conservatism joined forces against the entire left, and lost their way; Progressivism keeps on devolving into censorship and discrimination; Communism turns into Market Communism; and Anarchism is more about the natural state of the world than any kind of institution or system.

It is getting difficult to ignore the connection from the Essene movement to early Christianity; between finding John the Baptist's recipe for locusts at Qumran and the gospels of Matthew and Luke having near-direct quotes of the book of Sirach (3 copies in the DSS), Hodayot, Razim, Community Rule, and other DSS manuscripts, it is reasonable to speculate on that basis.

The Essenes, in turn, appear to be the exiled Zadokite priests usurped by the Seleucids, then sidelined by the Hasmoneans, who became obsessed with purification (to win back God's favor to take the priesthood back) and apocalyptic messianism (because surely the temple would fall without God's ordained priests in charge, and surely Elijah would return before then).

Christianity, then, appears to be a continuation of this tradition once the temple has fallen, but the world didn't end, so the prophecy must have been fulfilled, John the Baptist took on the role of Elijah (Matthew 11:14, 17:12-13; Luke 1:17), the prophet of the messiah, Yeshua/Joshua/Jesus, who must have obviated the functions that the temple was necessary for - that is, the ritual sacrifices necessary to extirpate sin and guilt, the maintenance of the covenant with God, and requests/thanks for divine intervention - which must have been replaced by a greater sacrifice.

This radically changes the interpretation of much of Paul's letters, for example the metaphor of the cultivated olive tree in Romans 11:

> “If the root is holy, so are the branches... you [Gentiles] were cut out of a wild olive tree and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree... they [non-believing Israel] were broken off because of unbelief.”

This is normally interpreted to mean than the tree is the nation of Israel, the root is the Patriarchs, the unbelieving Jews were cut out, and the believing gentiles grafted in.

But from a Zadokite perspective, the root was the Zadokite covenant from Numbers 25:

> The Lord said to Moses, “Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, has turned my anger away from the Israelites. Since he was as zealous for my honor among them as I am, I did not put an end to them in my zeal. Therefore tell him I am making my covenant of peace with him. He and his descendants will have a covenant of a lasting priesthood, because he was zealous for the honor of his God and made atonement for the Israelites.”

The "cultivated olive tree" was the faithful remnant of the old priesthood, i.e. the Essenes and then Christians; the "broken off" were the false priests, first the Hasmoneans, then the Herodians, and finally the Pharisees; and the gentiles were grafted in to that priestly covenant, implicitly outside of the temple.

Paul continues in Romans 11:

> “Lest you be wise in your own conceits, I want you to understand this mystery, brothers: a hardening has come upon part of Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way all Israel will be saved.”

The same term "mystery" appears in the DSS and refers to revealed eschatological knowledge to the elect, which is that the non-elect, i.e. usurpers of the priesthood, have "hardened" until the gentiles are included, after which "all Israel," that is all of the elect, will be saved.

If true, the implications are staggering: Christianity is not, then, a splinter off of an older Judaic tradition, but in fact the legitimate heir of a pre-Maccabean priestly lineage which, in fact, predates the Mishnah-based Judaism which developed after the destruction of the temple in 70 CE.

Note 1: I did not vote for Trump, either time; I have no intention of voting for Trump; I do not like Trump or agree with him on many major issues... but this goes for Biden and the Democrats, as well, if not moreso. This is as objective a view of the situation as you are going to get.

Note 2: This is specifically about the New York case; IMO, the Georgia case was the more legitimate, and would have been interesting to see the result of, but for the incompetence and corruption of the prosecution.

Donald Trump has been convicted on 34 counts of felony Falsification of Business Records, ostensibly by listing payments to his attorney Michael Cohen as "Legal Fees" for his work arranging a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels. The crime, normally a misdemeanor, was promoted to a felony by the conclusion that the falsification was intended to conceal some other crime.

This is the first problem: While that money may have included reimbursement for the actual payment, it amounted to more than three times as much money as Ms. Daniels received, and legal settlements are often paid through an attorney, particularly regarding sensitive matters which the client does not want widely known. "Hush money" payments are perfectly legal, and this nearly-identical situation arose with John Edwards in 2008, where it was ruled that such an arrangement did not violate federal election law.

The hush money payment, even with the intention to conceal knowledge of the affair from the public during an election, was not a crime.

The prosecution never specified what the underlying crime was; they managed to imply, at different stages of the trial, that it was violation of federal election law, violation of federal tax law, and that one payment was intended to conceal the others, i.e. that it was a circular crime. They went so far as to instruct the jury that violations of federal election law had, in fact, occurred, despite Trump having never been charged with that crime.

Trump's legal team attempted to call a witness to contest the idea that the payments could have constituted a campaign finance violation, but the judge refused to allow that testimony. The unproven claim that such a crime had occurred was simply to be assumed, without any charge, indictment, prosecution, or conviction, and then without Trump's right to even be informed of the accusation or allowed to defend himself against it.

This judge, Juan Merchan, who is active in the Democratic party, including earmarking his donations for, “resisting the Republican Party and Donald Trump’s radical right-wing legacy” (and any political donations being a technical bar violation for a sitting judge), was "hand-picked" for this trial, rather than the usual random-assignment process, despite his clear political bias and involvement in previous civil trials against Trump.

He proceeded to issue contradictory rulings, depending on whether it was to the benefit of the prosecution or not (e.g. that campaign finance violations might have been the underlying crime, but that Trump's lawyers could not call a witness for the purpose of disputing that contention), berated the defense for objecting too much then blaming them for not objecting enough, and allowed the prosecution to make false statements and present evidence not introduced during the trial in their closing statements (again, over the objections of the defense).

This is, to say the least, irregular, but probably not grounds for appeal.

Violation of Trump's 5th and 6th Amendment rights, on the other hand, are almost certain to succeed on appeal.

>No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. > > >In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.

Trump was denied due process by having his guilt of some underlying crime assumed, denied knowledge of what that precise crime was, and, to the extent an exact underlying crime was implied, he was denied the right to call a witness to testify in his defense against it.

Now, I fully accept the idea that, "Trump is guilty of something;" if you want to haul him up in front of the ICC and charge him with war crimes, he is on video bragging about it. It's an open-and-shut case, but then, you would have to haul Biden, Obama, Bush, Clinton, and all of the staff of their administrations up for the same thing.

The problem is that tyrants have always used the, "You must be guilty of something," excuse to punish their enemies, while ignoring the same crime for their friends. This is one of the hallmarks of an authoritarian regime, and the literal, explicit purpose behind the protections of the Constitution against such behavior.

And what will happen if this precedent is allowed to stand, but Trump wins the election, anyway? Is Trump now allowed to appoint and help elect prosecutors and judges who will "find something" to prosecute his enemies for?

>William Roper: “So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!” > >Sir Thomas More: “Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?” > >William Roper: “Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!” > >Sir Thomas More: “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!” > >A Man For All Seasons