British censors ban Land Rover advertisement with a starting pistol

A few days ago I got on the case of the California lawmakers who were afraid of toy guns.  In the U.K. the repression is so extreme they used the force of law to stop a paid advertisement that displayed the use of a starting pistol.  Apparently they are afraid that people might actually think it is ‘normal’ that some people would own a starting pistol.  They banned the advertisment:

In this advertisement, the starter pistol was used in both an apparent casual manner and just for fun, to signal the start of the man’s journey. The domestic setting, together with the gun simply lying in a drawer, normalised the ownership of guns.

So not only is it against the law to own a firearm but it is against the law to express a viewpoint that it might be normal for people to own a firearm.  Why are those politicians still allowed to breath?  How are they any different than some theocratic country where women aren’t allowed to show their skin and everyone is required to adhere to the same religious tenets?  They are a bunch of repressive tyrants and should be dealt with as such.  I’m increasingly lead to believe we should start pushing the human rights issue with some of our “allies”.

School kids as hostages

The Islamic extremists are expanding on the activities of earlier this week and last:

Heavily armed insurgents, some with explosives strapped to their bodies, seized a school in southern Russia today and herded scores of schoolchildren and others into its gymnasium.

More than a dozen guerrillas, including men and women, stormed Middle School No. 1 in the town of Beslan in the republic of North Ossetia, not far from Chechnya on Russia’s southern border with Georgia, just moments after the opening of the new school year, according to officials there and news reports.

According to one report:

…the hostage-takers threatened to kill 50 children for each of their number killed and 20 for each wounded.

This reminds me some of the Modoc Indian War.  Barb and have visited Lava Beds National Monument where the war took place several times and each time is just as interesting as the last.  The bit of history that is relevant here is that at one point the Modoc Indians entered into peace negotiations.  They didn’t really understanding how the U.S. Army worked believed that if they killed the “big chief”, the general, the army would just go away.  And so it must be with the Chechnya Islamic extremists.  They apparently just don’t understand what their actions mean to us. 

Probably just as important is that we might really understand them.  As one person in the CIA who worked with psychologists there told me, “Most people don’t realize just how different these people think than we do.”  It wasn’t an appropriate time to follow up on his statement but I would love to do that some time.  Just what can we do to “motivate them” in a manner consistent with our goals?  High velocity lead poisoning works but what other things could we be doing?  One thing is certain, they don’t know how to motivate us in a manner consistent with their goals.  My response would be somewhat along the lines of  “we are going to read up on the methods used on Dresden and it will be one city block containing a mosque for each child injured, one small town and all mosques for each child killed”.