I’ve recently had some time to reflect on some things about myself. And I suspect my son James shares at least a portion of this personality trait with me.

It has long been known to my wife and close friends I am “different”. I don’t work well with incomplete rules. If you give me a set of rules or a process by which I can evaluate things I will do fine. But if something isn’t covered I will end up “stepping on someone’s toes”. A typical situation will go something like this:

My accuser, “You shouldn’t have done that.”

My defense will be, “Here are the rules, I didn’t break any of them.”

“Everyone knows you shouldn’t do that, you don’t need to be told.”

Things will deteriorate from there. I sometimes get offers to “help me”. But I don’t want their “help”. I want them to either enumerate things or give me a process by which I can unambiguously take the data and process it into a go/no-go decision. That discussion goes something like this:

“That’s just not possible come up with rules for everything.”

“You can’t punish me for breaking a rule you didn’t tell me about or even give me a hint about”.

“You should have known better.”

“How?”

“I can’t explain it! It’s just the way it is!”

“If you can’t even explain it then how do you expect me to know it? How is it that you know it? How do I know you aren’t just making things up as you go along?”

If I took them up on their offer to “help” me we would both soon be frustrated and angry. They with my constant pestering about “obvious” things. And me with their condescending attitude and having to constantly be asking for “permission”.

Surprising as it might be at first glance I believe this characteristic is closely related to another one articulated by my friend Eric. He describes me as “completely without guile”. To him this is “both refreshing and frightening”. It is refreshing because he can count on me to tell him precisely what I think without holding back or telling him what I think he wants to hear. It’s frightening because…well, because I will say precisely what I think without holding back. When I worked at Microsoft he had to “run interference” on some of the email I sent. A typical event would go something like this. He would come to my office and say,

“Your email caused quite a stir. My boss (or someone else in management) asked that I talk to you about it.”

“Which email?”

He would shudder and say, “Have you sent anything in the last 30 minutes?”

“Just a checkin email.”

“That’s probably okay. The one I’m talking about now was one you sent a couple hours ago.”

“And?”

“I’m not saying I disagree with what you said. It’s just that people aren’t comfortable with it being said.”

“Is there some way I could have known this before I sent it?”

His mouth will open and then slowly close as his eyes roll up towards the ceiling. He is thinking. He takes perhaps three or four seconds which is about the time it takes for him (he has an IQ of 165 and is an incredibly fast thinker) to search the entire Unabridged Oxford English dictionary in his mind for words to explain. There aren’t any. “No. For you, I don’t think you could have known. Just don’t send anything that might cause problems for a couple days until things cool down.”

“But checkin emails are okay?”

He starts to say “Yes” but stops as he realizes he would be creating a rule for which I would probably find an exception a few milliseconds later, and says, “Probably. Just be careful for a few days.”

“Are you unhappy with me?”

“I have far bigger problems than you. And having you throw hand grenades up and down the halls draws attention from all the havoc I create on my own. Just don’t do that too often.”

“Can you tell me what it was I did?”

[heavy sigh] “No. I don’t think I can.”

You might assume that with this apparently clueless personality that I am insensitive. That would be wrong. I am incredibly sensitive. I break into tears more frequently than some women. From “tear jerker” movies, to hearing of someone else’s pain, to being on the receiving end of minor slights, rejections, or insults–the tears start flowing with incredible ease. People at the Boomershoot 2005 dinner who listened to me telling about the loss of Adam Plumondore know what I’m talking about.

So what does all this mean? I’m not entirely sure but my guess is that I process information differently than most people. I know that I take and say things literally when others process or expect them to be processed “as they were intended”. I complain that people don’t listen to the words I say and find a way to misunderstand me. Others complain that I should know what they meant even though that’s not what they said.

I expect “the human experience” is far more subtle and nuanced than people realize. There are many things which are just an integral part of they way people think about things they are sort of in the position of a fish trying to describe water. They will tell me “the way things are” and I will think of a half dozen exceptions which they dismiss as being unimportant and I think are critical. They think I am “broken”, “defective”, or “handicapped” because I can’t understand. I think they are “obtuse”, “talking nonsense”, or “making things up as they go along”. I think it boils down to that, in a very real sense, I don’t share the same reality with a good share of the population. I wish there were some drugs they could take to cure them of their delusions.

Read some of this.  After a meeting with my supervisor and others this afternoon I’m deleting some posts of mine.  That may not be the end of it either.  My push the envelope policy has it’s hazards.

I can demonstrate airport security is a huge waste of money and have long advocated we spend that money on something worthwhile.  Last month I had another opportunity to demonstrate the inability of TSA to provide security and wrote Bruce Schneier an email in response to his posting about the ban on lighters on planes.  He asked me for permission to use my letter and then published in his monthly letter (do a search for ‘Huffman’ to find my email).

Here is what I said, in case you don’t want to go searching in his web page:

From: Joseph K Huffman
Subject: Lighters Banned on Airplanes

One of my hobbies is explosives. I have a ATFE license to manufacture high explosives. I do so recreationally on a fairly regular basis.

I made the explosives for a recent event wearing gloves. Then had to rework some things later and did that without gloves. A few minutes later I handled a rifle case without cleaning up. On April 13th, three days later, that same rifle case went through airport security at Pasco Washington. I watched a TSA agent wipe down the handle and interior of the case and test them for explosives. Everything passed. The rifle case went with me to Albuquerque, New Mexico. On April 16th, that same rifle case made the return trip and again went through a TSA screening without questions. I have numerous stories of this nature. This is only the most recent.

As near as I can determine, airport “security”, from one end to the other, only exists to make people feel better. It does not represent a deterrent to even a moderately skilled adversary. We are wasting something like $1.8 billion per year on this activity to make some people feel better.

From Jihad Watch; a Palestinian Authority Sermon:

We have ruled the world before, and by Allah, the day will come when we will rule the entire world again. The day will come when we will rule America. The day will come when we will rule Britain and the entire world – except for the Jews. The Jews will not enjoy a life of tranquility under our rule, because they are treacherous by nature, as they have been throughout history. The day will come when everything will be relived of the Jews – even the stones and trees which were harmed by them. Listen to the Prophet Muhammad, who tells you about the evil end that awaits Jews. The stones and trees will want the Muslims to finish off every Jew.

I love the observation Jihad Watch makes:

 Humm, rule the world and kill the Jews…that was tried once before as I recall..

From the Second Amendment Foundation:

NEWS RELEASE

SAF CALLS FOR ‘WAITING PERIODS’ ON PRESS FOLLOWING FATAL NEWSWEEK DEBACLE

BELLEVUE, WA – More than 115 dead or injured, and now a lame “apology” from Newsweek; maybe it is time for the press to accept waiting periods before exercising i ts First Amendment rights in the same way the press has backed waiting periods on law-abiding Americans before exercising their Second Amendment rights.

That’s the observation from the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) now that Newsweek has acknowledged its report about the desecration of the Koran by soldiers at Guantanamo Bay was bogus.

“I wonder if Newsweek, or its owner, the Washington Post, would submit all of their stories for FBI clearance before they publish,” said SAF founder Alan Gottlieb. “This irresponsible exercise of the First Amendment freedom of the press has killed and injured more people than Charles Whitman or the Beltway Snipers.

“How many times,” Gottlieb wondered, “have Newsweek and The Washington Post advocated waiting periods for law-abiding citizens, who have hurt nobody, before they can buy a firearm? A waiting period amounts to prior restraint by the government. How loud would reporters scream if they faced prior restraint be fore printing their version of the news? Their double standard is hypocritical.

“The Second Amendment is the only civil right in this country that Americans can’t exercise unless they get government permission,” he noted. “A Newsweek story just killed or injured more than 115 people, but they don’t have to face government scrutiny before turning on the press.

“Newsweek reporters and editors should be subject to the same kind of ‘cooling-off’ period they advocate for gun buyers,” Gottlieb observed. “In their heated rush to print a sensational story to discredit American soldiers and the Bush Administration, they started a chain reaction that ended in worldwide acts of violence.

“The blood is on Newsweek’s hands,” Gottlieb stated. “Their report killed and injured scores of people, yet it is the American gun owner who must endure waiting periods because of an irrational fear that they might commit a crime. Crimes were committed because of Newsweek’s story. People have died.”

The Second Amendment Foundation is the nation’s oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms. Founded in 1974, The Foundation has grown to more than 600,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control. SAF has previously funded successful firearms-related suits against the cities of Los Angeles; New Haven, CT; and San Francisco on behalf of American gun owners, a lawsuit against the cities suing gun makers & an amicus brief & fund for the Emerson case holding the Second Amendment as an individual right.

One of the bigger threats to the individual, ranking right up there with “gun control”, is a government monopoly on health care.  In addition to failing my Jews in the Attic Test we get situations like this:

Leslie Burke had asked the court to rule that he, not a doctor, is best placed to decide whether his life should be prolonged by medical intervention.

He is now in his forties and has known since he was a teenager that he has a progressive condition which is very likely to mean that he will need artificial feeding and hydration – known as ANH.

What worried Mr Burke was the possibility that doctors could make a decision to withdraw ANH on the assumption that his quality of life as a disabled person was too low to merit prolonging it.

The government allocates a budget for “health services” and ends up making decisions on “greatest good for the greatest number”.  The individual doesn’t get that much of a say in things–unless they have the right connections.  It doesn’t matter if you, or your relatives and friends, are willing to spend some large sum of money (had the government not taken it from you) on your health care.  The government is able to decide that temporarily saving the lives of 20 drug addicts is more important that saving your highly productive life and they use the money they took from you by force to do it.  In addition since “someone else” is paying for it or “it’s free” people don’t have the incentive to take care of themselves.  It’s just a really, really bad idea.  Don’t let it happen here.

Hypocrites, bigots, and idiots annoy me.  I had one New York City lawyer tell me how he was all concerned about the rights of the people and we needed rules and regulations as we implemented Universal Biometric Identification Cards.  Apparently he believed the government regulations would protect us from the government. This same guy claimed that if someone were to shoot someone else it was up to the shooter, and rightly so, to justify his actions to the government.  This LAWYER apparently believed “innocent until proven guilty” didn’t apply if a firearm was involved.

The newspapers are filled with similar stuff but it generally goes away after a while.  I presume the reporters and editors get corrected and they drop it.  The following meme has been persisting far longer than normal and it’s beginning to annoy me.

Gun control is virtually non-existent. A Government Accountability Office study recently found that 35 out of 44 applicants to buy guns were able to do so despite appearing on a government terrorist watch list.

If someone is on the “Terrorist watch list” they are suspected of having an association with terrorist organizations.  They haven’t done anything wrong that we know of.  They may be deserving of being closely watched, but they are innocent until proven guilty.  The press usually has this right in regards to flying on an airplane but for some reason they get brain freeze on a constitutionally guaranteed right.

As I posted day before yesterday it’s mind boggling to me that people are rioting about some U.S. interrogators are reported to place Qurans on toilets and maybe even flushed one down.  In this country, our culture, if a non-Christian were to make a show of doing that same thing to a Bible about the worst people would do is think him rude and maybe snub him or her in public.  As the protests and riots continue and I read up on it makes more sense to me what they are upset about.  Not that I agree with it, but I can make sense of it within their framework.  From this article:

 In Afghanistan and Pakistan, insults to the Qur’an and Islam’s prophet, Muhammad, are regarded as blasphemy and punishable by death.

So… in their frame of reference our interrogators have committed crimes worthy of death sentences and we let them get away with it and perhaps even support those sort of “atrocities“. Our casual acceptance of these “heinous crimes” is as repugnant to them as cannibalism or human sacrifice is to our culture.

This is all extremely interesting to me.  I have no solution, short of destroying of their culture, but getting a grasp on the nature of the problem certainly can’t hurt.

Jason recorded it and put it up for us.  It’s wonderful.  It’s only four and a half minutes but it is great.  It’s also enlightenting to see how professional video people deal with a subject with which I have often tried to capture on video and repeatedly failed to produce something interesting.

On Evening Magazine’s home page (registration required) they say it is their top story:

Blasting out of the daily grind

Have you ever had one of those days at work when you just want to blow something up to blow off some steam? Shoot your computer with a high-caliber rifle? You’re not alone.

That teaser links to the story below.  So far, so good.  I expect video will show up soon.

Blasting out of the daily grind

03:36 PM PDT on Wednesday, May 11, 2005

By KIM GRIFFIS / Evening Magazine

Have you ever had one of those days at work when you just want to blow something up to blow off some steam? Shoot your computer with a high-caliber rifle? You’re not alone. What would you like to blow up?

Where the Clearwater River wanders through the hillsides, you’ll find Joe Huffman planting his father’s fields with a thousand pounds of explosives.

One weekend a year, the quiet of rural Idaho is blown to smithereens by gun-toting, target-shooting, explosion-loving folks.

They’re teachers, physical therapists, and stock traders. They come from as far as Alaska and Florida for the chance to fire at targets that explode when you hit them.

Boomershoot, as it’s named, blasts them out of the daily grind.

Kevin Wagner, a software engineer from Seattle and a first-timer at Boomershoot, found out that hitting targets nearly 400 yards away isn’t easy.

Stephanie Sailor ran two longshot cyber-campaigns for Congress with her laptop. They’ve been through a lot together and she could think of no better way to put it out of its misery than with explosives on the screen and good aim.

But anything is fair game and after a good day of blowing things up, these folks find it easier to return to their various jobs.

Boomershoot organizers are happy to report that no one has ever gotten shot, blown up or anything like that. They say they are very serious about safety.