Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratification’s, and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent, if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks on the contrary to keep them in perpetual childhood …it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns …Thus it everyday renders the exercise of the free agency of man less useful and less frequent …It covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided …such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize; but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to be nothing but a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which government is the shepherd.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Democracy In America 1840
[The Nanny State concept has been around around for a long time.–Joe]
Monthly Archives: December 2005
Quote of the day—Jaime Huffman
“Just because something is irrational doesn’t mean you don’t have to believe in it.” This single idea has a complete disregard for truth. It doesn’t matter that the world has been proven round, you can still believe it’s flat if you want to. It doesn’t matter if all evidence shows that people have the same genetic code no matter what their skin color is; you can still believe some are inferior if you want to. What this statement means is that you can believe whatever you want, it doesn’t have to be true. There are no right or wrong answers, everyone’s beliefs are equally valid.
Jaime Huffman
Speech for Comm 101
2001
From http://www.joehuffman.org/misc/LifeChange.htm
Quote of the day–Edmund Way Teale
It is morally as bad not to care whether a thing is true or not, so long as it makes you feel good, as it is not to care how you got your money as long as you have got it.
Edmund Way Teale
Circle of the Seasons
[Thanks to James for pointing this one out to me. And just in case you didn’t make the connection this is about people that seek security at the expense of freedom such as those that favor gun control.–Joe]
Special Boomershoot pricing for British subjects
Previously I announced half price entry for Boomershoot 2006 to Canadian entrants due to the proposed firearms ban in their country and the real reason for Boomershoot. Considering British subjects have already had their firearms taken away and the news from yesterday on how they are taking the next step toward a police state I’m offering all British subjects free entry. Furthermore if their current residence is the U.K. and they give me a month’s notice of their intent to participate I will provide the rifle and ammo. All anonymous of course. Send me an email, encrypted if desired (PGP key below), to reserve the position, show proof of citizenship and/or residency upon arrival and get in for free.
Arrive a couple days early and I’ll show you how to make reactive targets as well.
—–BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK—–
Version: PGP 8.0.2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=B8Jd
—–END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK—–
Privatization of the ATF
In response to Steve Lacey
This started out to be a comment to Steve’s post and his question, “What on earth is going on back home?” It grew in size and scope to the point it needed to be its own post which I now offer to you. It’s not the first time (here is a collection) I have touched on the subject and for certain it will not the last.
The number of days I have spent in the U.K. can be counted on one hand so I recognize my limitations on being an authority on the politics and mindset there. However, it is my opinion that the rush toward a police state in the U.K. is because of a mindset that developed slowly over the last 70 to 80 years. Read F.A. Hayek’s Road to Serfdom for my best guess at to what is going on. Hayek published the book in 1944 and he was specifically warning the U.K. about the dangers of where they were headed. The basic problem as outlined by Hayek is that the people decided it was the job of government to take care of them. From socialized medicine to giving up their right to self defense it’s always the government who is responsible. Once that mindset is cemented into place and the government fails on any given task the “answer” is always more power to the government.
The really scary part is what comes next. As Hayek points out extreme power, however benign the original people to whom it is given, attracts “the wrong sort of people” and is repulsive to those who would be most responsible with it. Hence the more power the government is given the more you will find people in government that should not be given that power. The examples abound–Soviet Union, Communist China, and Nazi Germany. In the 20th century there were at least 60 million people killed by their own governments because of this sort of error in political philosophy. I hope the U.K. will not be a prime example of the 21 century.
One would think that after 60 million dead the lesson would have been learned but the evidence from the U.K. is that some people may still have to learn it for themselves.
Quote of the day–F.A. Hayek
Now, it is somewhat difficult to think of Germany and Italy, or of Russia, not as different worlds but as products of a development of thought in which we have shared; it is, at least so far as our enemies are concerned, easier and more comforting to think that they are entirely different from us and that what happened there cannot happen here. Yet the history of those countries in the years before the rise of the totalitarian system showed few features with which we are not familiar.
F.A. Hayek
The Road to Serfdom, Page 14
Published 1944
[This relates both to my previous post and next.–Joe]
Orwell’s was only off by a few years
1984 versus 2014, what’s 30 years when you are writing about society nearly 40 years in the future?
From Bruce Schneier we get this news:
Britain is to become the first country in the world where
the movements of all vehicles on the roads are recorded. A new national
surveillance system will hold the records for at least two years.Using a network of cameras that can automatically read every passing
number plate, the plan is to build a huge database of vehicle movements
so that the police and security services can analyse any journey a
driver has made over several years.The network will incorporate thousands of existing CCTV cameras which
are being converted to read number plates automatically night and day
to provide 24/7 coverage of all motorways and main roads, as well as
towns, cities, ports and petrol-station forecourts.By next March a central database installed alongside the Police
National Computer in Hendon, north London, will store the details of 35
million number-plate “reads” per day. These will include time, date and
precise location, with camera sites monitored by global positioning
satellites.Already there are plans to extend the database by increasing the
storage period to five years and by linking thousands of additional
cameras so that details of up to 100 million number plates can be fed
each day into the central databank.
And that’s just the beginning. Here’s the future:
The new national surveillance network for tracking car
journeys, which has taken more than 25 years to develop, is only the
beginning of plans to monitor the movements of all British citizens.
The Home Office Scientific Development Branch in Hertfordshire is
already working on ways of automatically recognising human faces by
computer, which many people would see as truly introducing the prospect
of Orwellian street surveillance, where our every move is recorded and
stored by machines.
It’s a slippery slope. The government takes the guns
away “to reduce crime” and when that doesn’t work they conclude more
government power over the people is needed and when that doesn’t work
they need still more power. They never give consideration that giving
power back to the people could be a good idea. As Lyle points
out, only when government involved do people conclude that their
failures mean we should give them more money. It’s a classic When Prophecy Fails case. It’s also an extreme failure of the Jews in the Attic Test.
This is extremely scary stuff. I gives me shivers and just drains the energy from me.
This is what happens in places without guns–Case III
Massachusetts has some of the strictest gun control in the nation. The Brady Bunch should be proud that the scumbag didn’t have a gun when he did this:
PLYMOUTH (AP) — A Framingham man is being held without bail on charges he kidnapped a woman and her two-year-old son and raped the mother repeatedly over a two-day period.
Police arrested Evandro Doirado Monday night after the woman silently mouthed “help me” to a liquor store clerk.
Plymouth County District Attorney Tim Cruz says the victim was carjacked at knifepoint Saturday night in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart in Framingham. Cruz says the woman was raped twice in the car before being taken to the Plymouth Sands motel, where she was attacked again as the toddler cowered by the bed.
It was when Doirado took the victim to a liquor store on Monday night that she was able to mouth the words “help me” and the name of the motel to the clerk.
Cruz says Doirado did not know the woman and the attack appears to be random.
Yeah. Real proud. If the woman had been carrying a gun she probably wouldn’t have gotten carjacked to begin with. The Brady Bunch and the politicians that listen to them should be on trial with the scumbag.
I’m honored by a visit from the U.S. Senate
|
Domain Name |
|
senate.gov ? ( |
|||||||||||||||
|
IP Address |
|
156.33.59.# (U.S. Senate Sergeant at Arms)
|
|||||||||||||||
|
ISP |
|
U.S. Senate Sergeant at Arms |
|||||||||||||||
|
Location |
|
|
|||||||||||||||
|
Language |
|
English |
|||||||||||||||
|
Operating System |
|
Macintosh MacOSX |
|||||||||||||||
|
Browser |
|
Safari 1.3 |
|||||||||||||||
|
Javascript |
|
version 1.5 |
|||||||||||||||
|
Monitor |
|
|
|||||||||||||||
|
Time of Visit |
|
Dec 21 2005 5:11:53 pm |
|||||||||||||||
|
Last Page View |
|
Dec 21 2005 5:11:53 pm |
|||||||||||||||
|
Visit Length |
|
0 seconds |
|||||||||||||||
|
Page Views |
|
1 |
|||||||||||||||
|
Referring URL |
|
||||||||||||||||
|
Visit Entry Page |
|
||||||||||||||||
|
Visit Exit Page |
|
||||||||||||||||
|
Time Zone |
|
UTC-5:00 |
|||||||||||||||
|
Visitor’s Time |
|
Dec 21 2005 8:11:53 pm |
|||||||||||||||
|
Visit Number |
|
54,062 |
Quote of the day–Sean Flynn
Mr. Hamilton has an amazing way with words. They can be like the Zen master smacking you upside the head, knocking you free of your ‘self’ for a moment of clarity.
…
I don’t think Greg is really being flippant. Talking with him outside of class impressed me with not only how much he thinks about what he teaches, but that he thinks a lot about communication, about how he teaches. He’s very deliberate.
I’m not privy to his internal reasoning, but I can make some observations. “Make the most of it” carries the same vital information of a more somber “scan and assess”. Its tone matches the adrenaline-charged situation that it is describing. It suggests an active, optimistic defensive mind-set. The first time you hear it, it’s so provocative that you think about it more. It’s also sufficiently cool that you want to remember it. Remembering it takes you to other things you learned in that class. It’s a rhetorical and cognitive hook in addition to its primary payload.
That said, like you, I try to watch what I say. A line I spring on friends with irritating frequency is, “That will come up at your trial.”
Sean Flynn
December 20, 2005
[On the general issue of this quote by Greg Hamilton.–Joe]
Case dismissed against guy arrested for free speech
I did a little follow up and found the end of the story I had reported on before (here and here):
I’m glad to announce that my attorney,
Walter Maksym, was able to convince the State’s Attorney to dismiss my
case on December 8th. So, it looks like it’s all over for now! It truly
is a wonderful relief to be done with the criminal charges.
He shouldn’t have been arrested for wearing a coat to begin with but having the case dismissed is the next best thing.
Our quadruplets
It’s not well known and I really hadn’t ever planned to tell anyone
but Xenia spilled the beans on her Live Journal so there’s no point in
continuing to hide it. For the last 17 years we have told people
we have three children, James, Kim, and Xenia. This photo is of
Xenia:
Yeah. Identical quadruplets. This will explain certain
other things people have long wondered about. Xenia maintains two
Live Journals and her own website,
gets nearly straight A’s in school, has a boyfriend, and almost never
gets in trouble (she always has at least a couple alibis). In
addition to it being rare to have identical quadruplets this set is
even more rare in that they have identical fingerprints. I
figured this might come in handy someday but now that Xenia has spilled
the beans that game is pretty much over. Oh, well… Merry
Christmas everyone.
Whoo hooo!!! Party time in Canada!
Three days ago I told you the Canadian Supreme Court was about to rule on the legality of swingers clubs. The ruling is out now:
OTTAWA (Reuters) – Group sex between consenting adults is neither
prostitution nor a threat to society, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled
on Wednesday, dismissing arguments that the sometimes raucous
activities of so-called “swingers” clubs were dangerous.In a ruling that radically changes the way Canadian courts determine
what poses a threat to the population, the court threw out the
conviction of a Montreal man who ran a club where members could have
group sex in a private room behind locked doors.“Consensual conduct behind code-locked doors can hardly be supposed
to jeopardize a society as vigorous and tolerant as Canadian society,”
said the opinion of the seven-to-two majority, written by Chief Justice
Beverley McLachlin.…
“Criminal indecency or obscenity must rest on actual harm or a
significant risk of harm to individuals or society. The Crown failed to
establish this essential element of the offence. The Crown’s case must
therefore fail,” wrote McLachlin.In indecency cases, Canadian courts have traditionally probed
whether the acts in question “breached the rules of conduct necessary
for the proper functioning of society”. The Supreme Court ruled that
from now on, judges should pay more attention to whether society would
be harmed.The judges said that just because most Canadians might disapprove of
swingers’ clubs, this did not necessarily mean the establishments were
socially dangerous.“Attitudes in themselves are not crimes, however deviant they may be
or disgusting they may appear,” the judges said, noting that no one had
been pressured to have sex or had paid for sex in either of the cases.“The autonomy and liberty of members of the public was not affected
by unwanted confrontation with the sexual activity in question only
those already disposed to this sort of sexual activity were allowed to
participate and watch,” they said.
I won’t be going to Canada anytime soon even if Barb said I could
do some “field research”. They may have figured out sex between
consenting adults isn’t a threat to society at large but they haven’t
figured out that someone that carries a handgun for person protection
and hasn’t ever committed any crime worse that going 10 or 15 MPH over
the speed limit isn’t a threat either. But this is a step away
from the Nanny State. I wish the fiscal conservatives in this
country would realize that being a Nanny State isn’t just about
refusing to let people spend their own money however they think is
best. It’s also a Nanny State that tells individuals they can’t
fry their brains with recreational drugs, marry the person of their
choice, or play a group game of belly bump.
Quote of the day–Greg Hamilton
From the Greg Hamilton to English Dictionary by Meredith Robinson:
Steely eyed dealers of death.
Translation: Microsoft Gun Club Members.
[For my friends at Microsoft. They know who they are and why I chose this one for today.–Joe]
Quote of the day–Bruce Schneier
But screening will never be perfect. We can’t keep weapons out of prisons, a much more restrictive and controlled environment. How can we have a hope of keeping them off airplanes? The way to prevent airplane terrorism is not to spend additional resources keeping objects that could fall into the wrong hands off airplanes. The way to improve airplane security is to spend those resources keeping the wrong hands from boarding airplanes in the first place, and to make those hands ineffective if they do.
Exactly two things have made airline travel safer since 9/11: reinforcing the cockpit door, and passengers who now know that they may have to fight back. Everything else — all that extra screening, those massive passenger profiling systems — is security theatre.
Bruce Schneier
The Sydney Morning Herald
November 30, 2005
[See also my essay on the research we should be doing. Airport screening accomplishes only one thing. It makes some people feel better.–Joe]
Beagle wreckage and rifle shooting on the moon
It was given up for lost almost two years ago but it was a mystery what happened to it. Now they believe they have found the wreckage:
SCIENTISTS believe they have finally found the wreckage of the stricken Beagle 2 Mars probe, almost two years after it crashed on landing.
A sophisticated analysis of grainy images from a Nasa spacecraft has convinced the Beagle 2 team that the lander met its end in a small crater, into which it touched down in the early hours of Christmas Day 2003 with little chance of survival.
The pictures from Mars Global Surveyor, which have been pored over by an expert who once interpreted spy satellite images for the RAF, show an impact point in the crater and several objects that appear to be Beagle 2’s protective gas bags and, perhaps, the lander itself.
They suggest that the probe was lost because of cruel luck as it touched down in one of the worst possible places for a soft and successful landing. Rather than dropping to the surface on a flat plain, it appears to have first struck the downslope of a small crater about 18.5m (60ft) in diameter, before crashing into its opposite wall, bouncing several times around the rim and eventually coming to rest at the bottom. Even if the gas bags that were meant to cushion its impact were fully inflated, and there is some evidence that they were not, their design would not have allowed them to protect the probe properly under these unlikely circumstances.
Bummer.
I’m a big proponent of space exploration. Long term getting off this planet is one of the necessary conditions for the survival of our species. And in the medium term it represents one of the higher likelihood events to restore our freedoms. Mars represents a good target for colonization and every time we go there it helps us to understand the problems of the journey and the habitation a little bit better.
Another motivation for getting into space is I would like to be the first person to shoot 1000 yard groups on the moon. With no wind and 1/5 gravity the group sizes will be awesome! And you wondered why I had shooting conditions for the moon built into Modern Ballistics. And no, despite a certain science fiction story you can’t put bullets into orbit from the surface of the moon. Shooting tangential to the surface I estimate you need to be about 550 970 miles above the surface to achieve a circular orbit with a .220 Swift.
I sent in my application to NASA to be an astronaut 15 days before Challenger blew up which stymied that career path but I figure if my friend gets his immortality project working I still have a chance. In addition to immortality he wants to carve his initials in the moon big enough to be seen from earth with the naked eye. Since explosives are one of the best ways of carving rock he asked if I would do it for him. If he figures out how to get us safely to the moon and back I’ll figure out a way to carve the 70 mile wide LINES of his initials. With all the other gear going up I figure there would be room for my rifle and a thousand rounds of ammo (especially if he uses the Orion concept).
Update: I rethought my back of the envelope (literally) calculations this morning and realize I had made an error. I did some more number crunching and came up with some different numbers. And since orbital mechanics is not my specialty I’m not guaranteeing any of these numbers. Useful web pages to figure it out for yourself are here and here. I’m assuming a muzzle velocity of 4000 fps out of the .220 Swift which has one of the highest muzzle velocities in a commerical load.
‘Expert’ on police arms at the Violence Policy Center
I guess it’s not surprising that Tom Diaz at the VPC would say something like this:
”Because the bad guys have assault rifles, law enforcement officers
should?” asks Tom Diaz, senior policy analyst for the Violence Policy
Center, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization that advocates
gun control.“I don’t see the rationale behind that type of thinking. What’s
next? Cops in armored cars and tanks? This is moving toward the
militarization of law enforcement.”
The problem for Diaz is that if he concedes police have a
need for rifles to defend themselves and other innocent life then he is
put in the uncomfortable position of private citizens making a claim
for the need of similar defensive tools. But what annoys me is
that the Miami Herald would preface the Diaz statement with:
But some experts say arming officers with rifles is a knee-jerk reaction.
Diaz is an expert on gun control and victim disarmament in
general–not on the equipment needs of police officers. If he is
the expert then let him take point on the arrest of the next criminal
armed with rifle to show everyone how it is done. In that same
article is a prime example of the type of person I would like Diaz to
demonstrate on:
Deputies point to Ralston Davis as an example of the potential danger police can face when they aren’t adequately armed.
Davis, accused of killing three people, sent officers a chilling
message when he was arrested Dec. 2 with a knock-off version of the
high-powered AR-15 rifle:”Hand me my [rifle] and a bullet, and I will kill you all,” Davis
told BSO deputies. “Stand in front of me, and I’ll put a bullet
in your face.”
Here are your handcuffs and pepper spray–you’re The Man Tom. Show us how it’s done.
Quote of the day–President George W. Bush
I see a global terrorist movement that exploits Islam in the service of radical political aims – a vision in which books are burned, and women are oppressed, and all dissent is crushed. Terrorist operatives conduct their campaign of murder with a set of declared and specific goals – to de-moralize free nations, to drive us out of the Middle East, to spread an empire of fear across that region, and to wage a perpetual war against America and our friends. These terrorists view the world as a giant battlefield – and they seek to attack us wherever they can.
…
We do not create terrorism by fighting the terrorists. We invite terrorism by ignoring them. And we will defeat the terrorists by capturing and killing them abroad, removing their safe havens, and strengthening new allies like Iraq and Afghanistan in the fight we share.
President George W. Bush
President’s Address to the Nation
December 18, 2005
No long commute this weekend
Working 300 miles from home is a drag. Incredibly depressing at times and always lonely. Then there is the five hour drive home on Friday night and the five hour drive back to the Seattle area on Sunday afternoon. But this weekend Barb was able to get Thursday and Friday off. So she showed up about 16:00 on Thursday and made life so much more pleasant. I got an extra night and day with her. And we had access to the treats of the Seattle area. So we saw a movie (The Family Stone), went to some nice restaurants (there is this great Japanese buffet in Redmond Town Square), and visited with a friend Barb hasn’t seen in about ten years. Most of the time however was just spent in bed. No kids, only very minimal chores to do and so we could just focus on each other. Very nice.