Monthly Archives: October 2006

Cleaning the world

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The sheik that said women without covering are like uncovered meat that the cat eats now says there is other business that needs to be taken care of before he resigns:

After emerging from Friday prayers at Lakemba Mosque, Sheik Alhilali was asked by a media pack whether he would quit over a speech in which he said scantily-dressed women invited rape.

“After we clean the world of the White House first,” the sheik said.

Supporters of the sheik cheered and applauded loudly at the comments, which were directed firmly at US President George W Bush.

The sheik has previously described Mr Bush, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and Prime Minister John Howard as the axis of evil.

Don’t ever forget that the reason they are opposed to us is not just because of our foreign policy, it’s because we are so arrogant that we have “invented our own laws” instead of abiding by the laws of Allah.

Cleaning the world of the White House is just part of their plan for world domination.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

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It’s rare that I copy some one else’s blog posting word for word without adding some significant content of my own. But in this case I don’t have much to add. Say Uncle has pretty much said all there is to say on the topic and about all I can say is, “Me too.” So here goes:

sensible gun laws

sensible gun laws

And, while we’re at it, let’s add:

ban all guns

ban gun ownership

After all, that is their goal. Don’t be fooled.

There are others that want to ban all guns too. And of course these guys don’t even try to hide the fact that they want to ban all guns.

Uncovered meat

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To my female readers, just so you know your place:

Muslim leaders, women’s rights advocates and political leaders in Australia today condemned one of the country’s top Islamic clerics for comparing women who don’t wear head scarves to “uncovered meat” who invite rape.

…

In a translation from Arabic by the newspaper, later verified by other media, Hilali was quoted as saying in the sermon: “If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside … and the cats come to eat it … whose fault is it, the cats’ or the uncovered meat’s?”

“The uncovered meat is the problem. If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab, no problem would have occurred,” he was quoted as saying, referring to the head scarf worn by some Muslim women.

Of course if some “cat” treats one of my daughters like “uncovered meat” there might be some question as to who is going to end up as “uncovered meat” for the cat. And example of daughter Kim in action is here.

The Fruits of “Peace Talks”

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While we’re making plans for the holidays, and while we’re listening to political ads about which party will fight the most politically-correct war against the Jihad (no, wait, no one is saying anything about Jihad in Washington.  Its “terror”– they’re fighting a war against an emotion) the missiles are landing regularly in Israel, and the Israelis are bracing for more violent attacks.

 

Decades of “peace talks” and “summits” and trading “land for peace” have led us to this point.  They’ve led to an enemy that has increased confidence and increased capabilities.  For this I place the blame squarely on the Left.  I also blame the “Conservatives”, for being too much like the Left.

 

What we need are warriors, not politicians.  When are we going to learn that our enemies must be defeated before we can “negotiate” peace with them?  They must be thoroughly convinced, beyond all hope, of their total defeat.  Only then will we have any hope of peace.

 

This is from my friend (I call him a friend, though we’ve never met) a marksmanship instructor in Israel:

Friends:

 

Basically this entire week is considered the Id al-Fitr Moslem Holiday.  Wonderful for those of us living in northern Jerusalem because it would appear that through this morning, there is virtually no rush hour traffic.  Hard for me to believe, but if the horrendous rush-hour traffic jams renew once the holiday is over, then one can conclude the congestion is caused by an unreal number of vehicles coming from the villages and towns north of Jerusalem.

 

The signs of impending conflict are growing.  Everyone is waiting the holiday’s end as if it signals the start of the terrorism season – a new, improved terrorist violence with the terrorists possessing new, advanced weapons, huge stockpiles of ammunition and munitions and a year’s preparation time well spent.

 

Hamas and the other terror groups want to “Lebanonize” the Gaza Strip.  They are well on their way.  During the last few days Israel has certainly “upgraded” its operations against the terrorists in the Gaza Strip.  There have been some successes, either the terrorists were preoccupied and got sloppy or the IDF got lucky.  Or there is simply so much terrorist preparation and activity going on that it was inevitable an IDF patrol would bump into a terrorist force.

 

It may all be brinkmanship.  There is a lot of talk of a Hamas “preemptive” strike across a wide front, employing everything from West Bank based cells, to barrages of missiles and commando style raids with terrorists emerging “behind the lines” from underground tunnels.  Who knows.

 

Avigdor is now a government minister and deputy prime minister.  The government is going from left to right faster than the Labor party can make excuses for why it remains in the government.   The Chief-of-Staff made a surprise visit at 07:00 yesterday morning to a base on the Golan Heights to “check alertness.”  Syrian positions all along the Golan Heights are preparing for an Israeli attack.

 

I probably should start figuring out where I would like to be (and cover as a reporter) if violence renews.  Interesting thought. One which I shall ponder.

 

Have a good day and stay safe,

 

Howard

Quote of the day–Robert Bork

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[W]hen a judge goes beyond [his proper function] and reads entirely new values into the Constitution, values the framers and ratifiers did not put there, he deprives the people of their liberty. That liberty, which the Constitution clearly envisions, is the liberty of the people to set their own social agenda through the process of democracy.

Robert Bork
Speech
Congress 1987

Girls and guns

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When I got home Friday night Xenia had a couple of friends there for the night–Sara and Cortney. I don’t know exactly how it came up but Boomershoot was mentioned and Cortney blurted out, “I want to go to Boomershoot! Have you guys been there?”

My response was something like, “What?” Xenia and Sara have been working at Boomershoot since at least 2003. Here is a picture of them there then. Xenia explained that she and Sara help out at Boomershoot and that I am the person who runs Boomershoot. Her eyes got big and I’m not sure she really believed it until we showed her pictures and the KING5 Evening Magazine video. She wanted to know when the next event was and if she could go. It ended up, assuming she gets her parent’s permission, she will be working for me at Boomershoot 2007.

Sara has been saying she wanted to go shooting for quite some time. She said she had done just a little bit of pistol shooting before, a .44 Magnum, and it was fun. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. A .44 Magnum? Sara is not a large woman. She’s almost tiny.

Anyway I invited the girls to go to the Lewiston Pistol Club’s Steel Challenge match today and Sara was the only one that really wanted to go. I brought along a Ruger Mark II (.22 LR) for her while I shot my STI Eagle in .40 S&W. I was very impressed with Sara. She had very few misses. She just nailed those plates. And on one stage she had a string where she hit all five plates in 5.79 seconds. That’s an average of 1.158 seconds per plate. I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. At the last Boomershoot she nailed a 700 yard boomer on her first shot. And the Fort Lewis sniper instructor coaching her said she had a lot of natural talent and should consider joining a rifle team.

I received the results via email a little bit ago and will put them up on the Lewiston Pistol Club’s website tomorrow. I’m proud to tell you that she didn’t come in last. She beat one guy on every single stage. Here are some pictures of Sara at the match:


Can you tell she is excited to be there?


Not a perfect stance but pretty good.


She also helped with score keeping.


I did some shooting too and came in number six out of 12 shooters.

And another thing… Half way through the match Sara told me was missing the contact lens from her right eye. It had “broke” the previous week. She shoots right handed and at that point I didn’t bother to determine which eye was dominate.

Update: Here are the results.

Quote of the day–Norman R. Augustine

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One-tenth of the people involved in a given endeavor produce at least one-third of the output, and increasing the number of participants merely serves to reduce the average performance.

Norman R. Augustine
From: “Defense Systems Management Review”
[I listened to Atlas Shrugged on my drive this weekend and it reminded me of this quote.–Joe]

More gun control glamor

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I have posted before about gun control advocates being glamorized in the press. Here is another case:

Edward O. Welles, 85, a former CIA officer who later become the first executive director of the antihandgun organization now known as the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, died Oct. 11 of brain cancer at his home in Washington.

…

After retiring from the CIA in 1972, Mr. Welles had a varied career as a volunteer, lobbyist, entrepreneur and gun-control advocate. In 1974, he became the first executive director of the National Council to Control Handguns, which consisted of four people at the time.

“The best investment I ever made was placing an ad for $1.36, looking for someone with organizational abilities,” said Mark Borinsky, who founded the group and hired Mr. Welles as its unpaid executive director.

Mr. Welles helped raise money and recruited members and executives for the organization, now the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. He was known for his ability to talk with victims of gun violence and to draw them into the group’s mission.

Where was the praise for Neal Knox or Jeff Cooper in the main stream press when they died? Knox and Cooper were major players in organizations larger and more influential than Welles. And Welles helped violate the rights of millions of people and bears some responsibility for the deaths of thousands of disarmed victims. Where is the mention of that?

A real shooter on T.V.

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I heard about this segment of Miami Vice years ago from Guy Neill who is a local (Clarkston, WA) USPSA shooter and for several years wrote a IPSC history column in Front Sight magazine. Other than watching Enterprise, Star Gate, and 24 (never again) on DVD with James I can’t remember the last time I watched T.V. So I assumed I would never get to see this video. I’m exceedingly pleased to have stumbled across this.

I have background material from Guy on this video. I hope I get this straight. I’ll be sending Guy an email and asking for corrections so don’t be surprised if there are some tweaks in the next day or so.

The shooter was an IPSC Grandmaster (see the classification system here) and was a consultant on the show. Here he got a bit part as an assassin. For the pistol shooting at the end the director told him, “Don’t worry about making it look fast. We’ll take care of that when we edit it.” Apparently the director had never seen a real shooter draw and shoot. Needless to say they didn’t need to do any editing to make it look faster. Another thing Guy said was that the script didn’t say what to do with the gun afterward and he didn’t realize it until the shooting was over. So what happens is the shooter double taps the other guy looks down, realizes he has a “stove pipe” failure, clears the gun and puts it on the chest of the victim as he walks away. The crew was so slack jawed over the display of speed they just kept filming even though that wasn’t part of the scene.

Update: Rather than edit, which would be minor, I’m just including Guy’s response verbatim:

Joe, it looks like your memory is working well.
 
The actor is Jim Zubienna.   He was a past member of the US Team to the IPSC World shoot, as I recall.  He shot the Bianchi Cup and Steel Challenge matches as well.  I don’t think we actually had a Grand Master rating at that time, but Jim likely would have qualified.
 
He told me later, after the airing of the program, that the director knew nothing of his shooting background, and that he was to go through the motions of the draw and shoot, and that the scene would be edited for speed.  After seeing Jim draw and shoot, the director asked him how he did that!
 
The smokestack jam was not in the script.  Jim cleared it on instinct and then placed the gun on the “body” as an adlib, but one that was left in.
 
If you note Jim’s hands up position upon his surrender in the film clip, it is very similar to the position he used in competition.  A theory among many of the shoooters then was that you would have one hand out in front, approximately where the front sight would be to allow the eyes to be focused at that distance.  Thus, when the gun came up, the eyes were ready.
 
I do not recall at this time if Jim used a cross draw holster in competition, but cross draws were popular with several of the California shooters, so I think it likely.  This means the draw from under his shirt was very close to his draw in competition from a cross draw as well, further allowing very good speed on the draw.
 
Jim’s wife at that time, Linda, was also a shooter.  I don’t believe either is active at this time.
 
I missed seeing Jim a few years ago at the Steel Challenge.  He came by the stage I was working while I was gone to lunch.
 
Being the “bad guy” in the program, Jim was killed by the “good guys” at the end.  Jim also had a small part in another Michael Mann production “Band of the Hand”.

Update 2: Check out this web page on the same scene! There are forum discussions about this scene:

I suspect Guy may have misspelled Jim’s last name. It probably is “Zubiena”. And there is a question as to whether there was a stovepipe malfunction.

This is probably my single most popular post ever. The bump on Tuesday, below, is all because of this.

Don’t regret failing to follow Dr. Joe’s advice

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For at least the last 30 years Dr. Joe has been push his cure for everything–More sex. And now a survey from the U.K. reveals 70% of people 65 years old and older regret not following his advice:

The generational study questioned 1500 Britons over 65 and the same number aged between 20-29 and asked them their top 10 wishes if they could turn back the clock.

70 per cent of the pensioners said they wished they’d had more sex, with 57 percent regretting they had not travelled more.

Don’t be ready to retire and let me have the chance to say, “I told you so!”

And although I don’t talk about it much here Barb will back me up saying that our second most favorite activity together is to travel. We’re going to keep those regrets off the top of our lists.

And speaking of regrets, here’s a quote for you:

The follies which a man regret most in his life are those that he didn’t commit when he had the opportunity.

Helen Rowland

Sign up for your implants

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This article from the U.K. sounds absolutely glowing about implants to give you a unique I.D. so you can “Speed through the checkout with just a wave of your arm”. But when you actually look at the number of people actually willing do submit to such a thing things look a little different:

The idea is already catching on with today’s iPod generation. According to research released today by the Institute for Grocery Distribution (IGD), a retail think-tank, almost one in ten teenagers and one in twenty adults are willing to have a microchip implanted to pay shop bills and help to prevent card or identity fraud and muggings.

In other words, only 10% of teenagers and only 5% of adults would be willing to have a microchip implanted in their bodies. That’s too many but it’s low enough that it’s not likely to be mandated by the government any time soon.

I wonder how many milliseconds of thought were put into the claim that such a thing would help prevent muggings. Plan on having a hunk of your arm cut out when you get mugged for your money. And they will have access to your entire bank account instead of just the cash in your wallet. If your credit card is stolen there are relatively small limits on the amount you are liable for so that isn’t a very big deal.

And these concerns completely ignore the little issue of the ID being remotely read and tied to things like your religion, race, national origin, or sexual preference (I see you are a Jew and it looks like there is a homosexual hiding behind the bookcase). ID implants fail my Jews In The Attic Test.

As I have said before, I’ll accept an ID implant when the people giving the implants accept my implants for themselves. My implants are a little larger than theirs. Mine weigh about 200 grains and will be moving at least Mach 2.0 (assuming I’m within 500 yards which isn’t really a requirement) when they contact the skin.

Quote of the day–Russel Baker

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Millions of sensible people are too high-minded to concede that politics is almost always the choice of the lesser evil.  “Tweedledum and Tweedledee,” they say, “I will not vote.”  Having abstained, they are presented with a President who appoints the people who are going to rummage around in their lives for the next four years.  Consider all the people who sat home in a stew in 1968 rather than vote for Hubert Humphrey.  They showed Humphrey.  Those people who taught Hubert Humphrey a lesson will still be enjoying the Nixon Supreme Court when Tricia and Julie begin to find silver threads among the gold and the black.

Russel Baker
Ford without Flummery

Boomershoot 2007 amazement

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Using a laser range finder and very carefully taking note of how much space I had for shooting positions I opened Boomershoot 2007 up for 70 shooters instead of the 60 we had for Boomershoot 2006. As of this minute Boomershoot 2007 has 42 positions taken which means it is 60% sold out. It wasn’t until the middle of February that Boomershoot 2006 was at a comparable level.

I know some people who are trying to get their schedules figured out and others are waiting for their next paycheck before signing up. I just hope the people I told “no hurry, it won’t sell out before January” won’t be calling me a liar.