Monthly Archives: May 2008

Quote of the day–Thomas Jefferson

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I sincerely believe . . . that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.

Thomas Jefferson
Letter May 28, 1816 to senator John Taylor
[I haven’t investigated enough to say for certain but I suspect the “spending money to paid by posterity” is a significant part of why the politicians don’t do anything about illegal immigration. A rapidly expanding tax base (via both individual and corporate taxes enabled by cheap labor) is one way they can avoid a financial collapse. Hence Jefferson’s observation may be true in the general case but avoidable in some cases if the government is “creative” in the financing. But it may be that the dangers of massive illegal immigration are just as harmful as a standing army or a large debt.–Joe]

Death wish or just incredibly stupid?

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My web site about my “adventure” with Battelle’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory recently yielded contact with another victim of theirs.

I often thought it odd they would treat me so poorly with my expertise with explosives and firearms. Why not ease me out rather than treat me crap and not even allow me to defend myself against the allegations? Internal email and testimony during my lawsuit after I was fired revealed there were people on the inside that were quite concerned about that too. They had one or more meetings on how they might deal with “getting sniped at from 800 yards away”.

My latest contact who joined the club of being fired unjustly with any opportunity to defend themselves against allegations of wrongdoing by Battelle has expertise with botulinum toxin, ricin, Yersinia pestis, as well as all of the major chemical warfare agents, such as mustard gas, Sarin and VX.

She is thinking about it

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I’ve been quietly telling people that I wouldn’t be surprised if Hillary arranges for Obama to be “physically unable to accept the nomination”. Everything I have read about her indicates she is that evil.

I therefore am not at all surprised she said this:

“My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don’t understand it,” she said.

Update: I was listening to some talk radio station and a caller suggested instead of the Bobby Kennedy assassination example she should have used the example of Vince Foster being found dead in a park. For some of you that might not “get it” the predominate conspiracy theory surrounding Foster’s death is that Hillary arranged his “suicide”.

It has also been suggested that Hillary said what she said as a message to her more fanatical supporters of something they could do to ensure she gets the nomination.

To; John Bachman of WSBTV #2

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In response to Joe’s earlier post (a very good one, Joe, by the way) I piled on a bit more:

Mr. Bachman,

Your stance, tone and alarmist tactics remind me somewhat of the Temperance Movement of the early 20th century.  Invariably, the results of such crusades are in the long run vastly more destructive than the perceived “problems” they attempt to solve.

If you truly want to help improve general safety and quality of life, might I suggest you look into the principles of liberty upon which this country was built, and begin championing them?  You may find it a much more enjoyable (and profitable) pursuit.

Sincerely,

Lyle…

Update 05/23/08:  WSB-TV has pulled the offending video for now.  Maybe they’ll post an edited version at some point.

 

Links for the bloggers I met

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While at the NRA Convention there were numerous times when someone say, “I once made about post about that.” Most of the time others would say, “Yeah! I remember that.” Occasionally someone would say, “I must have missed that. Could you bring me up to speed?”

This is for those times when people missed one of my posts.

For Kevin, Sebastian, and Bitter on Sunday night when we were talking about powdered sugar and coffee creamer in regards to A Security Theater. Check out the video link.

Photo below by Rob Allen (see this post of his for more pictures from Friday evening) which was taken within a few minutes of the discussion:


Left front and going clockwise: Jeff, Kevin, Joe, Say Uncle.

We were talking about endangered species and I mentioned the post I made about Habitat destruction leads to extinction. That got a laugh. But then we nearly fell out of our booth laughing as Kevin described it as deforestation.

Update: Late last Friday, the night we are not to blog about, someone who shall remain nameless mentioned a problem with insomnia. This same someone at a different time acknowledged reading about Dr. Joe’s cure for everything. But they apparently didn’t make the connection that their insomnia was a prime candidate for a treatment with Dr. Joe’s cure. I was tempted to make the connection for them but thought it would be inappropriate “to go there” in the given circumstances.

Quote of the day–Ian Hamet

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I could vote for Hillary, despite her awfulness, for the simple reason that while she’s vile, she’s perfectly willing to throw aside any and all principles. That is usually a bad thing, but if America were attacked while she was President, she’d be so personally offended that whoever it was had the gall to attack while she was President that she’d toss aside all the touchy-feely “it takes a village” crap and nuke them back to the stone age.

Ian Hamet
May 14, 2008
Cynicism (not especially upbeat)
[H/T to Kevin for the pointer.

I can see his point and agree for about 30 seconds before the emotional glow fades and rational thought returns. The first Clinton regime was bad enough with Hillary being buffered by Bill. To have Hillary yanking directly on the reins of power would be just too painful.–Joe]

They should put Brady and company on the byline

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This article, from the headline:

Relaxation on gun control, unlicensed sales contribute to gun violence in Oakland

to the last section:

‘Every day I hear gun shots’

Fourteen-year-old C.J. described that paranoia, and sometimes the lack of it, in an interview. The West Oakland youth has come to live with the sound of gunshots.

“Every day, I hear gun shots — well, not every day, but most days of the week,” C.J. said. “When we play, we hear gunshots. If they get closer and closer, then we run inside.”

One night when he and his brother were walking home from a party at a cousin’s house on Eighth Street, “the guns started going off and we ran,” he said. “Everybody was screaming and running. I was just running different ways trying not to get hurt. I jumped into someone’s back yard and waited.”

When the gunfire stopped, he went looking for his brother and found him waiting inside someone’s house.

Still, C.J. said he does not expect to get shot. He said it is usually people arguing who shoot at each other, and he avoids arguments.

C.J. said this with conviction, having accepted that gunfire is a part of daily life and figured out a way to avoid it. He lost his father to gunfire in Oakland a decade ago and seems to have thought carefully about how to avoid that fate.

“They keep going back and forth killing each other,” he said. “It’s not scary to me because I’m not in those arguments.”

It is nothing but falsehoods, speculation, misleading information, and anecdotes designed to alarm and frighten.

This wasn’t written by journalists. This was written by people that should be on the Brady Campaign payroll.

Paul Helinkski of Guns America

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On Saturday night (Sunday morning), at the NRA Convention, I stayed up until 3:00 AM socializing and blogging. I arrived at the Press Room a few minutes before 9:00 the next morning and found I was the first one there for the meeting with Paul Helinkski of Guns America. Wimps. Even the NRA staff hadn’t arrived to unlock the door early after being late the day before. If it hadn’t been for the wheelbarrow full of cash I received on arrival I would have been a little bit annoyed with the NRA for dropping the ball in this regard two days in a row.

About 9:00 other bloggers and press people showed up to wait. Bitter had no explanation:

More people showed up–and waited:

Then Helinkski showed up and waited with the rest of us:

Finally, about 15 or 20 minutes late, the NRA staff (names withheld to protect the guilty) showed up, let us in, and we all sat down to listen to Helinkski:

He gave us his background and while interesting from a technical aspect most of my readers aren’t going to care about that. What probably is interesting is what he had to say about the future of gun sales on the Internet.

Helinkski is of the opinion that gun are a very unique product that cannot be sold like other products. The required FFL for shipment and NICS checks for most sales is the reason. That “speed bump” could be smoothed out by “dealers” that do not stock firearms but simply do the transfers and charge $20 or $30. But, according to Helinkski, this would be the very bad for gun owners. Sure we could get guns a few dollars cheaper if we did our purchases that way but having the gun store down the street on the corner is more important that those few dollars. The public visibility is important and having the customer service locally available is important.

So what is the future of Internet gun sales? Helinkski has an innovative web product that addresses that. Check out GunsAmerica.com. His website allows dealers to post their inventory on the web and the customers to comparison shop. You can search for guns within X miles of your zip code and then if the dealer makes a sale because you found what you liked on the website Helinkski makes a flat fee on the deal. You still have to visit the dealer and purchase the gun face-to-face but what Guns America has done is make the comparison shopping much easier.

CCRKBA News Release

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I can’t find an online version to link to so I’m just posting the email version I received from the Citizens Committe for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. The short version is what Uncle said, “Ald. Richard Mell…like you and me only better.”

CCRKBA SAYS CHICAGO ALDERMAN SHOULD SUFFER LIKE OTHER GUN OWNERS

BELLEVUE, WA – Chicago Alderman Richard Mell ought to be prosecuted like any other negligent gun owner for failing to re-register his firearms under an ordinance he helped pass, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.

“I don’t care if anti-gun Mayor Richard Daley supports giving Mell a break, and it doesn’t matter that Mell is the father-in-law of Gov. Rod Blagojevich,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “For years, the draconian ordinance supported by Mell and enforced by Daley has terrorized Chicago gun owners. It’s time for Mell to face his own music, and it’s time for Daley to just shut up.”

Mell has proposed an amendment to the existing law that would allow gun registration to re-open for a month, giving him amnesty. Mell and Daley are claiming that this is for other gun owners in the city as well who may have let their registrations lapse.

“For years, the Daley Administration has engaged in goon squad demagoguery against gun owners,” Gottlieb observed, “but now all of a sudden, just because Alderman Mell finds himself on the wrong side of a law he supported, he and Daley want to do Chicago gun owners a favor. This magnanimity is a flimsy sham, and law-abiding firearm owners all over Illinois should be outraged.

“It is equally outrageous that Mell is blaming this lapse on an aide,” he added. “How stupid is that? Mell knows that gun owners are personally responsible for re-registering their firearms, and over the years, the city has shown no mercy for others who have failed to comply with the law. This guy shouldn’t be on the city council, he ought to be in an unemployment line, and even more than that, he ought to be facing charges in court for possession of unregistered guns inside the city.

“The sad fact is,” Gottlieb concluded, “that this proposed amnesty amendment would never be on the table if it weren’t designed specifically to help Alderman Mell. That anyone else might benefit is an accident, and both Mell and Daley know it. Other gun owners should be allowed to re-register, but Mell should lose on this sweetheart deal. Perhaps then he will fully understand just how insidious Chicago’s gun laws really are, and he will lead the fight to abolish them.”

To: John Bachman of WSBTV

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I just sent the following email to the guy on the video about online explosives. 

 

From: Joe Huffman
Sent: Thursday, May 22, 2008 9:47 PM
To: John Bachman (john.bachman@wsbtv.com); ‘talk2us@wsbtv.com’
Subject: Please discontinue using my video.

 

Today I was informed of your video about the availability of online explosives (http://www.wsbtv.com/video/16266872/index.html). The last video clip you used from web sources was taken by me of my daughter Kim. You did not obtain permission to use that and I am requesting that you immediately stop using it.

 

In addition to the unauthorized use of my material you strongly imply we are using Tannerite or some other explosive available via online sources. This is false. The material used is of my own manufacture. I have a license issued by the ATF to manufacture high explosives and my daughter Kim is authorized by the ATF to handle explosives. To use her likeness and my product in your biased and even bigoted attack on a legal product used in a legal manner is exceedingly offensive to me and thousands of other people.

 

I can’t imagine what you were thinking. Would you show video of people using guns to legally hunt, shoot tin cans, or put holes in paper targets and then contact your congress because you were worried someone might use their guns to commit a terrorist act? Or how about showing someone having a glass of wine with dinner or drinking a beer in their backyard? Would you demand the government do something about this because of your concerns about drunk driving?

 

When I was growing up my family was able to, and did, buy dynamite, blasting caps, at the local hardware store with no special license or transportation requirements. We paid for it, picked it up out back, put in it in the trunk of the car and drove home with it.  That the average person can still acquire explosives easily, legally, and safely is a testament to what a great country we have. It shows that not only the government is subservient to its citizens but that its citizens are responsible and can be trusted.

 

If you had demonstrated these explosives were used in thousands of crimes each year I might think you had reason to be concerned. But you did not do this. You could have used that same product and those same video to show what a great country we have. You could have shown what unique freedoms we have and how those freedoms are not being abused and I would have gladly given you permission to use my video. Seattle King 5 Evening Magazine did that with this video: http://www.boomershoot.org/2005/KING5.wmv. But you didn’t do that. You merely demonstrated you are a Puritan–afraid that someone, someplace, is having fun.

 

 

Joe Huffman
Boomershoot Event Director

Todd Jarrett, guns and explosives

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Last Friday night Michael Baine hosted a social event for us bloggers. Todd Jarrett reported that 10 bloggers would get training from him at Blackwater and then take home a Paraordinance gun at the end of the training. Bitter has some details.

I spent probably 15 minutes talking with Jarrett and he got really interested in Boomershoot and told me he wanted to blow up a car. He wants to be able to shoot bullets into it and have it lift about four feet off the ground. I gave him my card and told him I thought I could do that. He seemed interested in exploring that further. Cool!

Quote of the day–Glenn Beck

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Before I pay over $10 for a gallon of gas I will drill through a polar bears head. — I would feel bad. But I would do it.

Glenn Beck
NRA Annual Convention
Keynote speech
May 17, 2008
[He also pointed out that polar bears have been dramatically increasing in numbers recently. I think he should have said “hugger” instead of “head”, but that’s just me.–Joe]

Pictures for Tamara’s groupies

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Several of the bloggers, myself included, in attendance at the NRA Convention were looking forward to meeting the Empress of Snarktm. She and Roberta flew in on their broomstick Saturday and left again before most of us got a chance to meet them. Tamera was persuaded to visit again on Sunday and some waited in the pressroom for quite some time. When she finally arrived we went in search of food:


Left to right are Bill, Mike W., Denise, Tamara, and Rick.


Tamara checking out her taco cone.

I’m almost always surprised when I meet someone in person who I had some non face-to-face contact. I expected Tamara to have a big smile on her face almost all the time as she laughed at the world around her and she would let rip with one snarky comment after another. Instead she was reserved and seemed to be pushing herself to overcome shyness. But maybe that was just her restraining herself from decking one or more of her groupies.

Regardless she was very tolerant of all the attention people gave her and to the best of my knowledge she didn’t have to even brandish her knife.

Update: In response to a comment from Chuck–She has eyebrows. It’s just that her light red hair is difficult to distingush from her pink skin.

See?

Truther consequences

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One of the sessions at the NRA conventions I attended was “It’s Not The Critic Who Counts”. It was a good session and I’ll post more about it another time.

What was embarrassing at the time was some 9/11 Truther who heckled Ollie North. I thought North handled him well during the session and I figured that would be the end of it.

But after the session the guy came up and harassed him some more. I was busy talking to someone else and didn’t pay much attention.

A couple hours later while a bunch of us were eating lunch Rick noticed someone being marched out the door by a squad of men in blue. Here is our lunch gathering:

Rick and I went outside to check it out. The guy in handcuffs (you can’t see the cuffs in this picture) up against the wall was the Truther.

According to my sources he didn’t stop with harassing North he continued on with Ted Nugent and maybe even some others. The powers that be finally got tired of it. They yanked his pass and escorted him out of the building.

I cheated and won

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Despite thousands of people walking around carrying guns and even drinking while armed the only shooting I saw was the air gun stuff going on at the convention hall. Rick from Traction Control challenged Kevin and I to a little friendly shooting. The targets are below.

I cheated. Something Greg Hamilton of Insights teaches his students–the goal is to win. In a gun fight winning is the only thing that matters. Playing fair is for losers.

Rick and Kevin shot first and reported the gun was shooting low and right. So I aimed high and left. I scored a 49 and won.

Quote of the day–Rob Allen

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We have a long, hard road ahead of us. I feel more comfortable knowing you all will be there by my side as we battle the forces of stupidity and take comfort in the knowledge that each of you will do everything they can to retain our rights as citizens of the free world. And, if God forbid it all goes south, at least we have Joe Huffman on our side.

Rob Allen
May 20, 2008 in an email he sent to bloggers he met at the NRA convention.
[Rob is Sharp as a Marble, but for some reason he wasn’t the only person that has been saying things like that about me. I would like to think it was because of my target from the friendly little air-gun competition we had. But there were hints that wasn’t it. It was before that and/or in a completely different context Kevin said the same thing and numerous others that said the same or something similar. Bitter, for example, said she would never look at powdered sugar the same way again. I appreciate all the nice things people are saying but aren’t you just moving me to the top of some list I really don’t want to be on?–Joe]

My leg did not explode

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I injured my leg at Boomershoot which was over three weeks ago. It didn’t hurt that much at the time but it started swelling a few days later. While in Louisville I did a lot of standing and walking. And Thursday through Sunday nights I got four, three, four, and five hours of sleep. By Sunday afternoon my leg was swollen up tight as a balloon. I went back to the motel and laid on the floor with my feet on the bed to reduce the pressure.

Today I called the doctor shortly after my plane landed and made an appointment. She looked at it and sent me to get a Doppler study done. There are no clots and the blood flow from my groin to my ankle is just fine. They found a hematoma just below the knee which is the problem. I’m to elevate the leg more, apply heat and compression for a few days and see if that helps.

I’m pretty comfortable right now except I’m still short on sleep. Thanks to everybody for asking how I’m doing.

I did not offer to help

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I had said I wouldn’t blog about Friday night but since it has been widely reported elsewhere that Say Uncle has teeth like little vaginas I would like to make something very clear. The next morning when Uncle said he had a headache I did not offer Dr. Joe’s cure for everything.

Uncle and his hotel roommate Rob Allen had already pegged out my squeam-o-meter when they started talking about “the lube”.