This is what we need

Via Wayne LaPierre:

Montana’s Castle Doctrine bill also contains a provision stating that if companies forbid employees from legally and lawfully carrying a firearm, and an employee is a victim of a crime, then the employee can sue his or her employer for failing to protect him (or refusing to allow him to protect himself).

This is wonderful! We need more of this.

One of my first firearms students was a lawyer and suggested something I have never had the courage to try. His suggestion was that employees who are otherwise legally able to carry a concealed firearm but are prohibited by company policy should have their lawyer send the employer a letter. This letter would state the employee would obey the company policy. But should a situation arise where the lawful possession and use of a firearm in the work environment could have saved the life or prevented serious injury to the employee or others that the company was on notice that it would be held liable because of the company policy.

If I was ever in a position where the job just didn’t matter that much I might try that as a means to change company policy. But in most situations I figure it would just result in the company putting you at the top of the list to get rid of should there be a real or imagined downturn in business.

In my list of BHAGs with the PNNL lawsuit is to make it such that having a “no guns” policy is direct evidence of an anti-gun bias. Hence if a gun owner gets fired the no guns policy lends credence to the claim it was his gun ownership that was the real reason. Just as separate bathrooms or drinking fountains for blacks would be evidence that a company had a bias against non-whites. We need to make the cost of anti-gun bigotry as high as we can and I am going to do my best to enable others to inflict a cost on other bigots.

The source of the PNNL leak

Yesterday I was chatting with friend Sean, discussing this situation in regards to PNNL. I told him PNNL is probably trying to find the source of the leak. Sean, almost never at a loss for just the right thing to say said, “I, personally, would lay it all at the feet of Wen Ho Lee.”

I would like to remind my PNNL visitors that there are laws against retaliation against whistle blowers and that I will gladly discuss my sources with law enforcement officials investigating the crimes of PNNL employees. But PNNL efforts to use me to retaliate against people who cooperate with me and/or law enforcement will be vigorously opposed.

Apparently word is getting around

I received a couple more hits from PNNL yesterday. Both were direct hits on Funny Stuff. This was the post where I told about two different people who just recently gave me exceedingly useful information about PNNL. Not that I didn’t already have direct evidence of felonies by PNNL people, but this was further evidence of their crimes and other crimes as yet unreported. One has to wonder how the DOE is going to view it when these criminals, most of whom have security clearances, are not reported to law enforcement and dealt with appropriately.

From the nature of the hits it appears they are either typing in the URL directly or clicking on a link in email–whatever.

I laughed so hard my stomach hurt.

2007 is getting off to a great start:

Domain Name   pnl.gov ? (United States Government)
IP Address   130.20.181.# (Battele Pacific Northwest Laboratory)
ISP   Battele Pacific Northwest Laboratory
Location  
Continent  :  North America
Country  :  United States  (Facts)
State  :  Washington
City  :  Richland
Lat/Long  :  46.3282, -119.3222 (Map)
Distance  :  114 miles
Language   English (United States)
en-us
Operating System   Microsoft WinXP
Browser   Internet Explorer 7.0
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; Q312461)
Javascript   version 1.3
Monitor  

Resolution  :  1152 x 864
Color Depth  :  32 bits

Time of Visit   Jan 9 2007 9:50:25 am
Last Page View   Jan 9 2007 9:50:25 am
Visit Length   0 seconds
Page Views   1
Referring URL
Visit Entry Page   http://blog.joehuffm…/08/Funny Stuff.aspx
Visit Exit Page   http://blog.joehuffm…/08/Funny Stuff.aspx
Out Click    
Time Zone   UTC-8:00
Visitor’s Time   Jan 9 2007 9:50:25 am
Visit Number   125,716
 

 

Domain Name   pnl.gov ? (United States Government)
IP Address   130.20.96.# (Battele Pacific Northwest Laboratory)
ISP   Battele Pacific Northwest Laboratory
Location  
Continent  :  North America
Country  :  United States  (Facts)
State  :  Washington
City  :  Kennewick
Lat/Long  :  46.2131, -119.1682 (Map)
Distance  :  109 miles
Language   English (United States)
en-us
Operating System   Microsoft WinXP
Browser   Internet Explorer 6.0
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; InfoPath.1)
Javascript   version 1.3
Monitor  

Resolution  :  1280 x 960
Color Depth  :  32 bits

Time of Visit   Jan 9 2007 1:44:37 pm
Last Page View   Jan 9 2007 1:44:37 pm
Visit Length   0 seconds
Page Views   1
Referring URL
Visit Entry Page   http://blog.joehuffm…/08/Funny Stuff.aspx
Visit Exit Page   http://blog.joehuffm…/08/Funny Stuff.aspx
Out Click    
Time Zone   UTC-8:00
Visitor’s Time   Jan 9 2007 1:44:37 pm
Visit Number   125,778

Funny stuff

I had contact with a couple people yesterday about certain “legal problems” Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has. The first person told me they had in their possession a message that, in part, said, “I hope they don’t subpoena this.”

The other person told me:

I can definitely atest to a pattern of illegal and unethical activities at the lab. It’s my firm belief that their practices are also detrimental to national security.

There are so many illegal things happening, I’m not sure where to start.

I do think it is my obligation as a citizen to see justice prevail.

This is so funny to me. It’s going to be fun fighting this battle. I’m reminded of a Winston Churchill quote:

I like a man who grins when he fights.

I wonder if the PNNL felons and their lawyers will like me as I grin during this fight.

It probably doesn’t apply

Several months ago Say Uncle (I think it was him, if it was someone else and I got them mixed up my apologies for not giving the right person credit) suggested I see how the Southern Law Poverty Center was able to take private action against people that deprived others of their rights without going through Federal prosecutors. In my case against PNNL even though I have very strong evidence some people committed felonies against me the prosecutors aren’t interested in even investigating the case. Say Uncle pointed out that in what appears on the surface to be an analogous situation the SLPC took the bigots to court and got large settlements. Great point! How did they do that? Well, I found out. They utilized a different law. I had been looking at 18 USC § 241. SLPC used 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3) which says:

If two or more persons in any State or Territory conspire or go in disguise on the highway or on the premises of another, for the purpose of depriving, either directly or indirectly, any person or class of persons of the equal protection of the laws, or of equal privileges and immunities under the laws; or for the purpose of preventing or hindering the constituted authorities of any State or Territory from giving or securing to all persons within such State or Territory the equal protection of the laws; or if two or more persons conspire to prevent by force, intimidation, or threat, any citizen who is lawfully entitled to vote, from giving his support or advocacy in a legal manner, toward or in favor of the election of any lawfully qualified person as an elector for President or Vice President, or as a Member of Congress of the United States; or to injure any citizen in person or property on account of such support or advocacy; in any case of conspiracy set forth in this section, if one or more persons engaged therein do, or cause to be done, any act in furtherance of the object of such conspiracy, whereby another is injured in his person or property, or deprived of having and exercising any right or privilege of a citizen of the United States, the party so injured or deprived may have an action for the recovery of damages occasioned by such injury or deprivation, against any one or more of the conspirators.
Yes, it’s all one sentence. It’s difficult for me to understand it but it appears to not apply in my situation. It would take a lawyer to research it and make sure but my non-lawyer opinion is that it is a bit of a stretch. What we have in 18 USC § 241 much more clearly does apply and I have had three different lawyers tell me they think so as well. The PNNL scumbags committed a felony and I don’t have a legal mechanism to get them into court over it and get a conviction against them.

Hanford News and Los Alamos

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) came about because of Hanford–the nuclear facility where we got the nuclear components for the worlds first atomic bombs. Those scientists and engineers at Hanford were gradually put to work on other projects. The scope increased to where today there is virtually no scientific or engineering task that is off limits for the people there. Although when I was there I worked, literally, a stone’s throw from the Hanford reservation I wasn’t part of Hanford. The name Hanford still persists in the vocabulary of the people as a synonym for more that what is, technically, not Hanford.

With that as background I now present you with Hanford News where the top story of today (and probably for several days but I just noticed it today) is the story of my lawsuit against Battelle who has the contract to manage the laboratory.

What is just as interesting to me is how I happen to run across the story. It was all because someone at another national laboratory, Los Alamos, happen to come visiting:

Domain Name lanl.gov ? (United States Government)
IP Address 128.165.116.# (Los Alamos National Laboratory)
ISP Los Alamos National Laboratory
Location
Continent  : North America
Country  : United States  (Facts)
State  : New Mexico
City  : Los Alamos
Lat/Long  : 35.8639, -106.2953 (Map)
Distance  : 931 miles
Language English (United States)
en-us
Operating System Macintosh MacOSX
Browser Firefox 2.0
Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.8.1.1) Gecko/20061204 Firefox/2.0.0.1
Javascript version 1.5
Monitor
Resolution  :  1680 x 1050
Color Depth  :  32 bits
Time of Visit   Jan 3 2007 2:12:13 pm
Last Page View Jan 3 2007 2:12:13 pm
Visit Length 0 seconds
Page Views   1
Referring URL http://www.pnnl.info/
Visit Entry Page http://blog.joehuffm…Their Attention.aspx
Visit Exit Page http://blog.joehuffm…Their Attention.aspx
Out Click  
Time Zone UTC-7:00
Visitor’s Time Jan 3 2007 3:12:13 pm
Visit Number 124,413

They came from my PNNL.INFO site. That’s interesting! So I looked at the log files form that site and I watched, in real time, as five different people (well, five different computers anyway) from Los Alamos poked around. They found my site via a Google search (http://www.google.com/search?q=pnnl+wrongful+termination ). I did the same search and found the Hanford New story. One person did the search and the other four soon started hitting my site directly and some of them eventually visited my blog. How interesting.

I was chatting on line with my friend Sean (Sean, I told you 10 different IP addresses but there was a bug in the script that I used to count them) as I watched in real time as one person looked at my performance reviews at PNNL. Sean suggested, “Maybe he’s a hiring manager.” What a kick! I took Sean out to dinner after that.

What bugs me though is that the web browsing security at Los Alamos is no better than at PNNL. I was able to determine the exact computer name of each of the participants in their visit to my website. I can’t do that with visits from any other company that I notice visiting me. Microsoft, for example, has proxies in place that prevent that. Even visits from private homes, such as from my family in Moscow, Idaho are impossible to resolve to a specific computer name. What is it with these, supposedly, high security facilities that they have such gaping holes in their security?

Beating Lyle to the punch line: They are government facilities. Do you expect competence?

I’ll bet they didn’t expect to be noticed

Someone from PNNL came visiting again a few minutes ago. But not for the usual reason. Check out the “Search Words”:

Domain Name   pnl.gov ? (United States Government)
IP Address   130.20.105.# (Battele Pacific Northwest Laboratory)
ISP   Battele Pacific Northwest Laboratory
Location  
Continent  :  North America
Country  :  United States  (Facts)
State  :  Washington
City  :  Richland
Lat/Long  :  46.3282, -119.3222 (Map)
Distance  :  114 miles
Language   English (United States)
en-us
Operating System   Microsoft WinXP
Browser   Firefox
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.9) Gecko/20061206 Firefox/1.5.0.9
Javascript   version 1.5
Monitor  

Resolution  :  1920 x 1200
Color Depth  :  32 bits

Time of Visit   Jan 2 2007 6:11:03 pm
Last Page View   Jan 2 2007 6:11:03 pm
Visit Length   0 seconds
Page Views   1
Referring URL http://www.google.co…shington&btnG=Search
Search Engine google.com
Search Words kennewick brazilian wax washington
Visit Entry Page   http://blog.joehuffman.org/
Visit Exit Page   http://blog.joehuffman.org/
Out Click    
Time Zone   UTC-8:00
Visitor’s Time   Jan 2 2007 6:11:03 pm
Visit Number   124,192

Apparently Google gave them a hit on this post of mine.

This is so funny. Their computer security is so lax it’s pathetic. If I still had someone, anyone, there that was willing to talk to me without fear of getting fired I could find out whose computer (I already know the computer name) it was that being used to look for a Brazilian wax job in Kennewick (just to the south across the river from Richland). I’ll bet she (or he) would be embarrassed to have that info posted on the Internet. If it were one of the felons at the lab I’d post the computer name. But almost for certain it’s not.

Quote of the day–Matthew Bean

The Washington State Constitution provides that individual citizens of the state have the right to bear arms to defend themselves or the state, Article I, § 24.

The Washington State Constitution further establishes that citizens have the right to freedom of speech, Article I, § 5.

The Washington State Supreme Court has recognized the tort of wrongful discharge in violation of public policy. Gardner v. Loomis Armoured, Inc., 128 Wn.2d 931 (1996); Roberts v. Dudley. 140 Wn.2d 58 (2000).

The Washington State Constitution is a primary source to determine the public policy of the state of Washington. Roberts v. Dudley, Justices Alexander and Talmadge, concurring separately.

In advocating for the responsible use of firearms, Plaintiff engaged in conduct protected by both Article I, §24 and § 5 and in furtherance of the public good.

Upon information and belief, Plaintiff was terminated for exercising his rights guaranteed to him by the Washington State Constitution, in violation of the public policy of the State of Washington.

Matthew Bean
in Joe Huffman vs. Battelle Memorial Institute
Filed October 30, 2006
Benton County Superior Court
[I would like to say “Hi” to all the people from PNNL that have been visiting my blog and my PNNL.info website recently. Nice to have you stop by. I’m sure I’ll be talking to some of you in person and while you are under oath sometime in the future. Have a nice day–while you still can. To my friends still there and scared about being called to testify–I think I can avoid that in almost all cases. In one case I might have to have one person testify about something embarrassing (to them) but I’ll do my best to avoid it and then make it as bearable as possible if it’s a necessity. To my enemies in this encounter, wherever you are, I have a BHAG post coming up that addresses my plans for you in greater detail.–Joe]

My story makes the AP

Well… sort of. There’s only one outlet that actually ran it that I know of. I like their headline: Fired PNNL worker claims gun discrimination in lawsuit.

I just wish they had linked to my website that proves the case rather than just saying I “say” or “claim” something happened.

Oh well. It’s not the public that matters that much. It’s the judge and jury. And I got a 600% increase in traffic on that website from the newspaper story anyway.

Quote of the day–Ralph Waldo Emerson

Do not follow where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
[This has also been attributed to Harold R. McAlindon. I am unable to find any dates for the life of McAlindon and I’ve never heard of him before today so I’m inclined to believe Emerson was probably first. Regardless, this is my plan in the New Year for dealing with the anti-gun bigots. There is no path in the legal world where I’m headed with PNNL. I hope to leave a trail of (figuratively) bloody bodies that others will follow in our fight to reclaim our freedom against the anti-gun bigots.–Joe]

You could be fired for reading this

I was given a book by a friend recently. Very interesting and entirely consistent with what I have been hearing from my lawyers. The book is You Could Be Fired for Reading This Book: Protect Your Employment Rights. I have a little bit of a problem with the phrase “Employment Rights”. You don’t have a “right” to employment. But other than that it’s a good book. Perhaps I’m nitpicking but in my case certain individuals committed a felony against me in the workplace. The employer could have investigated when they became aware of it (that email went to everyone on this list) and corrected the problem and reported the felony to Federal prosecutors. They did not. That made them a part of the crime.

Lots of things in the book were surprising to me and others I have mentioned them too. Let’s take some examples (not from the book but similar):

  1. Suppose one of your co-workers gets upset because you correctly predicted that their approach to a problem would fail. And to make things worse with 1/3 of the budget gone you get the project turned over to you to “go ahead and do it your way.” You then succeed and get high praise from the customer. This co-worker then tells the boss that you have been barking at the full moon and molesting small animals with shovels and rakes and implements of destruction. Your boss confronts you, you deny it, and without attempting to verify the story fires you and says it’s for dishonesty–making it difficult for you to get another job.
  2. Suppose you have personal website praising the wonderfulness of the Partridge Family T.V. show. You boss has a personal website praising the wonderfulness of the Brady Bunch T.V. show and thinks the Partridge Family is crap. He fires you and even tells you and your co-workers why he did it.
  3. Suppose your boss is married and is having a sexual affair with one of her other direct reports (not her spouse) and he is also married. This subordinate apparently likes playing the field and starts making some advances toward you. You, not knowing of the affair, mention it to your boss. Your boss makes up a reason and fires you even though her having the affair with a direct report is grounds for termination of the boss.
  4. Suppose your boss put in your performance goals for the next year that you must publish five papers in public research journals and contribute to one or more conferences in person. If you don’t succeed you will suffer the consequences in your next performance review. Suppose he didn’t bother to get your goals written up and delivered to you until nearly half way through the year. You question how this is going to be possible because all your current research has at least some aspect that is classified and not allowed in public journals. New projects that might be entirely unclassified won’t be available until next year. Not to mention that the projects you are involved in were budgeted without money allocated for publication of papers or attending conferences and there is very little time to write the research papers and get them published. He assures you that the unclassified parts are acceptable to put in the research papers and you should “give it your best effort” in spite of the time and money constraints. You give a few hints about coming papers on your personal blog. Your boss reads your blog and fires you for not keeping company information private and possibly violating national security.

Now, take a guess and tell me which of the above you think are grounds for a wrongful termination lawsuit in the United States.

The answer in nearly all states, and particularly in Washington state, is none of the above.

Wrongful termination lawsuits are very hard to even get into court. There are a very limited number of things (for example sexual, racial, age, or religious discrimination) that will get you any traction at all. And before you can even get the case into court you have to have some evidence or testimony, other than your own, to make the case it was one of “those things”. You can’t make your co-workers (who know they would be fired if they did) testify under oath until much later in the legal proceedings. You can’t demand internal documents that might collaborate your side of things until much later either. You have to have the evidence with you the last time you went out the door–which in itself could be considered valid grounds for termination if they found it out and used that as the basis for termination. That could ruin your chances of winning in court should you get so far as to have a jury hear the case.

And even just bringing a case against a former employer can make you unemployable. Future employers will be extra cautious about hiring “a troublemaker”. In short wrongful termination cases are tough and risky. I’m doing it anyway. I have the evidence to get us into courts. My lawyer and I are nearly certain we can prove the facts. We just have to prove the law supports us. More on that after PNNL gives us their response.

Time will tell

I’ve been watching my web logs pretty closely lately and I ran across this today. It’s got to be my favorite visit in the past couple of months. Notice the part in RED:

68.113.0.103 – – [31/Dec/2006:02:54:36 +0000] “GET /Report.htm HTTP/1.1” 200 22216 “http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&client=safari&rls=en&q=%22joseph+Huffman%22+pnnl&btnG=Search” “Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/418.9.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/419.3”
68.113.0.103 – – [31/Dec/2006:02:54:36 +0000] “GET /_themes/pistol/sticharcoaltrans.gif HTTP/1.1” 200 10962 “http://www.pnnl.info/Report.htm” “Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/418.9.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/419.3”
68.113.0.103 – – [31/Dec/2006:02:54:36 +0000] “GET /_themes/pistol/textbull.gif HTTP/1.1” 200 944 “http://www.pnnl.info/Report.htm” “Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/418.9.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/419.3”
68.113.0.103 – – [31/Dec/2006:02:54:36 +0000] “GET /_themes/pistol/horizontal.gif HTTP/1.1” 200 1110 “http://www.pnnl.info/Report.htm” “Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/418.9.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/419.3”
68.113.0.103 – – [31/Dec/2006:02:54:37 +0000] “GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1” 404 287 “-” “Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/418.9.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/419.3”
68.113.0.103 – – [31/Dec/2006:02:55:29 +0000] “GET /joeyouradumbass.html HTTP/1.1” 404 296 “-” “Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/418.9.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/419.3”
68.113.0.103 – – [31/Dec/2006:02:55:29 +0000] “GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1” 404 287 “-” “Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/418.9.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/419.3”
68.113.0.103 – – [31/Dec/2006:02:55:51 +0000] “GET /joe_your_a_dumb_ass.html HTTP/1.1″ 404 300 “-” “Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/418.9.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/419.3”
68.113.0.103 – – [31/Dec/2006:02:55:51 +0000] “GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1” 404 287 “-” “Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/418.9.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/419.3”
68.113.0.103 – – [31/Dec/2006:02:56:17 +0000] “GET /Reinforcements.htm HTTP/1.1” 200 31153 “http://www.pnnl.info/Report.htm” “Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/418.9.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/419.3”
68.113.0.103 – – [31/Dec/2006:02:56:17 +0000] “GET /images/JoeComputer.JPG HTTP/1.1” 200 29391 “http://www.pnnl.info/Reinforcements.htm” “Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/418.9.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/419.3”
68.113.0.103 – – [31/Dec/2006:02:56:17 +0000] “GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1” 404 287 “-” “Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/418.9.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/419.3”

The part is red is a request for a file by the name of “joe_your_a_dumb_ass.html” which doesn’t exist. It apparently was just a message for me. Further information on this person is available from http://www.geobytes.com/IpLocator.htm?GetLocation which yields Richland, WA. This is the home of PNNL and some of the bigots that committed the felony against me. Further information about this person is probably available from their ISP. Which nslookup shows as: 68-113-0-103.dhcp.knwk.wa.charter.com or Charter.com in Kennewick.

Probably the most telling is they are using a Macintosh computer. That narrows it down a bunch. I don’t know for certain who it is, so let just call him or her “John”.

John apparently has more than just a casual interest in my website. He spent the next forty three minutes reading my research notes and a bunch of other stuff. Then came back an hour and forty three minutes later to take a second look at the complaint we filed in court.

John, you probably had something to do with this or you wouldn’t be so interested in my website and calling me names. As for being a dumb ass, I would like to suggest that you committing a felony was a lot more dumb than me making the details of the crime public. Time will tell who is the dumber of the two of us but it appears to me you have such a big start in the stupid department it will be difficult for me to even come close. Have a happy New Year John–while you have a chance. It’s going to be tough once you start answering questions under oath. And another thing John, I know I have my share of spelling errors and typos but you should have said “you’re” instead of “your”.

Christmas loot


Christmas 2006 for Joe

Notice the toothbrush in the lower left corner from Barb? That is to counteract all the candy and jam on the entire left side of the picture from all her other relatives.

James got me me the blanket underneath everything that supposedly says “blanket” in binary ASCII but I haven’t verified it yet. James also got me Obsession–The Movie and America: Freedom to Facism

I’m looking forward to testing out the Roomba from Barb. It’s charging now.

I got lots of new music from Barb to keep me entertained on my trips to and from Seattle. Although I’ll probably have just as much fun fantasizing about my future interactions with the felony bigots at PNNL on my long drives. The lawsuit being served is probably my favorite gift–even though I paid for it myself.

I’ve been told the new Battlestar Galactica series I got from Barb is better than the original one. James and I will be watching that in the evenings in Seattle just as soon as we finish off the Enterprise series.

I got all six of the flashlights from our daughter Kim and her fiancée Caleb. The LED one with the crank generator in the top right corner of the picture gets my vote for the best one.

The Boris Vallejo calendar was no surprise but then Barb has been getting one of those every year for nearly thirty years now. No reason to stop anytime soon.

The mug and the plate were hand glazed by Sara and Xenia respectively. That’s an image of Enterprise on a star background on the mug.

Xenia has some pictures of the other pottery stuff she did for Christmas including a better picture of the Boomershoot plate.

Confirmation (I think)

One of the rumors I have heard out of PNNL was that I had modified one or more of my sites to treat visitors from the lab differently and put “malware” on the labs network. This claim is totally false and I sometimes wondered if anyone actually thought that. Perhaps someone did because I found this. It’s a report on my PNNL.INFO website in regards to spam, adware, and spyware. A number of the sites for which I am the webmaster and have some relationship to the PNNL conflict are shown to have been tested by McAfee SiteAdvisor. Others for which I am the webmaster have not been tested. I’m wondering if the bigots were trying to verify their claims by submitting my sites for analysis. If so, they failed. McAfee loves me.

It’s a little bit of a stretch but it seems to me this is another bit of evidence the bigots were spreading falsehoods about me.

Something got their attention

PNNL has been visiting my blog again:

Domain Name pnl.gov ? (United States Government)
IP Address 130.20.121.# (Battele Pacific Northwest Laboratory)
ISP Battele Pacific Northwest Laboratory
Location
Continent  : North America
Country  : United States  (Facts)
State  : Washington
City  : Richland
Lat/Long  : 46.3282, -119.3222 (Map)
Distance  : 114 miles
Language English (United States)
en-us
Operating System Microsoft WinXP
Browser Internet Explorer 7.0
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; InfoPath.1)
Javascript version 1.3
Monitor
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I wonder if it was the newspaper article or the lawsuit being served…

Let the games begin

About an hour ago I got a call from John Trumbo of the Tri City Herald. He said he had just talked to Battelle about my lawsuit (Word .DOC file). Battelle said they hadn’t been served yet (not surprising) and would only say that I had worked for them between “such and such dates” and that I had worked on Internet security projects. He wanted to confirm with me, as stated in the complaint that I knew of nothing I had done wrong except for the allowing of my wife and daughter to use the company laptop to access the Internet and that it was against company policy. I confirmed that was the case. He stated it was hard to imagine anyone would try to build a case for termination based on their advocation of Second Amendment rights. I agreed but assured him I am certain that is the case. He said, “It will go out tomorrow.” And “Onward and upward I guess.”

We’ll see how my luck (very good for the last several years) with reporters and Second Amendment issues holds up under the pressure of an adversary like Battelle.

Update: It’s out. I can’t complain. I’m thrilled to confirm Battelle still claims the termination was “for violating PNNL policies (involving) inappropriate and unauthorized use of PNNL computers.” That would be the hosting of a personal website on a company computer as they told the Department of Energy which is totally false. And/or it could be the use of the company laptop by my wife and daughter a few times which is true but is not going to be believable as cause for termination to any jury. They are going to have a “fun time” making that case. More on the quandary they are in some other post.

Merry Christmas

Being an atheist I don’t usually take much pleasure in Christmas. But this year is something very special. Last year was very tough for us after being fired from PNNL. However this year is much better. I got a good job last April. The lawsuit against PNNL and my former supervisor, Bryan McMillan, was filled October 30th. And then just in time for Christmas I received word yesterday that McMillan and his wife Torrie (community property state, in order to get full access to his assets we needed to fill against his wife too) got served with the papers.

Merry Christmas Bryan!

Sorry Torrie, but it’s not my fault you married someone of such low character that he committed a felony. I’m pretty sure there will be some more unpleasant surprises for you about his character in the coming years as the lawsuit details come out.

To the people at the Gun Blogger Rendezvous that I asked not to mention the details I talked about, you are now free to blog as much as you want.

Perhaps I should have been paying more attention

I received an email asking my opinion about this article. The important part is the following:

The death of Alexander Litvinenko by radiological poisoning points to the possibility that the former Soviet spy may have been involved with Islamic terrorists in the preparation of tactical nuclear weapons for use in the jihad against the United States and its NATO allies.

Litvenenko, a former KGB agent, died in London on November 23 after ingesting a microscopic amount of polonium-210.

Litvinenko, who was born an orthodox Christian, was a convert to Islam with close ties to the Chechen rebels. His last words consisted of his desire to be buried “according to Muslim tradition.”

The neutron source or “triggers” of the suitcase nukes are composed of beryllium-9 and polonium-210. When these two elements are combined, the alpha particle is absorbed by the nucleus of the beryllium causing it to decay by emitting a neutron. Such “triggers” were a feature of early nuclear weapons in the U.S. and Soviet stockpiles.

Polonium-210 has a half-life of 138 days, necessitating the replacement of the triggers every six months. For this reason, the suitcase nukes are far from maintenance-free. In addition, the nuclear core of these devices emit a temperature in excess of one hundred degrees Fahrenheit – – further exposing the weapons to oxidation and rust. Small wonder that al Qaeda operatives including Adnan el-Shukrijumah, who are spearheading “the American Hiroshima” have received extensive training in nuclear technology.

I’m a little annoyed at the article. The physics are non-sensical. Things don’t “emit a temperature”. They can emit radiation of various types which could include infra-red energy which could be called “heat”. They might generate enough heat to maintain a temperature of 100 degrees F while stored at room temperature. And a temperature of 100F does not necessitate “further exposure to oxidation and rust”. That makes me a little bit more skeptical than I normally would be.

I haven’t read much more than the headlines in the spy poisoning case so I really can address the question and comment accompanying the link:

Sounds a little far fetched. Have you heard anything similar? If it is actually true, it would mean there are mushroom clouds planned for sometime in the next six months. The biggest Christian holiday is Christmas……..

Something to keep in mind this holiday season.

I’m going to make sure I know where my Geiger counter is and that it’s working. Lots of other safety gear to check up on as well. There’s not much else I can do. We can all “thank” the bigoted felons at PNNL for taking me out of this fight.

Dooce on the front page

Dooce is my favorite blog and it’s not because her blog became the namesake of what happened to me (fired because of blogging). Most of what I read is gun and freedom related stuff and is often sort of draining. I don’t read much of the lighter stuff and Heather gives me a real boost. I really, really like Heather’s humor. Today she shared what is probably my favorite post yet. She and her family were interviewed for the Salt Lake Tribune about her blog and her family life:

The story ran this past Saturday, and although Matt had said it was going to be a big story, I wasn’t prepared to walk out to the driveway that morning and find my face staring back up at me from the pavement. The story was huge, the biggest thing on the front page, and inside it covered over a page and a half. I ran back inside, threw open the paper on the bed, and Jon and I stared down at these words in the second paragraph:

He runs the washcloth between her shoulder blades and then quickly circles around to rub her breasts.

OH.

MY.

GOD.

Hello, Mormons! How about some breasts with your morning prayers?

Matt was paraphrasing this entry I had written during the few days we had talked to him, and you might notice that not once did I ever use the term breasts in reference to my own. And this is the only complaint I have about the article which as a whole is the fairest, most level-headed piece of journalism ever written about me — he didn’t try to push an opinion about whether I was a self-absorbed egotist or an insignificant mommyblogger or an incredibly juvenile nitwit, although you only have to read one sentence of this website and you’d be convinced of all three.

My complaint is that when you take some of the things I write out of context they make me sound as if I am perpetually running up and down the street in the nude waving my tattooed middle finger at innocent old ladies who are cross-stitching passages of scripture as they sit in their wheelchairs on the porch. And that is so not true. I only do that on the weekends.

Her use of exaggeration sometimes makes me want to know a little more of the real side of her family. The article and this blog posting (Xenia, please read if you haven’t already) by the photographer helped satisfy that urge.

Heather, thank you for sharing.