The View From North Central Idaho

Sami was found not guilty on most charges.

Sami almost for certain was/is not a “good guy“.  I think he was in fact working on the side of evil.  But one can do that without breaking any law and the court/jury has concluded there was insufficient evidence that he had broken any law.  So... he gets a pass (after spending over a year in jail, terminating his schooling, and having his family kicked out of the country).  I think he probably has paid a sufficient price for his "sins".  And of course our intelligence agencies will be watching him and everyone he has contact with.  He will be essentially useless to our enemies for the forseeable future.  I say, send him back to Saudi Arabia and he is unlikely to bother us again.

For example Brigitte Bardot (sex symbol of 45 years ago) has been fined for exercising her inalienable right to free speech:

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5181642/

The Paris court sentenced Bardot, 69, for remarks in her book “A Scream in the Silence,” an outspoken attack on gays, immigrants and the jobless that shocked France last year.

In the book, she laments the “Islamization of France” and the “underground and dangerous infiltration of Islam.”

And it's not just free speech they don't like, it's economic freedom as well:

http://www.taemag.com/issues/articleID.18005/article_detail.asp

Back in May 1944, Hubert Beuve-Méry, the future founder and editor of Le Monde, the most influential journal in France today, was able to write that “The Americans constitute a real danger for France…. They cling to a veritable cult of the idea of liberty [and] don’t feel the need to liberate themselves from the servitudes that their capitalism entails.” The fact that an important Frenchman was able to argue this even while France was occupied by the Nazis, with the possibility of American liberation being their only hope for a different future, indicates the depth of both the hatred for economic liberty and the anti-American obsession in France.

For me this puts a new light on the French opposition to U.S. activities.

It rained, it hailed, the wind blew and I got a sunburn.  Other than the generator needing to be taken apart and fixed to make the targets, getting the van stuck, and me forgetting the cleaning rod for my AR-15 -- things went well.  I sent the following email to the editor with a Cc: to the writer last night:

From: Joe Huffman
Sent: Monday, June 07, 2004 8:50 PM
To: 'Amy Linn'
Cc: 'Lisa Auerbach'; Ry Jones; Stephanie Sailor
Subject: Lisa's Boomershoot Adventure

Despite the typical Boomershoot weather (rain, hail, high winds, and enough sun to give you a sunburn all in the span of a few hours), the electric generator overhauled in the middle of the target building, and me getting the van stuck, Lisa told me at the end of the day, "That was fun." It must been my mom's rhubarb cobbler and the detailed explanations of farm equipment supplied by my brother that balanced out the negatives. Although she did express some pleasure with the reactive targets. I have a few pictures up on my web site for you guys to look at. Lisa took many more and claimed that one which she took of our fireball target was the most beautiful she had ever taken in her life. I'm not sure why she told me that but I did buy her dinner later.

The pictures can be found here: [snip]

There are two albums of possible interest here. One is of Lisa's adventure and the other is of Boomershoot 2004, the public event from last month. Click on the small pictures to get a medium size picture, click on the medium size pictures to get the large version.

Amy, thanks for sending Lisa out. She was a pleasure to entertain for the day and I hope you enjoy her pictures and what she has to say about her Boomershoot Adventure.

-joe-
----
http://www.modernballistics.com
http://www.boomershoot.org
mailto:JoeH@boomershoot.org

A writer for Outside magazine will be showing up in Moscow tonight.  Tomorrow Ry and I take her on a Boomershoot adventure.  What the editor wanted her to do was attend Boomershoot 2004 but they just missed that.  The weather sounds like it will be on the good side of typical for a Boomershoot. 

Day Mostly cloudy and breezy with a shower or thunderstorm in the area
High	67° F
Maximum RealFeel®	65° F
RealFeel Shade®	63° F
Winds	N at 9 mph
Wind Gusts	19 mph
Maximum UV	4
Thunderstorm Probability	25%
Amount of Precipitation	0.24 in
Amount of Rain	0.24 in
Amount of Snow	0 in
Hours of Precipitation	2
Hours of Rain	2

Most Boomershoots have more rain (and/or snow and hail).  Wind is about normal -- well into the obnoxious range but not into the impossible range.  Temperature is a bit above normal.  But the writer is from Los Angles so a bit above normal temperatures will be a good thing.

This week I spent a couple days in Seattle at the University of Washington Hospital Medical Center having some tests done on my stomach and esophagus. I have been having esophageal spasm every once in a while for the past five to seven years. They have been happening more and more frequent and more intense and I finally let Barb convince me to have a specialist look at me. What follows are the "highlights". Lots of verbal information gathering was done at various steps along the way. And a fair amount of waiting too.

First they ran a tube up my nose and then down into my stomach and measured the pressure of the muscles in my esophagus as I swallowed. They would squirt some stuff (either salt water or this gooey junk) into my mouth and I would swallow. They did this 10 times for each substance.

Next came the endoscophy -- visually looking at my esophagus and stomach. They put in an IV, positioned me on my left side facing the doctor and gave me an injection of some sort of sedative. I remember the room looking just a little bit "wavy" and Barb and one of the workers came rushing in to ask a couple quick questions. I answered, they left, and I turned to face the doctor again. I opened my eyes and I was in the same exact body position but in a different room and Barb asked me "How do you feel." I said, "I feel like I just woke up." I wasn't groggy or anything. My eyes were working well, it seemed to me that I had just blinked but things weren't quite right because I was in a different room. Very strange. The assisting nurse had said I would remain conscious and be able to follow directions but I may not remember anything. I remember absolutely nothing of the procedure. I now have picture of the inside of my stomach -- a place where the sun doesn't shine. Everything looked normal.

Next came the upper GI -- X-rays of the stomach and esophagus as I swallowed a barium compound (which tastes a lot like caulk). The doctor found a small hiatal hernia. That probably contributes to the problem but isn't a big deal.

Next came the PH probe which stayed in until 8:00 AM the next morning. A wire went in my nose and down my throat to my stomach. A ground wire was fastened to my shoulder. A monitoring device about the size of my hand was on a carrying strap that went over my shoulder. I couldn't take a shower or get anything wet. The wire made my nose tickle and irritated the back of my throat. I had terrible urges to cough and sometimes to sneeze. I need to record all "events" such as coughs, sneezes, eating, lying down, going upright, incidences of heartburn, burps, etc.

The next morning at 8:00 AM sharp they removed the PH probe. About 8:30 a medical student took a bunch of medical history and did a physical exam. Blood pressure, pulse, listened to my heart and lungs, looked in my ears, nose, throat, felt a number of lymph nodes and pressed and thumped my abdomen and chest. She left for a while then the doctor and student came in and announced "you should go on antacids". Surgery wasn't something he recommended. I have a fair amount of acid reflux and it was surprising I didn't feel it more (I seldom feel any heartburn) and that is causing the spasms. I asked about the effect of not having acid in my stomach -- doesn't it play a role in the digestive process? He said that it may have a subtle role that we don't understand yet and that may be why some people get diarrhea when they go on antacids (I don't). But that nutritionally it doesn't seem to affect people. Okay. I can do that. I took Prevacid for several weeks on two occasions and it worked well for me without noticeable side effects. I don't like to take drugs and I particularly don't want to take a drug for the rest of my life. But as near as I can tell this is a pretty benign drug in terms of side effects and not having any more of those exceedingly painful spasms would be most welcome.

Lots and lots of stuff in the news about this.  The constitutional challenges to it are the most interesting aspects to me.

I especially liked this article: http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/05/18/grossman.mass.marriage/

[New York Attorney General] ... Spitzer concluded that same-sex marriages should be given full force and effect in New York so long as they were valid in the state where they were performed. (Late yesterday, Rhode Island's Attorney General issued a very similar opinion, while Connecticut's declined to answer the recognition question.)

So can New York same-sex couples marry in Massachusetts, and have their marriages recognized back in New York? It's a conundrum. Assuming Spitzer's view of what New York courts will say is correct, then the law in New York is that such marriages will be recognized if valid in Massachusetts. Yet Massachusetts' Marriage Evasion laws say they will only be recognized if they are permitted in New York.

Fascinating stuff.  And as I have said before I love the implications of the people that typically are the enemies of gun rights are breaking legal ground on getting other states to recognize licenses issued in another.  This will make it very difficult for them to deny recognition of our concealed carry licenses issued in one state in other states.

I've been getting email from people that participated and people that read Kim duToit's blog entry.  Mostly good stuff, but some noticed the same flaws that we did and wanted to report them. 

I made a comment on Kim's blog about being able to delete the pictures I took of him and Stephanie now that he had said such nice things about the event and me (I'm a “National Treasure”).  He immediately wanted a copy of the pictures and when I complied he posted them on his blog.  Honestly, I wasn't going to show those pictures to anyone but Barb.  I knew they would be amusing when I took them, but I wouldn't have deliberately embarrassed him.  But never-the-less, I'm now a “Papparazzi Bastard“ as well as a “National Treasure“.  All in good humor -- I think.

I got an email and a call from an editor for a magazine that wants to do an article on the Boomershoot.  Very cool.  We (Ry and I) said we would put on a special event just for their writer.  She said that it would be arranged.

Some U.S. soldiers humiliate some military prisoners of war and in retaliation the terrorists video tape the beheading of a civilian? I see... That makes our course of action so much more clear. These are not people that are worthy of negotiation with. These are people that are only worthy of imprisonment and extermination. They can practice their religion all they want, they can believe in their "one true god" or twenty. But they will live by a set of rules that include allowing innocent people to have beliefs and practices different from theirs or they will be hunted down, captured and/or killed. They cannot seem to tolerate our existence so it appears that we cannot tolerate theirs. As I said, with sadness, before... there is a certain amount of symmetry their willingness to die for their beliefs because we are willing to kill for ours.

I slept 12 hours on Monday night.  10 hours last night.  Physically I'm feeling pretty good now.  The weather was (relatively) great!  A big plus there.  But I'm disappointed that a lot of the boomers didn't detonate and that a lot of the fireballs failed to ignite.  We changed the target bodies, the mixing/grinding equipment, and added a very small amount of marking chemical to aid in determining if things were well mixed.  Other than that things were the same (we think).  So why the change in detonation?  More research is required...

Jason got some great video that I will need to “borrow” soon.  I have film in the camera bag that needs to be developed and Xenia has a bunch of digital pics to sort through.  Maybe I can get to it this weekend.

I've been awake since 2:00.  Probably won't be able to get back to sleep until very late tonight.  I would pack up the pickup and leave now but Kim still hasn't come home with the pickup. I asked that she bring it home by 6:00 and I suspect she will stay out until 5:50.

The weather is looking great.  Absolutely the best forecasts ever (except for July '99 when we had the fire the next day).

Ry, Paul, and I went out on site today.  Found out the new cardboard ends for the targets are so tough they slow down the .22 LR bullets enough that it won't detonate with them.  It's not a problem with our mix.  This is very good news.  The bullets used by shooters are much heavier than the .22 LR bullets and shouldn't loose near as much velocity when going through the target bodies.  The fireballs still didn't work for some reason, but we can cheat with cans of sterno for the few fireballs we need to do.  We used a blender to grind the ammonium nitrate and it does it faster than the coffee grinders.

Lots and lots of targets to build tomorrow.  But with three blenders I think we can crank the product out fairly fast.

For the first time this year I had trouble going to sleep and staying asleep due to the Boomershoot. Even now my stomach is tied in knots. There aren't really any big obstacles to overcome. Things are a little behind but we have a plan to take care of that. Everything is looking pretty good. Even the weather isn't too awfully bad. Probably one of the best weather forecasts ever for a Boomershoot. I think part of the problem is that I'm not working on it. Tomorrow I start and don't stop until it's done.