To believe regulation of anything by government automatically extends free will is a delusion.

 Anthony Evans
 April 30, 1998
 SOC Libertarian Discussion at Microsoft.

I get lots of spam which I delete, but today was the first time I deleted a real comment.  It was for this post.  Kind of ironic I suppose, but I'm including the comment here:

Sender: ANTI -GUNNERS WORST NIGHTMARE
Url:
IP Address: 207.43.195.202
re: Pathetic anti-gun turnout

YOU LIBERALS ARE RETARDED! DO U REALLY BELIEVE EVERYTHING U READ OR HEAR?! YEAH I HAVE A 2000 CHEVY TRUCK THAT CAN FIRE 1,000,000 ROUNDS A MINUTE AT A TARGET THAT IS GOING 800 MPH! FUCKHEADS GET A CLUE, GET A LIFE,AND PULL YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR FUCKING ASS!!!!!!!GUN CONTROL IT'S NOT ABOUT GUNS, IT'S ABOUT CONTROL, AND I THINK YOU SHEEPLE AKA SHEEP ARE TOTALLY IN THAT CUNT SARAH BRADY'S CONTROL!!!! YOU ARE FUCKING BRAINED WASHED BY A BUNCH OF U.S. HATEING SELF PROCLAIMED COMMIE BASTARDS, WHO WANT TO TAKE ALL, YES ALL OF YOUR CIVIL RIGHTS AWAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

While I suspect the anonymous poster and I share some political opinions our approach to the problem is quite different.  Foul language and name calling do not improve your standing with the public at large or the people that make law and policy.  If you feel it does put it on your own site or someone else's that agrees with your mythology.  It won't be hanging around on my blog for long.  The IP address above resolves to Overland Park, Kansas.  I've spent enough time in Kansas to know that there are some bright, articulate people there.  The person that left the comment above does not represent the people of Kansas that I know.

To rid ourselves of the entrenched, voracious type of capitalism that is in this country that perpetuates sexism and racism, I don't think that can come nonviolently.

Lynne Stewart
Civil rights lawyer convicted February 10, 2005 of smuggling messages of violence from one of
her jailed clients -- a radical Egyptian sheik -- to his terrorist disciples on the outside.

[Apparently she doesn't have a problem with the sexism of radical Islam.--Joe Huffman]

We must not always judge of the generality of the opinion by the noise of the acclamation.

Edmund Burke
(1729-97), Irish philosopher, statesman.
First Letter on a Regicide Peace (1796;
published in The Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke, 
vol. 9, ed. by Paul Langford, 1991).

As some of you know I am involved with biometrics at work.  And it's possible that some of you put two and two together when you saw my “Quote of the day” yesterday.  One of the proposals I submitted for possible funding yesterday was to further develop a means of eliminating the need for passwords in computer security.  It's possible that the computer would, in essence, “just know” you when you sat down and started using the computer.  And it could transmit your identity to other computers/websites that you interacted without the need for passwords.  Kind of cool in some ways, huh?  It's possible that it would make it much harder for someone to get access to your bank account.  It would reduce the ability of “bad guys“ being able to trick someone into giving up their password or mother's maiden name, etc and making off with their life's savings.  Websites could be automagically restricted such that your children couldn't access “adult“ sites even if they got a password from a friend or discovered or guessed yours.  “Transparent security“ could be very cool in some ways.

Among the downsides is that in a totalitarian society it would make it much tougher to deny your involvement in the freedom movement.  Another is that if the system were broken it would be harder to prove it wasn't you that accessed that kiddy porn site.

From a technological standpoint I'm really excited about the prospect of providing a solution to this problem.  The question is; Can it be made compatible with a free society and the individual fighting for freedom in a totalitarian society?

As I reported on Wednesday Barb was sick over the weekend and I may have become infected.  I was sort of teetering on the edge of being sick all week.  I would feel good in the morning then poor that evening.  I had a pretty stressful day at work yesterday getting a bunch of proposals out just before a deadline.  Two of them were mine the other seven belonged to other people.  The boss man ask a co-worker (who had three) and I to “clean-up” everyone else's proposals and get them back to him by close of business.  My co-worker and I had things in fairly good shape for our stuff but some of the others were really bad.  I had the unpleasant task of telling one guy that he really needed to just start over.  He wasn't at all happy and decided to “just drop it”. Another person decided to do just two instead of three after I talked to them about the changes needed.  But they did a good job once I gave them a little guidance.  Anyway we got them all cleaned up and out the door by 17:10 which was acceptable.  Then I had a three hour drive home and I arrived sick.  I wasn't much better this morning and got worse throughout the day.  Lots of things I should do today and I basically just stayed in bed.  I just got up for a bit to try and do something productive for a little while.  I'll probably be all better by Monday when I have to go back to work.

A few minutes ago I updated the Boomershoot Bloggers section of the Boomershoot website.  Analog Kid at Random Nuclear Strike has been linking to Boomershoot for the slightest excuse for weeks now and finally made it over the 100 unique referrals to warrant a free entry.  Thank you! 

I received two more boomershoot entries this week.  The event is half full now.  Wish I was feeling well enough to get some more work done on the event.  There are more targets to modify and more experiments to do.

I believe the American would prefer the policeman's truncheon to the anarchist's bomb.

Former Vice President Spiro T. Agnew

Passwords have reached the end of their useful life. Today, they only work for low-security applications. The secret question is just one manifestation of that fact.

Bruce Schneier
February 9, 2005
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/02/the_curse_of_th.html
http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/0,,99628,00.html

My nephew is in Iraq and came across a rather odd bullet.  Any ideas on what it is made of?  And what kind of gun shoots it?  Wish he had answered more of my questions...

Jason:

...we dug the slugs out of the wall and the humvee tire and they were strange.  Not lead.  Really light and silver.  Steel maybe?  But really light.  Maybe a muj attempt at an armor piercing round made out of steel?  They had a tracer mix in them though.  So that makes me think it's manufactured.  And I didn't really get a good look at the weapon system, but it was full auto and I think an RPK.  Which should be a 7.62 round, but the slug was small.

Thoughs?

Joe:

Mild steel bullets were made by the Chinese.  Maybe some others as well.  Have you tried a magnet on it?  The Chinese bullets were 7.62 x 39 and the same weight as lead bullets, but longer to make up for the lower density.

Did they have a jacket?  "The slug was small".  Small in diameter or length? Did it compress, break into pieces, or not really deform when it hit rubber, wood, brick, or metal?  Compare in weight to your 7.62 or 5.56 rounds or a penny or ideally actually measure the weight in grains or grams.  Actual dimensions and shape would also help determine what they are intended for.  Pictures?

Jason:

The bullet was about the size of a .22.  It didn't defom much at all when it punched through the hub of the humvee and into the run flat tire.  It was also able to punch through about 18 inches of concret with little or no deforming either.  It was a tracer/ball mix of about 4 to 1.  And fired from what sounded like an AK or RPK. 

...

Okay, got to run.  If you want to ask other people about the round feel free, it's not classified or anything.

Modern liberalism, for most liberals is not a consciously understood set of rational beliefs, but a bundle of unexamined prejudices and conjoined sentiments. The basic ideas and beliefs seem more satisfactory when they are not made fully explicit, when they merely lurk rather obscurely in the background, coloring the rhetoric and adding a certain emotive glow.

James Burnham
Suicide of the West

I was sort of down last week after enduring some abuse from Claire Wolfe and friends (this is almost for certain about me too).  After talking to numerous people (not even work associates, but gun owners) I'm convinced I'm right about the turning over certain parts of the boomershoot web logs to the counter intelligence guy upstairs.  I've been thinking about it for days and have an outline of a post on the topic in my mind.  Way, way too many other things going to start writing on it though.  Basically I am of the opinion their world view is set and not subject to new data and situations.  In their minds WW III either doesn't affect them or doesn't exist.

I went to the Lewiston Pistol Club IPSC match on Sunday, I sucked big time.  I think it was the worst I have done in years.  I zeroed one stage.  Did poorly on most of the others.  The classifier (El Presidente) was the only one I did reasonably well on.  I felt really 'spacey'.  Sort of dizzy most of the day.  Barb was coming down with something and missed work Monday.  I may have become infected too.  The dizziness continues and I have a bit of a sore throat as of late Tuesday.

I conducted some explosives tests after the match.  They were the continuation of this.  Another set of disappointments.  None could be detonated with the .22LR and only the 20 and 30 mL of fuel mix detonated with the .30 Carbine.  I read some stuff in my new pyrotechnics book that gives me another idea for a fuel to try that might result in a more sensitive mix.  It will have to wait for a week or two however.  I'm much too busy with other things right now.

Stephanie has been doing a bunch of work on the Boomershoot news releases and related stuff which is really nice to have taken care of.

There are worse things to be than a bigot. I'd rather keep company with a bigot who lets me go my own way than a well-intentioned man who presumes to know what is good for me.

Wendy Thrash

Guns are the catalytic component in murder-suicide. Just as important, it must be understood that the emotional factors that drive suicide can be all too easily turned outward on friends, family, co-workers, and complete strangers because of the unmatched lethality of firearms. Every major murder-suicide study ever conducted has shown that a firearm—with its unmatched combination of lethality and availability—is the weapon most often used to murder the victims, with the offenders then turning the gun on themselves.

Josh Sugarmann
VPC executive director
August 5, 2002
http://www.vpc.org/press/0208nc.htm

[Apparently Mr. Sugarmann didn't include murder-suicide studies done in Japan in his review of papers.  Murder-suicide is far more common in Japan than in the U.S. and yet guns are almost never used.--Joe Huffman]

But I wonder when else, in the history of controversy, there has been such consistent intemperance, insularity, and irascibility as the custodians of the liberal orthodoxy have shown toward conservatives who question some of the orthodoxy's premise?  The liberals' implicit premise is that intercredal dialogues are what one has with Communists, not conservatives, in relationship with whom normal laws of civilized discourse are suspended.

William F. Buckley, Jr.
Up From Liberalism

Do not fix the mistake - Fix the blame.

George Barbarow