Every once in a while I have doubt.  Maybe I did do something wrong.  Maybe I did step over the line and deserve to get fired.  When I was in the first meeting I thought maybe there was something that I got carried away with.  The next day I reviewed everything I could find on my blog.  There was nothing that should have been a problem.  I felt better in some ways but things still didn't make sense.  Why were they making it into a problem?

I was required to talk with the HR people and I thought it went really well.  They asked factual questions that were not judgment calls.  "Did you know this was a rule?"  "Yes."  "Did you ever break this rule?"  "No."  Almost all the questions were easy stuff.  Virtually nothing was ambiguous--which was a problem for me with the first meeting.  Immediately after the meeting I was suspended without pay--which was a shock.  As I drove home the doubt crept in.  What had I done that was so bad?  Maybe I had done something but couldn't remember it.  I had time to think about things and to try and make sense of it.  They weren't giving me any more information but I had another source--my web access log files.  I did a quick scan of them and I could see a pattern.  And I could see they had lied to me in that first meeting.  Why lie?  What in the world did they have to gain by that lie?  And they were still looking HARD for stuff in my websites during and after the HR meeting.  I felt better.  There were people out to get me and if there was something I had actually done they should have found it by now and they wouldn't have to lie about little things.

When I got the call and was told I was fired I was certain.  There had not been any further questions of me.  I knew there was stuff that looked bad but had completely innocent explanations.  They didn't ask about anything so I knew they weren't interested in the truth about me.  My web access logs were my only real hope of learning the truth about them.  More reviewing of the logs seemed consistent with my first impression.  But as I continued looking and annotating the logs I began to have doubts.  Maybe it was just a random search through things and it just happened that the firearms stuff was what they looked at first and last.  Then I looked at the times when PUCK would have been preparing for the first meeting.  I was enraged. And I had no doubt.

In the last few days I came to doubt again.  I would look at the preparation time and wonder if maybe there was another explanation.  It's easy to believe what you want to believe.  Then last night I got a call from someone.  A completely independent source confirmed something I had suspected.  It's not a "smoking gun".  It's not something that is irrefutable proof on it's own.  It's like "fingerprints at the crime scene" and there is no contraindicating evidence.  I have no doubt.

Don't carry a weapon. You lose, whether you use it or it's used on you.

National Crime Prevention Council
10 things you can do.  Tip number 8.
From: http://www.weprevent.org/your10.htm (as of March 10, 1999)

While I am still many hundreds of miles away from home (are the black helicopters gone yet?) I do have a reliable Internet connection now.  I'll be staying here until tomorrow morning and hope to be home by the weekend.  Since we are driving that means I many not get connected again until I get home.

I have spent the last several hours reviewing the referrals to my www.pnnl.info site, doing an interview with a gun rights organization, and making terse comments on numerous gun forums and blog sites.  There are just so many that I can't begin to keep up.  I am running a report generator on the log file but I expect it will take a several hours.  I'll post an update here with a link to the report when it's done.

I have enough donations now that I was able to pay off the previous visits to the lawyers.  More news on that front when it is appropriate to do so.

Thanks so much to everyone for all they work they put in.  I just don't have enough time to thank everyone individually.  But some deserve special recognition--in particular "S" has been a huge help.  Ry of course has contributed time and ideas and offered to contribute a lot more work.  My daughter Xenia took care of the Quote of the Day for the last several days while I was going in and out of Internet connectivity.

All the bloggers that have linked and commented have contributed a great deal as well.  Michelle Malkin's post in particular was a huge boost.

Here are some interesting things Ry has to say about what is going on:

• PNNL has blocked email from me to them.
• Links that he has found
• Blog Search Engine Bake Off

Update: Here is the log report on referrals.  Lots of people talking about the PNNL Bigotry website.

The associations of the nation revival, SA [Storm Troopers], SS [para-military adjunct of the Gestapo], and Stahlhelm [a non-Nazi lunatic fringe para-military organization], give every responsible citizen the opportunity of campaigning with them.  Therefore anyone who does not belong to one of the above-named organization and who unjustifiably nevertheless keeps his weapon . . . must be regarded as an enemy of the national government and will be brought to account without compunction and with the utmost severity.

SA OBERFUHRER OF BAD TOLZ, GERMANY
Quoted in Richard Munday
"The Monopoly of Power"
(paper presented to the annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology, 1991)

• CCRKBA blasts bigotry
• Fred of Fred's M14 Stocks on being on a list
• Coming out of the closet
• Coming out of the closet has it's price
• Thoughts on coming out of the closet

You've got to be kidding. They said Joe was dishonest? Joe is the most honest person I know.

Nancy Amos

As predicted there was no repsonse from PNNL.  They (both Richland and Battelle in Columbus) spent a lot of time reviewing the site but in the end they did not have any factual corrections to make.

Check out http://www.pnnl.info.  There is a link on the main page to What You Should Do.  Check it out.

Barb and I are going hiking now.  Internet and cellphone access again tonight sometime.

Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned.

Milton Friedman

I sent an email to the NRA about their recent article and got back a response directing me to their "General Counsels Office".  I sent them a link to my Terminate Report website.

I love it when the timing of things works out just as if you had actually planned it that way.

Barb and I got back into civilization tonight and found, after some difficulty, an Internet connection.  Much to my surprise I found this email waiting for me (magazine and writer name deleted for now):

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Sunday, July 24, 2005 6:21 AM
To: JoeH@boomershoot.org
Subject: an interview with XXXX magazine

My name is XXXX XXXX and I am a freelance writer for XXXX magazine.
We are working on a story about people who got fired for blogging. If
you were fired for blogging (it was unclear from the one post I saw on
another website) would you be interested in doing an interview? If so,
email me back with your name, age, where you live, what you wrote that
got you fired and where you got fired from.

Thanks.

This is a national magazine everyone with two or more functional brain cells has heard of.  I wrote them back saying I would be glad to be interviewed and will send them the news release when it goes out tomorrow afternoon.  I also put my previous employer on the Bcc: line.

Joe dishonest? <snort> Joe is so honest, it gets him in trouble.

Dow Scott

A few minute ago the last of the FOIA requests went out and I sent the following email to my former employer:

---

Subject: Corrections?

 

I have created a new website, XXXX, that might be of interest to you.  Before the news releases are sent out on Monday afternoon I am giving you an opportunity to make any factual corrections.

Please send all corrections, complete with documentation, to XXXX before 12:00 PM PDT Monday July 25th.  Only email to that address will be accepted.  All responses will be posted on the web site.

 

And since the picture below seemed to play a significant role in the investigation that lead to my termination I am including a copy:

 

----
Joe Huffman

---

A few people have seen a preview of the site.  Here are some of their comments:

I'm shaking with rage. Bastards.

-Kim du Toit-

Jesus H. Christ.

-Neaderpundit-

I thought PNNL's mission was to support the Constitution--not destroy the lives of those who exercise the rights it guarantees.

-Lyle Keeney-

 

You can get canned for practicing free speech in support of one’s right to self-defense. What’s next? Get canned for blogging about the war? Gay marriage? Religious freedom?

-Stephanie Sailor-

New Jersey gun rights activist

 

This is the point in the story where the audience comes to understand, if not condone, the antagonist turning into a mad scientist.

-Sean Flynn-

And then head off on vacation. Good move. Pay cash. Watch out for Black Helicopters.

-Sean Flynn-

 

Does your life insurance cover getting knocked off by your former bosses?

-Lyle Keeney-

 

Be careful. Don't get shot in some dark alley.

-James Huffman-Scott-

 

They honestly had no clue that you are so fastidious in your operation. This kind of evidence is very clear and easy for even a layman to understand.

-Permission Pending-

Here is a link to Match #1.  Swatting flies, standing, un-supported, at 30 feet with your handgun.  Results due August 8th.

I'll be on vacation a lot of this time and not sure I be able to participate.  But I'm going to try.

Computers and the internet are a far bigger problem for the government than they are for the individual.

Eric Engstrom
October 2003

The media insist that crime is the major concern of the American public today. In this connection they generally push the point that a disarmed society would be a crime-free society. They will not accept the truth that if you take all the guns off the street you still will have a crime problem, whereas if you take the criminals off the street you cannot have a gun problem.

In the larger sense, however, the personal ownership of firearms is only secondarily a matter of defense against the criminal. Note the following from Thomas Jefferson:

The strongest reason for the people to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against the tyranny of government.

That is why our masters in Washington are so anxious to disarm us. They are not afraid of criminals. They are afraid of a populace which cannot be subdued by tyrants.

Jeff Cooper
From Jeff Cooper's Commentaries
Vol. 2, No. 5
May 1994

Barb and I are going on vacation for a while starting Friday afternoon.  Friday is her last day of work and she has two weeks before she starts her new job. 

Barb, Xenia, and I went shopping for new camping gear yesterday. 

Our old tent had a bad zipper and we had to use duct tape to hold the door shut the last time we went camping.  So we bought a new five-man tent and a Queen size inflatable (comes with a built-in 12V pump that inflates it in 110 seconds) air-bed.  We also bought a three-man tent for Xenia to stay in.

As before the Huffman-Scott "compound" will be guarded while we are gone by the dogs, an adult child of ours trained on both rifle and pistol and access to my "arsenal".

According to these guys I imagine I exhibited all the symptoms of someone about to go postal, except for one.  The one missing was supplied by PNNL--by firing me.  How many other civil rights activists exhibit the same "symptoms"? 

Some type of obsession, e.g., weapons, other acts of violence, romantic/sexual, zealot (political, religious, racial), the job itself, neatness and order

Performance Problems, including problems with attendance or tardiness [I am a night person and I, and others, would arrive late and leave late]

Access to and familiarity with weapons

Being fired, laid off or suspended; passed over for promotion

As I read this web page I and others who advocate for the rights of gun owners, should never be hired in the first place.  There is a word for this--bigotry.

Peenie Wallie sent me an email with his post about a draft of the Iraq "Bill of Rights".  I finally got around to reading it this morning.  Yuck.  It's not a "Bill of Rights". It's a list of things the government must provide--such as health care.  And it specifically says citizens may not own weapons except by permit.

It's a draft.  It should be scrapped.  Rights are things that no government can give or take away--only infringe upon.  A Bill of Rights is a written promise to not infringe upon those rights.

"Free trade" is actually a misnomer, Grieshaber-Otto contends; the new global rules are actually aimed primarily at restricting government regulations, which is bad news for advocates.

Jim Grieshaber-Otto, Ph.D.
An international trade expert with the government of British Columbia.
From: http://www.jointogether.org/gv/default.jtml?O=264057
August 12, 2000

My license to manufacture high explosives just arrived in the mail.  They renewed it in something like 20 days.  Very cool.

I know that there have been a lot of people that have had problems with the ATF but every single encounter I have had with them has been good.  I don't like their rulings with regards to firearms.  I don't like that they have been given power over intra state commerce.  But given they have been tasked with making explosives manufacture, storage, and use safer I can't really complain in regards my manufacturing of reactive targets.

Bummer.  I just noticed they have the expiration date as July 1, 2005.

Update: I sent an email to Crystal last night.  I got a response this morning saying she thinks she has things straighten out for me.

Something I have long said about people and organizations: I am far happier with those that make an occasional error and correct it quickly than those that seldom make an error and don't admit it or correct it.

Update2: A few minutes ago I received a Letter of Authorization from the ATF Federal Explosives Licensing Center, via a FAX from Crystal, to continue manufacturing high explosives until the corrected license is received.

I'm doing some research on employers that enforce an anti-freedom bias on their employees.  I was inspired by the recent American Rifleman article and some other events.  I'm just getting started but I ran across this "Hiring Guide" and I would rather not pay the $20.00 for it.  Does anyone else have access to it?  If so can you tell we if it says anything about gun ownership or free speech advocates?  A sample of the description of the guide:

This guide presents valuable tools and approaches:

• Critical Behavior Traits
• Checklist for Evaluating Resumes
• Important Questions to Include in the Employment Application
• Interviewing Techniques
• Reference and Background Checking
• Employment Verification and Release Form

If not it, how about any similar hiring guides--even if they are specific to a particular company.

Thanks.

If all mankind minus one were of one opinon, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.

John Stuart Mill