| "Joe brings a (sic) unique perspective and set of experiences which allow him to make contributions to the success of a project. Joe shows an excellent ability to plan tasks, manage scope, and lead a project team to the end goal of a project."
"Over the last year Joe has assisted with various IED problems and has brought a number of solutions forward for discussion and evaluation, as his explosives background and personal research gives him a good feel for the issues involved."
I received "Meets Expectations" on all but one item. That item was was "Acts with Integrity and Trust" where I received a rating of "Exceeds Expectations".
I'm all in favor of gay's being allowed to marry. I think marriage is a great institution and people that are willing to make that sort of commitment should not be prohibited from getting hitched to the partner of their choice. California legislators have passed a bill removing restrictions on same sex marriages. Governor Schwarzenegger says he is going to veto it. From the LA Times via Yahoo News:
... announced through an aide Wednesday that he would veto the measure "out of respect for the will of the people."
In a careful statement, Schwarzenegger press secretary Margita Thompson invoked the voter approval in March 2000 of Proposition 22, which said: "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California."
I have mixed feelings on Arnie's action. I have a pretty strong tendency to agree with his reasoning, especially since Proposition 22 passed with 61% of the vote. But what if Proposition 22 had said blacks/Jews/whatever were not allowed to marry outside their groups? Or 61% voted to re-institute slavery? Is the only valid solution to go through the courts seeking to remedy the injustice or convince the population at large it's a bad decision? It's a tough call for me. I think the bottom line is that denying someone marriage isn't clearly (although I think a case can be made for it) infringing a fundamental right like the right to freedom (non-slavery), freedom of speech, and the right to keep and arms. Therefore I have to conclude Arnie made the right decision--especially when it provokes the moon-bats into statements like this:
"The only reason that he could be doing this is that he is pandering to the far right," said Assemblyman Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), the measure's author.
61% of the voters were against same-sex marriage, therefore Assemblyman Leno must think 61% of California voters are "far right". Someone should give him his anti-psychotic meds as they lead him away to the funny farm.
More delays and people ignoring this waste of time and money--but this time there's talk of the police ignoring it:
In what has become a familiar refrain, the Canada Firearms Centre has once again quietly put off several gun regulations that were supposed to take effect this month.
Among the measures delayed until next year is a provision to have police forces across Canada register all their weapons - including seized guns - with the federal agency. New rules governing gun shows have been deferred until November 2006, while regulations that would force gun-makers to identify all firearms with internationally recognized markings won't come into force until the end of 2007.
The provisions were initially supposed to take effect last January, but were put off to Sept. 1. Now they've been deferred again.
A spokesman for Public Safety Minister Anne McLellan said the deferral is both to "ensure compliance and be responsive to the feedback" on the regulations from the public.
...
The latest delays indicate there are still many kinks in the system, said Conservative MP Peter MacKay.
"It's another example of the ineffective, overly bureaucratic nightmare that is the gun registry," MacKay said from Halifax.
"The government continues with this simultaneous face-saving, rear-end-covering exercise of trying to justify a very cumbersome, useless system."
MacKay, a former Crown prosecutor, insisted the government backed off because police forces would have ignored the registration demand.
"They've got far more important things to do."
The registry has become an easy target. The Liberals promised it would cost taxpayers just $2 million when they introduced it in 1995. But the price has skyrocketed past $1 billion and been the subject of scathing criticism from the federal auditor general.
Opponents claim tens of thousands of guns remain unregistered, and say the system punishes law-abiding farmers and sport hunters while doing nothing to deter illegal weapons from getting into the hands of criminals.
It's a losing issue. They should salvage the computers, lay off all the Canada Firearms Centre workers, and either spend the money saved on police and/or prisons or let the people use it to buy a good handgun and training to defend themselves and their families with. Registration of firearms and their owners is no more effective in reducing crime and no less abhorrent than registering Jews/blacks/homosexuals/etc.
Mr. Completely has the results posted. I discussed my entries here. In the over 4" barrel class I came in 4th and 6th with the .22LR and .40S&W. Overall I was 5th and 7th. If there had been a center fire category I would have been number 1 in both overall and in the over 4" barrel class. I had a score of 407/500 even after loosing a possible 10 points because I fired only four instead of five rounds on one target (or I suppose it is possible I had a "perfect double"--but not likely). The next closest score with a center-fire handgun was a 383/500.
No, not that Taj Mahal. Ry designed and supervised the construction of the explosives magazine we use for the Boomershoot. We debated on different sizes and options and finally decided to go for the "Taj Mahal" option.
Yesterday I made some modifications to keep the ATF happy. Originally the locks and hasps were approved and I used them for years without complaint. Then after the last inspection I got an email from Crystal asked me to make some modifications or get a paperwork exemption. I elected to do the modification. Here are pictures of the "hoods" I put over the locks and hasp to protect it from direct access by a saw or pry bar:
Click on the pictures for high resolution versions.
As usual Bruce Schneier articulates the straight scoop on security issues well. In this article he also takes a swipe at the politicians with the "make people feel good" mindset. From Wired News:
Sometimes it seems like the people in charge of homeland security spend too much time watching action movies. They defend against specific movie plots instead of against the broad threats of terrorism.
...
The problem with movie plot security is that it only works if we guess right. If we spend billions defending our subways, and the terrorists bomb a bus, we've wasted our money. To be sure, defending the subways makes commuting safer. But focusing on subways also has the effect of shifting attacks toward less-defended targets, and the result is that we're no safer overall.
Terrorists don't care if they blow up subways, buses, stadiums, theaters, restaurants, nightclubs, schools, churches, crowded markets or busy intersections. Reasonable arguments can be made that some targets are more attractive than others: airplanes because a small bomb can result in the death of everyone aboard, monuments because of their national significance, national events because of television coverage, and transportation because most people commute daily. But the United States is a big country; we can't defend everything.
One problem is that our nation's leaders are giving us what we want. Party affiliation notwithstanding, appearing tough on terrorism is important. Voting for missile defense makes for better campaigning than increasing intelligence funding. Elected officials want to do something visible, even if it turns out to be ineffective.
You will see I simply believe in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. And in today's world of expanding, pervasive and all-powerful government, that makes me an extremist.
Steven A. Sliver
The Liberty Pole
May 1998 Volume V. No. 2
The Lawyer's Second Amendment Society
 Wednesday, September 07, 2005
The creeping political repeal of the right to self-defense is a huge decrease in the modern American's liberty because the government has completely failed to fill the void. The government has stripped millions of people of their right to own weapons--yet generally left them free to be robbed, raped, and murdered. Gun bans are one of the best cases of laws that corner private citizens--forcing them either to put themselves into danger or to be a lawbreaker.
James Bovard
Lost Rights
ISBN 0-312-12333-7
Copyright 1994, 1995
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
Xenia's John (I love calling her boyfriend, John, that. The triple meaning and all.) and I went to the range this afternoon and I shot Mr. Completely's Postal Match #2 with two different calibers. .22LR and .40 S&W. Both were in the Long Barrel class. Click on each of the pictures for a full resolution view.
 
203/250 212/250
Total score for the .22LR 415/500.
 
205/250 202/250
Total score for the .40S&W 407/500. It should have been at least another five points higher but I only put four holes in the center target of the offhand target instead of five. I didn't notice it until I got home and it was way past dark.
Not great, but I'm not unhappy with my results either.
Denise over at the ten ring posted about buying a new rifle suitable for Boomershoot. My plan is working.
From the University of Idaho website:
University of Idaho Launches Humanitarian Efforts To Assist Victims of Hurricane 'Katrina'
Sept. 1, 2005
MOSCOW, Idaho -- University of Idaho President Timothy White announced that the university is immediately accepting students who enrolled or planned to enroll at universities in the areas affected by hurricane "Katrina." Students will be placed in fall classes with available space, with first priority given to Idaho residents. They also may enroll for the January, 2006 semester.
Ten scholarships for tuition, fee and housing for one year will be offered to any student whose college career has been interrupted by Katrina. Interested students may contact UI Admissions Office immediately, (208) 885-6326.
The University of Idaho also will collect humanitarian aid via cash, checks, credit cards and UI payroll deductions, said White. Contributions will be transferred directly to the American Red Cross. Such fund-raising efforts will be conducted at all campus sporting and cultural events throughout the year.
"As images and stories surface of the catastrophic effects of Hurricane Katrina, we are just beginning to discover the devastation on communities, families and individuals in the southeastern U.S.," said White.
"It is clear that our fellow Americans who have been affected will need the nation's help. The University of Idaho is stepping forward to help and to motivate others to join us in this humanitarian effort."
UI student groups have begun to discuss how best to get help to the hurricane victims, said Steve Janowiak, director of student activities and leadership. "Lots of our student service organizations and the associated student organization are talking about how they can help."
Contacts: Nancy Hilliard, University of Idaho Communications, (208) 885-6567, hilliard@uidaho.edu
They are not on the side of the patriots. They are on the side of the criminals.
Andrew M. Cuomo
Housing Secretary
July 27, 2000
Regarding gun manufactures advertisements claiming they were supporting American values by manufacturing and selling firearms.
From: http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/072800nra-guns.html
[A reminder of how far we have come in the past five years. -- Joe]
Monday, September 05, 2005
The results of the rifle postal match have been reported now. I received this certificate:
Click on the picture for the full sized version. Also note that Analog Kid at softgreenglow.com also got a perfect score but apparently didn't put himself in the running because he is running the match.
The results from my last pistol match are posted on the Lewiston Pistol Club site. I did rather mediocre when shooting against the clock but when we did the man-on-man portion of the event I did much better. It's all about adrenaline management.
As to conforming outwardly, and living your own life inwardly, I have not a very high opinion of that course.
Henry David Thoreau
(1817-1862), U.S. philosopher, author, naturalist.
Journals (1906), entry in 1850.
Sunday, September 04, 2005
From The Independent:
Up to 4m guns in UK and police are losing the battle
'IoS' investigation: Another week, another horrific shooting. The culture of illegal firearms is running out of control
By Sophie Goodchild and Paul Lashmar
Published: 04 September 2005
British criminals could have access to as many as four million illegal firearms, criminal intelligence experts warn.
...
Even when handguns were banned, only around 3,000 of the 100,000 believed to have been in private hands before May 2004 have been handed in for destruction. The other 97,000 have disappeared.
David Raynes a former senior Customs investigator, believes there is now an ample underground supply of guns. "Guns can be had for £100 or so," he said. "I suspect the market is saturated in both Britain and Ireland. The real UK arms smuggling issue now is probably military explosives and detonators, to be used in future acts of terrorism."
And is anyone surprised? Did anyone think the ban would be any more effective than the ban on recreational drugs? The only thing they accomplished with the ban was drive the number of valid defensive use of firearm in protection of innocent life to almost zero. And what do they think the proper solution to this is? Why it's as if it came out of the book "When Prophecy Fails":
After many years of campaigning by the gun control lobby, a ban finally came into force in May 2004, making it illegal to own a blank-firing replica gun without a firearms licence.
I shake my head in amazement at why the politicians over there are still allowed to breath.
Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence and fulfills the duty to express the results of his thoughts in clear form.
Albert Einstein
Saturday, September 03, 2005
Once again Barb and I are leaving the Huffman-Scott "compound and arsenal" in the hands of one of our adult children with a couple of dogs taking the point position. Xenia is going with us this time so if I don't find an Internet connection there won't be a "Quote of the day" or anything else on my blog tomorrow. I'll be back on Monday.
I was gone all day yesterday working on the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory project. Other than spending an obscene amount of money on gas I thought it went quite well. I won't know the results for at least a week but on the drive back home (I do a lot of thinking when driving alone) I realized what must have happened to cause them to "reconsider." I called Barb with the news as soon as I had a good cell-phone signal.
I only was able to check out two of the four "blunt instruments" to see if they were responsible. Both of those turned up negative. After several hours of mulling it over I came up with a hypothesis that explained all the data I had. It almost for certain was one particular "blunt instrument" that I implemented almost as an afterthought. It arrived at it's destination Wednesday, Aug 31, 2005 13:57 GMT. Less than 36 hours later I received word they had "reconsidered". After I thought about it I realized what I had done, had it been consciously thought out, was rather brilliant. Everyone's "hand" would have been forced by my action. PNNL had made a mistake by putting an unnecessary sentence in an email I was able to get my hands on. It was enough to get some "traction" and it appears to have blown the lid off of things. I won't know for certain until I get my hands on the information they are sending me but from what I heard on the phone it sounded far better than what I imagined I would get for that particular effort. What I think happened was they knew I was now going to get nearly everything I wanted, just from a different source. I had not even considered my action would get me the information I wanted. I thought that at best it would just cause them some pain. So rather than look bad in court, by not giving it to me directly, they tried to wipe some of the crap off of their face and "reconsider".
This is sort of a security game. It's better to be on the offense because you only have to find one crack to blow it open. The defender has to have everything nailed down tight. I have been probing from many different angles and almost by accident found where they made a mistake. I probably shouldn't say, "almost". It was essentially a whim I requested the file that had the email with the one hugely significant sentence in it. Then it took me a couple of days to realize I could take a swing at that sentence. And when I took the swing I didn't realize it would be such a solid hit--that took hours of bewilderment at their reaction before I put it together. In hindsight it was stupid that it took me so long to realize the significance.
The game isn't over but I just connected my bat on a significant portion of their ball. My Labor Day weekend should be a lot happier than some of theirs. I'll be fantasizing about some anti-gun owner bigots in a Federal prison spending "quality time with Bubba" and they will be thinking about the same thing.
Update: I just received the file. Either I misunderstood or the guy I talked to on the telephone didn't understand what had been redacted. I understood that the names of other people who were being investigated at the same time as me were redacted. The names redacted were other people being hired at the same time as me. All I received was what should have been in the "personnel file" I received several weeks ago. There was only the tinist hint of the investigation in the file. It is useless but I'll post it later today anyway. I'll get the performance reviews and goals scanned and posted sometime today. The battle continues.
As for the "I don't shoot that kind of game because I don't want to learn bad tactics" crowd, I think that is an over used excuse by people that can't win. Shooting IPSC or IDPA won't make you a bad tactician. Being a bad tactician will make you one! Most of the people that complain about tactics wouldn't know a tactic if it hit them in the ass.
Tactics are making the most out of the situation with the resources at hand. Every time you "game" a stage you are engaging in tactical thinking. They just might not be the right tactics for a gunfight.
Greg Hamilton
11/11/2001
Insights Training Email List
Friday, September 02, 2005
I found some more articles on David Pruss, the guy my brother and his dog helped find and arrest. My brother gave me the link to the first one (if you read only one article this is the one to read) and said this about it, "It includes a picture of his shelter after the fir boughs and tarps were removed. Inside, you will see a small tent."
See also my previous posts:
My brother was one of the people that helped catch the guy shooting up the logging equipment. Here is his story:
From: Doug Huffman
Sent: Thursday, September 01, 2005 10:31 PM
To: Joe Huffman
Subject: Re: Were you and Nick one of the teams?
Hi Joe,
Yes, Nick and I were there when he was arrested. Also, it was tear gas
(CS) not pepper spray. If you look at his picture, you will see his
left arm is in a sling. He was on his hands and knees coming out of his
shelter, his right hand lifted off the floor and revealed his MAK-90 on
the floor, he moved his hand out, leaving the rifle on the ground. Then
for some unexplained reason, he started to back up, his right hand moved
back towards the rifle. Guy Cordle very nearly shot him in the back
with a 12 ga at that point, in a split second decision, he decided he
could stop the subject with a hard kick to the left arm right where it
connects to the shoulder. That knocked him flat on his face and removed
his hand from the proximity of the rifle. They took him to the ER and
they apparently put his arm in a sling.
I went with two deputies on Monday afternoon after he stole the coffee
with my GPS and compass. We stopped at various points around the canyon
where he was and took GPS points and compass reading from the
directional antenna on a fish and game locator. When you get too close,
the receiver would receive signal from any direction, so we had to be
back a ways and didn't take the receiver into the woods with us the next
morning. I went home and plotted it out on graph paper, determined the
most likely point and programmed it into my GPS and set it to take us to
that location. We went in the next morning at day break, Nick and I in
the middle with 5 others. Nick was there to alert us if he was hiding
in the bushes, or behind a log. Moving very slowly, we moved about 1/2
mile in 2 hours before he was located. My GPS point was about 200 yards
off. Nick was some help, but wasn't the one who made the find. He kept
wanting to go east and the closer we got, the more intent and excited he
got. We were probably 50 yards away from his shelter when we spotted a
platic bag hanging from a tree up on the hillside to our right, that
was beside his shelter. I am writing up a complete story, but it will
probably be weeks before I finish it. The other dog team was the blood
hound we got from South Carolina. Bruce Hanson and the bloodhound were
on the North side of the canyon, watching in case the subject made a run
for it that way. There were "snipers" on all sides of the canyon with
high powered scoped rifles. They didn't have the authority to shoot on
sight, but would try to challenge and stop the subject if we drove him
out of the canyon.
... [unrelated material deleted] ...
Doug
The Miami Herald has the story:
Floods unavoidable, Army engineers say The Army Corp of Engineers said recent studies on strengthening New Orleans' levee system, designed decades ago, had not made much progress.BY PETER CAREYKnight Ridder News Service
The levee system that protected New Orleans from hurricane-spawned surges along Lake Pontchartrain was never designed to survive a storm the size of Hurricane Katrina, the Army Corps of Engineers said Thursday.
The levees were built to withstand only a Category 3 storm, something projections suggested would strike New Orleans only once every two or three centuries, the commander of the corps, Lt. Gen. Carl A. Strock, told reporters during a conference call. Katrina was a Category 4 storm.
''Unfortunately, that occurred in this case,'' Strock said.
OLD TECHNOLOGY
Strock said the levee system's design was settled on a quarter of a century ago, before the current numerical system of classifying storms was in widespread use. He said studies had begun recently on strengthening the system to protect against Category 4 and 5 hurricanes, but hadn't progressed very far.
Strock said that despite a May report by the Corps' Louisiana district that a lack of federal funding had slowed construction of hurricane protection, nothing the Corps could have done recently would have prevented Katrina from flooding New Orleans.
''The levee projects that failed were at full project design and were not really going to be improved,'' Strock said.
`EVERYBODY KNEW'
Strock's comments drew immediate criticism from flood-protection advocates, who said that the Corps' May report was a call for action and a complaint about insufficient funding, and that no action took place.
''The Corps knew, everybody knew, that the levees had limited capability,'' said Joseph Suhayda, a retired director of the Louisiana State University's Water Resources and Research Institute.
''Because of exercises and simulations, we knew that the consequences of overtopping [water coming over the levees] would be disastrous. People were playing with matches in the fireworks factory and it went off,'' he said.
Suhayda, an expert in coastal oceanography, said, ``the fact the levee failed is not according to design. If it was overtopped, it's because it was lower in that spot than other spots. The fact that it was only designed for a Category 3 meant it was going to get overtopped. I knew that. They knew that. There were limits.''
NO SECURITY?
Some critics Thursday questioned the usefulness of levees, saying that all of them fail eventually.
''There are lots of ways for levees to fail. Overtopping is just one of them,'' said Michael Lindell, of Texas A&M University's Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center. 'There's a lot of smoke screen about `low probabilities.' Low probabilities just means 'Takes a long time.' ''
Strock said stopping the flow of water over the levees has proved to be ''a very challenging effort.'' Engineers have been unable to reach the levees and have had to draw up plans based only on observations from the air. ''We, too, are victims in this situation,'' he said.
In Louisiana, Army Corps officials said they hoped that one break, in what's known as the 17th Street Canal, might be closed by the end of Thursday, but that a second break in the London Avenue canal is proving more intractable.
Short sections of the walls that protected the city from Lake Pontchartrain caved in under storm surges, including an area that recently had been strengthened.
A fact sheet issued by the Corps in May said that seven construction projects in New Orleans had been stalled for lack of funding. It noted that the budget proposed by President Bush for 2005 was $3 million and called that amount insufficient to fund new construction contracts.
MONEY CRUNCH
''We could spend $20 million if the funds were provided,'' the fact sheet said. Two major pump stations needed to be protected against hurricane storm surges, the fact sheet said, but the budgets for 2005 and 2006 ``will prevent the corps from addressing these pressing needs.''
Acknowledging delays in construction, Corps officials in Louisiana said that those projects weren't where the failures occurred. ''They did not contribute to the flooding of the city,'' said Al Naomi, a senior project manager.
''The design was not adequate to protect against a storm of this nature,'' he said. ``We were not authorized to provide protection to Category 4 or 5 design.''
No matter where or how you live you have risks. It could be a natural disaster such as tornadoes, floods, hurricanes, forest fires, earthquakes, mudslides, volcanoes, etc. Or it could be man related such as crime, traffic accidents, air pollution, water pollution, etc. New Orleans didn't just have a risk of some random future event that would affect a small percentage of the people. They were actively fighting the water on a daily basis that threatened catastrophe for the majority of people living there. They had no hope of holding things off for more than a few decades. Read my post from a year ago. They could not sustain the fight for much longer. The Mississippi was/is depositing silt far, far faster than they could deal with it. It was a huge expensive gamble either way. To move the port to the natural location 100+ miles to the west or to stay. Long term they have to move. It might have been 20 or even 50 years before the wisdom of that decision would have been confirmed beyond any doubt. But it would have been confirmed eventually.
I said a year ago they should have quit the "game". They should have packed up their stuff and left the playing field. They should have dealt with reality on their own rather than having Mother Nature swat them out of the park with a clue-by-category-four.
Update: Michelle Malkin has another story on the levees from 1999 plus a fair amount of history on the topic.
Well... duh! I couldn't have imagined a border guard that didn't have a gun while on duty. Yet apparently they don't. So a bunch of them walked off the job in protest:
OTTAWA, Sept 1 (Reuters) - More than 40 Canadian border guards walked off the job this week to demand they be issued with handguns, and a union official said on Thursday that others could follow suit unless Ottawa issues them with weapons.
The guards, worried by reports that a U.S. fugitive could be trying to cross into Canada, left their posts at crossings in Fort Erie and Niagara Falls, Ontario, on Wednesday, causing some delay to border traffic.
Canadian police are armed and the guards' union has been pressing for firearms for its members, saying they need better protection to do their jobs.
"Our members want to do the job of protecting the border but they need to properly protect themselves to do that," Ron Moran, head of the guards' union said in a statement.
"Until that happens, work refusals will likely reoccur."
A spokesman for Public Security Minister Anne McLellan, who has overall responsibility for border security, said a recent independent study showed there was no need to arm the guards.
"Arrangements are made with police to ensure that when an armed presence is needed, the police can be contacted to work with the border agents to address a situation," he said.
If the name Anne McLellan looks familar it's probably because she is the woman that implemented the $2 Billion boondoggle gun registry in Canada.
Joe, you're the gift that just keeps on giving.
Barb Scott
September 1, 2005
On Pacific Northwest National Laboratory "reconsidering" it's initial refusal to comply with Privacy Act and Freedom of Information Act requests for personnel file information on her husband, Joe Huffman. Their "reconsideration" might have had something to do with certain "encouragement" Joe had been giving them via various "channels".
Thursday, September 01, 2005
At 16:39 this afternoon I received a call from the person responsible for handling my FOIA/Privacy-Act information requests at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. He said they had "reconsidered" my request for the rest of my personal file (or "Field File" as they prefer to call it) and it will go into the mail tomorrow.
Gee, I wonder what it was that caused them to "reconsider"? I can only think of four different "blunt instruments" they might have seen coming their way that might have caused an "attitude adjustment" on their part. I'll be checking on three of those "blunt instruments" tomorrow to see if any of them had something to do with it. If all goes as planned I'll be able to share most of the results with everyone here sometime next week.
Barb had a rather apropos quip when she heard the news. It will be the quote of the day tomorrow.
The title of this post is a near exact quote from the May 2005 Popular Science article. I changed the quote slightly. They said 'is' instead of 'was'. At this point in time I figure New Orleans doesn't exist. More quotes from the article:
It takes Scott Kiser only a split second to name the one city in the U.S., and probably the world, that would sustain the most catastrophic damage from a category-5 hurricane. "New Orleans," says Kiser, a tropical-cyclone program manager for the National Weather Service. "Because the city is below sea level—with the Mississippi River on one side and Lake Pontchartrain on the other—it is a hydrologic nightmare." The worst problem, he explains, would be a storm surge, a phenomenon in which high winds stack up huge waves along a hurricane’s leading edge. In New Orleans, a big enough surge would quickly drown the entire city.
...
Today, parts of New Orleans lie up to 20 feet below sea level, and the city is sinking at a rate of about nine millimeters a year. "This makes New Orleans the most vulnerable major city to hurricanes," says John Hall of the Army Corps of Engineers. "That’s because the water has to go down, not up, to reach it."
...
New Orleans has nearly completed its Hurricane Protection Project, a $740-million plan led by Naomi to ring the city with levees that could shield residents from up to category-3 storm surges. Meanwhile, Winer and others at the Army Corps are considering a new levee system capable of holding back a surge from a category-5 hurricane like Ivan, which threatened the city last year.
...
The category-5 levee idea, though, is still in the early planning stages; it may be decades before the new barriers are completed. Until then, locals had better keep praying to Helios.
Katrina was a category 4/5 storm. I guess the locals didn't do enough praying and else figure out how to get out of town permanently months or years ago. This wasn't any big surprise to the locals or anyone with a room temperature I.Q. that had studied the problem for more than a few minutes.
Barb and I will be donating some money to the relief effort and if someone knows of a volunteer organization helping with the Katrina mess that wants a middle aged guy with heavy equipment, computer, firearms, explosives, and/or farm-boy type skills--let me know. I have some spare time on my hands right now.
From The Globe and Mail in Toronto:
Ontario to blitz gun shops
In an effort to stem a recent rash of gun violence in Toronto, the Ontario government announced it will begin conducting sweeps of gun shops to help reduce the number of illegal guns in the city.
"[We want] to ensure that we have safe standards in place," said the province's Attorney-General Michael Bryant at a press conference in Toronto Thursday.
However, Mr. Bryant said the sweep will be limited to businesses and not individual homes, as that is the purview of the federal government and the gun registry.
They are doing sweeps of the gun shops to reduce the number of illegal guns? How about they "blitz" automobile dealerships to reduce the number of illegal cars on the roads? Or tweaking one of my favorites, conduct raids on cosmetic stores to "stem the recent rash of prostitution" on the streets?
Give it up guys, you spent $2 Billion dollars on a failed gun registration system, and still you can't answer just this one question in the affirmative. Harassing the gun store owners isn't going to be productive either.
A couple weeks ago I posted about a guy staying out in woods and damaging logging equipment. The suspect is in the local county jail now. I'm glad no one got hurt as it seemed likely at the time. The suspect said he wanted to kill some cops. I had done some brainstorming with my brother about this and hadn't come up with the solution they used although one would have thought that two electrical engineers would have been the first to thing of it. From the Lewiston Morning Tribune:
Sheriff reels in Weippe suspect
By DAVID JOHNSON
of the Tribune
"He took the bait."
That's how Clearwater County Sheriff Alan Hengen Tuesday described the early morning arrest of 34-year-old David Pruss in the woods about one and a half miles northwest of Weippe.
"We knew he liked coffee."
Pruss, who'd been wanted for the better part of three months on a warrant for alleged malicious destruction of property and burglary, remained in the county jail at Orofino Tuesday night and could face additional charges, Hengen said.
The sheriff and his deputies had been chasing a suspect since early June who allegedly had shot up some logging equipment, broken into a number of cabins and buildings and otherwise eluded authorities.
Hengen said deputies learned that the suspect seemed to always steal coffee when he had a chance. So they placed a "signaling unit" in the bottom of a plastic can of coffee, and put the can in a building where the suspect had previously entered several times.
"We tried a lot of things, but that one worked," Hengen said. Within a week, the can of coffee was gone. Homing in on the signal from the coffee can, deputies were able to triangulate an approximate location, said Hengen, and Tuesday's predawn raid was organized. Two dog teams and 17 enforcement officers entered the forested area and closed in on the location, the sheriff said. They found a hut made of poles that were tied together and covered with pine boughs.
"We got him while he was sleeping," Hengen said. He said Pruss at first refused to come out of the hut and deputies used pepper spray. According to a press release from the sheriff's office, Pruss was "believed to have been reaching" for a Mac-90 assault rifle that was found underneath him. Hengen said a .357-caliber magnum revolver also was found.
"He had like a tent in there," Hengen said of the hut, which he described as about 6-feet square.
Deputies also found military and SWAT-type clothing, said Hengen, similar to clothing worn by a suspect that appears in a surveillance camera photo taken more than a month ago where logging equipment had been shot up. According to the press release, other items allegedly taken from the logging site were found where Pruss was arrested.
Pruss, formerly of Utah and Montana, came to Weippe about a year ago, according to residents in town. Authorities said he is thought to have ties to fringe militia groups. Hengen said earlier this month that he feared the suspect they were seeking was trying to lure his deputies into an ambush. According to the news release, Pruss "is believed to have told others his intent was to damage public infrastructure in order to lure Clearwater County Sheriff's Deputies into the woods for the purpose of picking them off."
Since the first week in June, Hengen's department had been investigating several burglaries and reports of property being destroyed. There had been damage to power transformers, phone pedestals, a small hydroelectric plant and the logging equipment, according to the news release. Several businesses and residences also had been burglarized, authorities said.
Total damage is estimated to have exceeded $100,000, Hengen said.
Weippe residents earlier this month voiced mixed thoughts about the suspect, some saying he was harmless and others expressing disgust that someone was shooting up logging equipment. Many people said they were locking their doors for the first time.
Hengen said the destruction of property seemed to trail off over the past few weeks and he thinks the suspect was "just trying to wait us out." Most of the logging equipment that had been damaged belonged to Kenneth Miller, whose equipment and vehicles had been located at a site in the Winters Creek area near Weippe.
In addition to sheriff deputies, Hengen said U.S. Forest Service personnel and members of Clearwater County Search and Rescue participated in numerous searches for the suspect.
Authorities ask that anyone finding more hut-like structures in the woods around Weippe call the sheriff's office and stay away from the structures. The same goes for any equipment, clothing or other stored items that might be found.
Okay, the computer just helped. With numerous cameras both above and below the water of the swimming pool it detected a little girl had sunk to the bottom and wasn't moving. It alerted the lifeguard who pulled her from the water less than 40 seconds later. She has recovered. The article is interesting, but the pictures are what really grabbed me. Here is one just before the lifeguard grabs her: 
I was reading some of the comments on the Wal-Mart shooting story. I can't imagine the mindset this person must have:
By Roy Salazar (Submitted: 08/31/2005 9:03 pm )
The truth of the fact is, Mr. Moore killed a person from the side lines and that is not "self-defense"..., I call the murder. Mr. Moore should be prosecuted for the point blank murder of Mr. vigil and the ex-wife of Mr Vigil should be prosecuted for party to crime. An eye for eye is not justice in this country ( thats dark-age justice ). We have laws and we ( we, means all of us, the people ) should follow them. Otherwise, we are using double standards in the law and orders of the country. Furthermore, Wal-Mart should fire MS. Ex-wife for taking garbage to her work station and indangering the lifes of others.
Blaming the victim and the rescuer... It boggles my mind. This cannot be a rational person. It must be this is type of person that would send money to the VPC.
It starts out with the Wal-Mart shooting and gets better from there. From Jewish World Review:
UCLA professor emeritus James Q. Wilson, a respected expert on crime, police practices and guns, says, "We know from Census Bureau surveys that something beyond a hundred thousand uses of guns for self-defense occur every year. We know from smaller surveys of a commercial nature that the number may be as high as two-and-a-half or three million. We don't know what the right number is, but whatever the right number is, it's not a trivial number."
...
A gunned-down bleeding guy creates news. A man who spared his family by brandishing a handgun, well, that's just water-cooler chat.
He gets all the facts right and he introduces them without it being just a bunch of numbers. It's an excellent piece.
Dogs wear collars, wolves do not. I am a wolf. You can shoot me, trap me, poison me - even set my brother the dog on me. But you can not pat my damn head unless I say so.
Jay Loveless
1995
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