I'm constantly amazed there are people that are still opposed to our involvement in world war III.  You would think that with incidents like this at least the teacher union would be supporting it.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Taliban insurgents have torched three schools in a restive southern province of Afghanistan, the latest attacks in the militants' campaign against the U.S.-backed government and its efforts to promote education.

The three newly built schools, where 1,000 boys and girls studied, were gutted on Friday night in different parts of Nawa district in Helmand province, said provincial education chief Mohammad Qasim.

"I can say that the Taliban were behind this," Qasim told Reuters on Saturday, adding that no one was hurt in the attacks.

Or maybe you could expect strong support from womens rights groups:

The Taliban banned girls from school during their rule, which ended when they were ousted by U.S.-led forces in late 2001 after the Islamists refused to hand over Osama bin Laden, architect of the September 11 attacks on the United States.

But it's teachers in particular that should be able to see the issue most clearly:

Suspected Taliban gunmen dragged a teacher from his classroom and shot him at the gates of his school in December after he had ignored warnings to stop teaching boys and girls, officials said.

In a separate attack, also in December, gunmen shot and killed an 18-year-old male student and a guard at another school in Helmand. The gunmen opened fire on teachers and said they would be killed unless the schools were shut down, police said.

In Zabul province, also in the south, a teacher was dragged from his home and beheaded last month.

But what do I know?  I'm just the weird guy that insists on thinking logically.

When the government tries to stop someone from ruining his life with drugs, it converts a personal tragedy into a national disaster.

Harry Browne
March 1998
Libertarian Candidate for President in 1996.

I saw reference to this on Kim du Toit's blog the other day but it wasn't until a comment was left on my "...Case IX" post that I read the source document.  Excellent example:

Outside of school hours, my Cornish village of St Day descends into a state of anarchy. Feral yobs run wild while adults live in fear of threats, vandalism and intimidation. I despair that while we spend millions battling global warming, terrorism and drugs, the biggest threat is harassment by degenerate thugs.

For years St Day, like most rural settlements with a bored young population, suffered the usual mischiefs of the odd problem family and occasional petty vandalism.

Then, in spring 2005, yobs began to gather every night below the village clock tower (right). There are incessant screams, threats to passers-by, regular blockades: motorists have been forced to turn back, while boy racers are permitted to screech through. A chav checkpoint.

For local residents, the protocol on Fore Street is simple: do not confront, do not engage, stay inside. A resident who raised thousands of pounds for a village youth club was repaid with a bag of horse manure, mixed with petrol, set ablaze against his front door.

Things got worse at the end of the summer. A gang broke into a funeral wake in the church hall. They smashed ornaments and hurled abuse at terrified guests, who were ferried home while the attackers ransacked the vicarage.

Days later a church wedding rehearsal suffered a similar attack. Despite plenty of witnesses, and evidence, no arrests were made because the police wanted to catch the suspects in the act.

...

After a long, hot summer confined to our homes amid the perpetual cacophony of idle, ferocious children, we hoped to regain daytime control of the village with the start of the school term. But while waiting for the school bus one day, yobs set fire to an outbuilding and smashed every window of the parish church.

A middle-aged woman was fenced into a telephone box by 20 screaming thugs; a household was forced out of Fore Street overnight. In total five households left the main street in 2005.

If I found a middle-aged woman fenced into a telephone box by 20 screaming thugs in one of the states I can legally carry I might have to do a magazine change (only 18+1 of .40 S&W in my STI) but she wouldn't wouldn't be in the telephone box when I left and the screaming of the thugs would have changed pitch if not completely stopped.

Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings.

Heinrich Heine
(1797-1886)
Almansor: A Tragedy (1823).
[Something to think about in regards to extremists of all flavors.--Joe]

A couple days ago I subtly mentioned I may have Asperger syndrome.  Boyd and David, in the comments, disagreed with that diagnosis.  Boyd in particular said, "Asperger syndrome is marked by poor social skills so that kinda knocks Joe out of the running (sorry man ; )."  Uhh... you didn't know me until I was over 40 years old.  If you had know me in the first 20 years of my life you would have had a much different opinion.  And besides, Boyd, you're an engineer type yourself!

Barb obtained a book on Asperger syndrome and read it in one night this week.  She called me every few minutes:

Date    Time  Minutes
01/24 08:35 PM   3
01/24 08:28 PM   4
01/24 08:05 PM   3
01/24 07:53 PM   2
01/24 07:50 PM   3
01/24 07:48 PM   2
01/24 07:32 PM   5
01/24 07:25 PM   5
01/24 07:20 PM   5
01/24 07:09 PM   2
01/24 07:05 PM   3
01/24 06:43 PM   2
01/24 06:25 PM   3
01/24 06:09 PM   3

Every time she called it was to tell me about another thing she read and about how well it described me.  Right down to some of the physical characteristics that are sometimes associated with AS.  I'm a high functioning AS and somethings didn't match but it's pretty clear that using this phrase to describe me is appropriate in the world of the Neurotypicals.  It explains a lot of the frustration I have dealing with Neurotypicals too.  They are irrational, refuse to explain themselves, or the datasets they are working from and tend to attempt refuting your bullet proof logic and data set with phrases like, "It doesn't matter, you are still wrong."  Or "I don't believe your facts." End of discussion, no facts that contradict the facts I presented, no rational explanation as to why "my" facts might be wrong.  They just issue a blanket dismissal of my argument and they are perfectly happy to continue believing whatever it is they want to belief.  My insistence that they definitely shouldn't be allowed to vote and perhaps shouldn't be allowed to reproduce either are all consistent with AS behavior.  Just as is their complete disregard for facts and logical, if it is convenient for them, typical of the Neurotypicals.

When is it we will make first contact with Vulcans?  Beam me up Spock.  I'm on the wrong planet.

James Wesley, Rawles - www.SurvivalBlog.com^TM quoted me about people, society, guns, and explosives on his blog today.  He also promoted this blog and Boomershoot some too.  He said this blog was "wonderfully addictive."  I hadn't realized that anyone other than me was addicted to it.  I met Rawles a couple times at gun shows a long time ago.  Nice guy to talk to.  I have read a couple versions of his book TEOTWAWKI which I enjoyed too.

I don't get it.  Or probably more accurately these people don't get it:

Wash lawmakers want to ban overseas sex tours

By RACHEL LA CORTE
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

OLYMPIA, Wash. -- Travel agents wouldn't be able to book or sell "sex tours" under a measure lawmakers are considering, following the lead of Hawaii, which signed a similar bill into law two years ago.

Arranging such tours would be a Class C felony, intended to crack down on sex tours to such places as Thailand. Violators would face up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.

Sen. Karen Fraser, the main sponsor of the bill, said she wants to help reduce the demand for such trips. While she said she wasn't aware of any Washington state travel agents offering such tours, she said the state needs to take a pre-emptive stand.

"It is a global moral issue, and we should take every step we can to try and reduce sex slavery," she said.

Okay, I'm against slavery of any type but not all sex for money involves slavery.  Prostitution is legal in many countries and even some counties in Nevada.  Would this law prohibit a "sex tour" to Nevada too?  Just because these Puritans in the Washington State legislature want something to be against the law everywhere doesn't mean they have the authority to exercise that control over their citizen when they travel outside the state.  They can't tell their citizens they can't use a machine gun or suppressor when they visit Oregon, Idaho, or Nevada.  They can't tell their homosexual residents they can't get married while in Massachusetts if they meet the requirements of that state.  If they want to exercise that type of control then they should just be up front about it, put up their own "Berlin Wall", and make it illegal for their residents to leave the state.

Kim du Toit should be proud.  "The Gun Guys" (anti-gun bigots) decided his National Ammo Day BUYcott website was worthy of being their site of the month.  Here is a sample of their bigotry:

...if du Toit really wants to support the gun industry, maybe he should just cut out the middleman and have a “Kill People Day.” One day a year, every gun owner would just kill a hundred people. It would accomplish the goals of the gun industry, without the trouble of going to the store and buying all that ammo!

Congratulations Kim!  Now if we could just get Boomershoot.org to be site of the month sometime.  As Ry said to me today on these nut cases, "Great!  Every bit of traffic helps."

That's the headline for this article referring to a resolution being considered in the Washington State legislature:

A resolution sponsored by Rep. Toby Nixon, R-Kirkland, heard by the House Transportation Committee this week, calls on Congress and President Bush to repeal the REAL ID Act, saying it infringes on civil liberties, creates a huge burden for the Department of Licensing and could make identity theft easier.

I'm all for doing away with the concept of a national ID card.  It fails my Jews in the Attic Test and probably will make us less secure rather that more secure.

Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy.

Franz Kafka
1883-1924

As pointed out by "Ed" in the comments of this posting sex is also good for reducing stress and blood pressure.  This why when Barb and I get our blood pressure taken they always comment on how good it is.  The research indicates the effects last for up to a week afterward but Dr. Joe's advice is that this is actually risking more than is necessary and since it's nearly impossible to overdose you should repeat the treatment as frequently as you have the time and energy for.

Here are some links:

• The Independent
• BBC News
• Reuters via Yahoo

And from News.Scotsman.com:

HAVING full sexual intercourse helps the body cope with stress for up to a week, according to a study by a Paisley University psychologist.

Professor Stuart Brody found that a man and a woman who had had this kind of sex became less stressed than those who had abstained when asked to speak in public or do mental arithmetic out loud.

Their blood pressure rose by about half the amount of people who had other kinds of sex or none at all and it also returned to normal more quickly.

"The effects are not attributable simply to the short-term relief afforded by orgasm, but rather, endure for at least a week," Professor Brody told today's issue of New Scientist magazine. He said that the release of the "pair-bonding" hormone oxytocin between partners might account for the calming effect.

In the study, which was reported earlier in the journal Biological Psychology, 24 women and 22 men were asked to keep diaries of their sex lives for a fortnight. They were then given a range of stress tests. Those who did not have sex had the highest blood pressure response to stress.

Prof Brody said: "The difference wasn't just statistically significant, it was really meaningful. This was a big, big effect on the blood pressure response to stress."

I have a bit of a problem with high cholesterol problem.  According to this I need to convince Barb we need to spend some more time on those kisses before we move on to curing the common cold:

REGULAR kissing is good for your health and women prefer it to making love, a survey suggests.

In the study of more than 500 men and women aged between 16 and 91, most men said they felt kissing was "more of a duty and obligation".

But 56 per cent of women said they "enjoyed kissing and willingly kissed".

Sixty per cent of women felt kissing was better than sex.

The survey also revealed that a long kiss can lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels.

Just this last weekend I received the Boomershoot entry for the guy that keeps trying to put his anvil into orbit.  I don't know if he is bringing them back this year or not but here is a picture from one of the Boomershoot 2004 launches:

These guys have been sniffing around Boomershoot.org for years.  But I first noticed them on this blog last December when they were looking for exploding targets.  Now they are looking for where their own IP address can be found on the web.  Very curious folks they are.

Continent	:	North America
Country	:	United States  (Facts)
State	:	Virginia
City	:	Dulles
Lat/Long	:	39.0853, -77.6452 (Map)

There is a new tool for remotely searching your body even while you are moving.  Haven't these people heard of the 4th Amendment?

Wednesday, January 25, 2006  E-Mail this article to a friend Printer Friendly Version

New US security device spots weapons under clothes

By Christian Wiessner

At its first public demonstration on Monday in New York, the device was able to detect a mock gun and a bomb replica, which the company said, was similar to that used by Al Qaeda

A new surveillance device using radio waves to look under peoples’ clothing for concealed guns, bombs or other weapons may be coming soon to a security checkpoint near you.

But the modest need not worry about screeners sneaking a voyeuristic peek because the system only identifies non-human material tucked inside clothing and does not convey images of the naked form underneath, the maker of the device - Brijot Imaging Systems Inc. of Orlando, Florida - said on Monday.

The BIS-WIDS Prime is the first and only surveillance camera that immediately detects and identifies the exact location of objects hidden beneath a person’s clothing while the person is in motion, the company said.

At its first public demonstration on Monday in New York, the device was able to detect a mock gun and a bomb replica the company said was similar to that used by Al Qaeda.

“The software in the machine itself actually looks at the person, looks at the objects, and actually tells you what it is and, most importantly, where it is on the body,” said Brijot Chief Executive Brian Andrew. “It doesn’t just go ‘bing’ like a metal detector. We can identify weapons’ shapes.”

The device uses computer panels that display images of the body to the security screener, with dark patches marking the location of hidden objects.

The invention was described by company officials as basically a small radio telescope that “sees” radio waves transmitted by the body. If a portion of the body is covered by something underneath clothing, no waves will transmit from that part of the body, raising a red flag to screeners.

“Our bodies radiate radio waves just like a cell phone does, and our camera sees that,” Andrew said.

Since when has the 4th Amendment been about voyeurs?  It's about preventing a police state.  The use of this by the government or under the direction of government on the general public (in a prison situation, sure, that would be appropriate) fails my Jews In The Attic Test in a big way.

I helped design and build a device using similar technology that was intended to guiding a missle on it's terminal descent to take out a tank when I worked at Boeing.  I made a simple change in the test unit such that it with the flip of a switch it would track humans instead of a tank.  It was rather creepy to have the seeker point at you as you walked across the room.

One way to defeat it is to create lots of false positives.  A sheet of aluminum foil will block these emissions from your body just as a firearm or other object will.  Sew them into your coat.  Cut them into shapes and make it appear as if you are carrying dozens of guns, drop them into the coat pockets of others, and put them into books and magazines in airport stores.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

Thomas Jefferson
The Declaration of Independence
Listing the abuses of King George III
[Sound like any government you know in present day?--Joe]

Barb's been saying for about 30 years, "Joe's cure for everything is more sex."  Now scientists are confirming (thanks to Samantha Burns) what Barb and I have long known:

Hot sex treats common cold

Majority of people consider even minor throat irritation or mild fever as a good-enough excuse to isolate themselves from their loved ones.

That is understandable, of course. Up until recently, this was regarded as a logical move. Not so long ago, however, scientists were able to prove just the opposite: it is better to be sick together. This obviously does not mean that one should purposely sneeze at his/her partner. In this case, the effect will be minimal. It is important to battle the disease. And as for microbes, hot passionate kisses and good sex is something they fear the most - concluded Manfred Schedlovski, a Swiss researcher from Zurich.

In the course of his lengthy neuroimmunological experiments, the scientist arrived at the conclusion that sexual intercourse has a positive effect not only on the overall physical condition of both partners but also on their immune systems. Phagocytes are to be praised for the marvel. Phagocytes are cells that help the body rid itself of various ailments. This is how they work: once they locate an alien body, they penetrate it and trigger self-destruction.

During sexual intercourse, number of phagocytes tends to increase significantly; oftentimes, number of these cells almost doubles after orgasm. This in turn enables these cells to detect and destroy antibodies more quickly.

Shcedlovski's research results have already found support among his colleagues. Immunologist Peter Schleicher also shares the initial hypothesis of his colleague from Zurich. "Not only does sex heal our organism; it also sustains its immune system," stated Peter Schleicher in his interview to Bild am Sonntag.

Always the optimist I sometimes I fantasize about people being rational in a political environment.  I know, rationally, that is it is irrational to expect people to be rational.  But I sometimes think that if only I can come up with the right set of facts and logic I could convince almost anyone of the truth of some things--such as gun control is wrong.  Here's evidence that it's hopeless:

Political bias affects brain activity, study finds
Democrats and Republicans both adept at ignoring facts, brain scans show

Updated: 6:46 p.m. ET Jan. 24, 2006

Democrats and Republicans alike are adept at making decisions without letting the facts get in the way, a new study shows.

And they get quite a rush from ignoring information that's contrary to their point of view.

Researchers asked staunch party members from both sides to evaluate information that threatened their preferred candidate prior to the 2004 Presidential election. The subjects' brains were monitored while they pondered.

The results were announced today.

"We did not see any increased activation of the parts of the brain normally engaged during reasoning," said Drew Westen, director of clinical psychology at Emory University. "What we saw instead was a network of emotion circuits lighting up, including circuits hypothesized to be involved in regulating emotion, and circuits known to be involved in resolving conflicts."

And people think I'm the one with the problem because they give the way my mind works a name--they call it Asperger Syndrome (thanks Mike, that was a big help--seriously).  I'm with the Aspies that call them Neurotypical.

More Boomershoot 2006 blogging:

• Laws and Guns and Blogs
• Range Hour
• Rangeday, Part Deux
• Meandering
• Boomershoot
• Boomershoot (some of the people leaving comments think it is a hoax)
• Press coverage of Boomershoot
• Boomershoot Rifle

And that’s the difference between Mr. B and myself. He shakes his head in bafflement, I resume sharpening the M4 bayonet while crooning “Soon, soon, my precioussss...”

Kim du Toit

From the U.K. Sun:

O’Mahoney used her video phone to film the attack that left David dying from 44 injuries, including a ruptured spleen and five fractured ribs.

She booted the 37-year-old’s head like a football as other gang members piled in, making sure she had it all on film.

She even gloated: “Pose for the camera.”

Three other members of O’Mahoney’s evil gang were sentenced to 12 years each for manslaughter — in a crime that shocked Britain.

...

The gang attacked SEVEN other victims later that night and filmed their agony in an orgy of violence on London’s South Bank.

After they were sentenced there were sickening scenes outside the court. Friends and relatives of the killers hurled insults at David’s pals and family, including his elderly dad Geoffrey.

They screamed and even made throat cutting gestures. Incredibly, one voice shouted: “Your friend has cost my cousin 12 years.”

Emphasis in the original.

Don't you wish we too lived in a gun free paradise like the U.K.?

There are plans for one or more Boomershooters from India this year.  This is going to be the year of international attention--the media from U.K. and shooters from Canada and India.  Very cool.

The more I learn about people and society the more I love guns and explosives.  Guns and explosives are more understandable, more predictable, and less hazardous.

A story on the origin of the yodel.  Read the comments too--so you'll better understand why I sometimes refer to her as a future lesbian pornographer.

Another picture of her and her friends on top of the roof wearing their porn prom dresses.

I've been saying for a long time that airport screening for weapons on airplanes may be an insolvable problem and that we need to consider alternatives.  Now research from the University at Buffalo and Georgia State University suggest we may now know why it is such a difficult problem:

Screeners at airport security checkpoints perform an important task in which they search for objects that belong to threat categories in complex X-ray images. New research by cognitive psychologists at UB and Georgia State University explores the cognitive processes that underlie screening, suggests limits on those processes and has implications for the training and evaluation of screeners in the field.

The findings were published in the article "Specific-Token Effects in Screening Tasks: Possible Implications for Aviation Security" in the November-December issue of the American Psychological Association's Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition (Vol. 31, No. 6) and in the article "Visual Search and the Collapse of Categorization," in the November-December issue of the APA's Journal of Experimental Psychology: General (Vol. 134, No. 4).

...

The problem addressed by the research, Smith says, "is that screeners must be able to bring 'category-level' knowledge to their search for targets. That is, they must search for guns and knives generally, not for specific Beretta guns or Bowie knives they have been trained to recognize. Yet it has been unknown how the processes of categorization stand up to visual complexity or why they fail facing it. We filled this research gap by creating a visual-search and categorization paradigm in which participants searched for members of target categories in complex displays."

...

The reliance on familiarity might also have implications for the training and evaluation of screeners in the field for the following reason: The "Threat Image Projection" (TIP) system provides an important potential means of assessing performance at security checkpoints. It includes a library of test images that can be digitally injected into the X-ray image of a bag as it is presented to the screener. This lets screeners' ongoing target-detection performance be evaluated, provides ongoing training and maintains screener vigilance. Yet, a strategy of using a fixed library of test images risks the specific-token effects that Smith and his colleagues observed. Estimates of screener performance might be inflated by these familiarity effects, compared to the detection levels that would be observed for real threats that will be from outside the library and unfamiliar. A more conservative and truer estimate of screener performance would result if one arranged testing so that targets essentially never repeated, so that familiarity could never develop and so that screeners were forced to rely on category general knowledge and strategies.

Smith notes that it is to the Transportation Security Administration's credit that it has actively responded to this specific-token effect by increasing the size of TIP libraries and by planning periodically to infuse new targets. These changes have the potential to keep TIP as a viable and accurate indicator of detection levels in the security system. These steps also show the promise of cognitive scientists and sponsoring agencies cooperating toward solving important problems. 

Unfortunately, knowing why it is a difficult problem also means everyone knows how to make it difficult for the screeners.  We need to consider the alternatives.

It is our duty to protect the citizens of Fayette County, even those that don't want to be protected.
 
Comment by a member of the Fayette County (Ga.) Board of Health 
During a meeting on a proposed smoking ban.
[The socialist mindset.  Does their constitution even allow them to have a "Board of Health"?  --Joe]

I have been criticized by referring to our federal masked men as "ninja," when in the view of the critic the traditional role of the ninja in Japan was to fight against oppression and tyranny. Let us note that almost no one ever resorts to force and violence unless he is convinced that his cause is right, but without going into that let us reflect upon the fact that a man who covers his face shows reason to be ashamed of what he is doing. A man who takes it upon himself to shed blood while concealing his identity is a revolting perversion of the warrior ethic.

It has long been my conviction that a masked man with a gun is a target. I see no reason to change that view.

Jeff Cooper
From Jeff Cooper's Commentaries
Vol. 2, No. 16
20 December 1994

It is my firm conviction that man has nothing to gain, emotionally or otherwise, by adhering to a falsehood, regardless of how comfortable or sacred that falsehood may appear.  Anyone who claims, on the one hand, that he is concerned with human welfare, and who demands, on the other hand, that man must suspend or renounce the use of his reason, is contradicting himself. There can be no knowledge of what is good for man apart from knowledge of reality and human nature-and there is no manner in which this knowledge can be acquired except through reason.  To advocate irrationality is to advocate that which is destructive to human life.

George H. Smith
From: Atheism: The Case Against God
[I regard gun control and socialism as religions.  They are faith based and ignore factual data.  Understanding the psychology of religiosity is useful in understanding the psychology of the anti-freedom crowd.--Joe]