Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld participated in the ceremony.  I can't imagine what Jason's mother, Katy, is going through.  She has been a lifelong "Peace Activist" and even now goes on peace marches.  At the same time she is doing an excellent job of supporting her son as he recuperates and is honored by all these people who are who her political enemies.

A naive writer is advocating gun control in the student newspaper at the University of Pennsylvania.  My responses:

In the comments:

Just one question, "Can you demonstrate just one time, one place, throughout all of human history, where restricting the access of handheld weapons to the average person made them safer?" If no, which I'm certain is the result, then I have to question your motivation for advocating restrictions on personal defensive tools.

Joe Huffman
E-mail: dailypenn@joehuffman.org
Occupation: Software Engineer
Location: Redmond Washington

Via email:

To the Editor: Just one question on gun control

Regarding "Rachel Truchil: Gun control will stem homicide uptick"

Restrictions on firearms is an appealing approach to violent crime but you have to ask yourself just one question, "Can you demonstrate just one time, one place, throughout all of human history, where restricting the access of handheld weapons to the average person made them safer?" The answer is no. With all of the gun control laws throughout history it cannot be conclusively demonstrated even one has made the average person in that political jurisdiction safer.

With that result you must realize that restrictions on weapons means you are preventing innocent, law abiding, people from obtaining the means to defend themselves from violent predators. I'm certain this is not the intended results. Please reconsider your calls for gun control. You are only creating a safer environment for the people that will obtain illegal guns as quickly and easily as people currently find access to illegal recreational drugs.

See http://blog.joehuffman.org/2004/12/15/Just+One+Question.aspx for more details.

Joe Huffman
Voice: 208-301-4254
University of Idaho '77
University of Washington '85
Senior Software Engineer

Rejecting Islam is insulting God. We will not allow God to be humiliated. This man must die.

Abdul Raoulf
Islamic cleric, who is considered a moderate.
March 24, 2006
LifeSiteNews.com
[This attitude is something the entire world must address.--Joe]

As pointed out to me by Ry in this post about plagiarism, a hot topic around these parts lately, apparently the AP has a policy of not citing bloggers as a source:

the AP apparatchiks admitting to taking our work and using it without attribution, stating "we do not credit blogs".

Emphasis in the original.

I can't imagine why it is but for some reason I now have this image in my mind of an approach a friend of mine was inclined to implement in a different situation. 

We had a former mutual friend (let's just call him "Walter") that we were in business together with.  He sold out the company and walked away with several million dollars while my friend, my brother, and many other co-workers, and I got nothing--even our contracts for royalties on the products we owned and were being sold by the new company (lets call it "Symantec") were worth nothing.  Symantec and it's slime ball president (lets just call him "Gordon Eubanks") wouldn't allow us to audit the books even though our contracts said we could.  It was this event along with election of Bill Clinton (spit, spit), and the events of Ruby Ridge that inspired me to take up guns, and later explosives, as hobbies.  Anyway I ran across a shirt at a gun show that I just had to buy.  Not for me but for my friend that was still on speaking terms with "Walter".  I showed the shirt to him and asked him if he would like to have it.  "YES!" was the immediate reply.  I told him I would give the shirt to him on one condition.  The next time he saw Walter he had to be wearing the shirt and he had to tell "Walter" that I had given him the shirt.  "Deal."  It wasn't long before he came up with an alternate delivery method for the "message".  My friend said the proper delivery would be to attach the shirt to the front door of "Walter's" new multi-million dollar house on the lake with knife driven through the shirt like a large tack.  To the best of my knowledge the message wasn't delivered in that fashion although I derived a great deal of pleasure over just the thought of it.

For some reason that same message and the same delivery method are what comes to mind when I read what the AP apparatchiks policy is in regards to crediting blogs.

And what was the message on the shirt you ask?

The only reason some people are alive is because it's against the law to kill them.

There are only six shooting positions left for Boomershoot 2006.  Get your entries in really soon if you want to participate.

Here is the latest word from the bloggers that have mentioned Boomershoot 2006:

• Blow Shiite Up
• Range Report
• Decision Made...
• Decisions...

Ry tells us of the solution that you just know is the Microsoft way.  The City of Redmond, in their infinite wisdom and oneness with Mother Earth, has declared that when new office buildings are built that only 70 parking spaces may be created for every 100 offices.  This is to encourage car pooling, public transit, and bicycles instead of the evil, single passenger, internal combustion engine.  The Microsoft solution?  Valet parking for their employees.  The parking garage physically has enough space for the cars if the lanes between the parking spaces are utilized as well as the parking spaces.  The valet service parks the cars wherever there is empty space and shuffles the cars as necessary to allow people in and out of the parking spots.  Of course it is a waste of resources to pay all these people to just shuffle cars when the people driving the cars would have been happy to do it themselves.  But the City of Redmond made that a necessity and simultaneously made themselves looks like fools--which they are.  Yeah for Microsoft--demonstrating the law of Unintended Consequences to the pinheads in the City of Redmond government.

Now if Ry's wish is granted and Microsoft builds a facility in Orofino Idaho I'd be really thrilled.

Background:

• Why not think for yourself?
• A question for my readers

Thank you to everyone that commented, sent email and talked to me about the case.  It was very helpful.  Yesterday afternoon I sent FirstName LastName my decision.  I told her that I would post or provide a link on the post to a statement by her.  She could say whatever she wanted. She could say I am mean, hateful, SOB, or she could say she screwed up big time by taking a short cut because she was under a time deadline but learned her lesson.  Regardless of what she wrote, on the second year anniversary of my post I would remove her name from all the postings.  If I was particularly impressed with her statement I might remove her name earlier.

She responded saying she felt writing an explanation would "be even more incriminating".  Below is part of my response:

"more incriminating"? You are way past the point of plausible deniability. You committed the "crime." It's impossible to deny it to any rational person even if you were to try. In my opinion you would be better off to write an essay explaining what you have learned and why you won't be committing "crimes" again. If your prospective employer reads only the evidence against you they may be believe they would be taking a great risk by hiring you. If you can explain that you would be less likely than someone else to make a similar "mistake" in the future perhaps you would be considered a more of an asset than a liability as their employee. You may be less inclined to look the other way when someone does something wrong--because you, more than others, understand the shame of being part of some immoral act.

FYI no one I have talked to, especially my wife, believes it was a "mistake." Many of the sentences you used were almost word for word that of the Brady Campaign. You cannot have believed that wasn't plagiarism. Had you quoted some numbers from a discredited research paper without checking them that would have been a mistake. You did worse than both. You used the words of a admittedly biased (as is the NRA) organization and represented them as your own.

I don't know if this will really "sink in" or not and the name Robert Heinlein probably doesn't mean anything to you anyway. Mr. Heinlein was a science fiction author that influenced me a great deal as I was growing up. In one of his books a character said the following and I wrote it down in my personal collection of memorable quotes. When my first child was born I wrote a computer program to select one quote at random and display for me when I booted up my computer. I wanted to be reminded of various things and try to instill that knowledge in my children. Here are a couple Heinlein quotes that I think are applicable in your case:

If it can't be expressed in figures, it is not science; it is opinion.

And the one that inspired me to collect the quotes to begin with:

Do not handicap your children by making their lives easy.

I think you will be better off by composing an apology, an explanation, and why it won't happen again--unless you don't think you can do that with sincerity. If not, then you will never get a chance to explain. Your resume will be thrown out before you are ever given a chance to tell them what you have learned from your foolish actions.

I have not heard from her since I sent her that email at 5:01 PM last night.

Update (03/29/2006): There has been several emails from FirstName that I haven't reported on.  Two of them since this posting was made.  She now says:

Of course I want to write something...otherwise, everyone will only know yalls side of the story. I appreciate the chance to do this, to explain myself, to attempt to move on...

But I do feel like Ive said a lot to you about the whole situation in my emails, and you seem to only post the stuff that makes me sound like I don't care.

I will write something short & sweet, and I hope I can slowly but surely put this all behind me.

Your time spent on all your emails, your advice, your encouragement, everything... has all been taken to heart. I sincerely appreciate it. Expect my response no later than Friday.

Thank you Joe,

FirstName

The religion of Islam is one of tolerance, therefore, if he recants his Christian faith, he will not be executed.

Ansarullah Mawlazezadah
Trial judge in the case of Abdul Rahman an Afghani former medical aid worker and Christian convert from Islam.
March 24, 2006 LifeSite

The same thing that always happens when people without guns go up against people with guns.

Eric Finch
A character in the movie V for Vendetta.
[James and I simultaneously turned and looked at each other, for the only time during the movie, when this line was spoken.  After the movie James said, "I'm surprised they had the balls to make that movie."--Joe]

I do not believe that a lasting peace is achieved by armed force but I pay tribute to their courage and thank those who played a part in my rescue.

Norman Kember
British hostage held in Iraq for almost four months.
March 25, 2006
After being rescued by British, Canadian, and U.S. military forces.
[Mr. Kember apparently thinks we are still at war with Germany, Italy, and Japan.--Joe]

The gun control lobby has done a pretty good job of misleading people. They’ve been predicting doomsday since these laws started. For some, it took 46 states to approve it to see that it hasn’t materialized.

Chris Cox
National Rifle Association’s chief lobbyist
Answering the question, "So what took Kansas so long to pass a concealed weapons law?"
Kansas to allow hidden weapons, March 24, 2006
Kansas City Star

Wendell Joost, a friend of mine, is a NRA firearms instructor instructor instructor. Yeah, he trains the people that will train NRA instructors.  As you might imagine he is a strong advocate of self defense.  He recently gave the following speech in his run for office and I thought it would be appropriate to share with a little larger audience.  He agreed and so here it is:

The first corpse that I ever saw was Bud Kramer.  His murderer hit him over the head with a baseball bat, poured gasoline on him and set him on fire.

Bud Kramer was killed because he was gay.

Harvey Milk, Roxanne Ellis, Michelle Abdill, Matthew Shepherd.  All killed because they were gay.  Martyrs for a cause.

Seattle Gay News ran an article this week about a community forum at the LGBT Community Center.  They will be discussing the need to revive Seattle's Q Patrol because of concerns about escalating violence against gays and lesbians in our community.

After Matthew Shepherd was killed, Jonathan Rausch wrote in Salon Magazine, "We have tried to make a political virtue of our vulnerability but the gay bashers are not listening."

Who here has been out and heard, "Hey, faggot!"

The first time I heard it, I ran - fast.  Ten years later, I heard it again. This time, I laughed.  There were 8 of them and 2 of us, but we had them outnumbered.  They were loud and obnoxious, we were quiet, polite and armed.

I have been a certified pistol instructor for over 10 years.  In Washington State, it is easier to get a concealed pistol license than a drivers license.

If you want to help stop gay bashing, get training, get a permit and get a gun.  Let's make gay bashing dangerous.  If they can't tell which one of us is armed, they won't mess with any of us.

As Washington State Mr. Leather, I will host self-defense seminars in Seattle, Bellingham, Spokane, Vancouver and anywhere else people want self-defense training.

Let's make gay bashing dangerous to ensure that we have no more martyrs.

Background: Why not think for yourself

The person in question sent me an email on Tuesday asking that I remove her name from the post.  Basically saying she lost her job almost immediately (a year ago) at the college newspaper over her "mistake" and has now paid a sufficient price.  She is about to graduate, is looking for a job, and when Googling for her name my blog shows up.  She doesn't want her mistake to haunt her for the rest of her life.

Question: Should I remove her name from my posting?  Elaborate on your answer.

I have my own inclinations but want the thoughts of others.

Thanks.

Update: FirstName responds.

Update2: September 18, 2006. I removed the actual name of the plagiarist and substituted FirstName LastName after she asked me to remove her name, wrote an apology, and I waited what I considered was a reasonable period of time.

We just don't think that unelected bureaucrats and people in the Attorney General's Office should be making the decision about whether I can protect myself.

John J. Thompson
Lobbyist for the Delaware State Sportsmen's Association
March 23, 2006
Testifying before the Delaware Legislature on concealed weapon legislation.
The bill was passed by the House Public Safety by a vote of 4-2.

There seem to be but three ways for a nation to acquire wealth: the first is by war, as the Romans did, in plundering their conquered neighbors-- this is robbery; the second by commerce, which is generally cheating; the third by agriculture, the only honest way, wherein man received a real increase of the seed thrown into the ground, in a kind of continual miracle, wrought by the hand of God in his favor, as a reward for his innocent life and his virtuous industry.

Benjamin Franklin
[As a farm boy I would like to agree with this but times change and Mr. Franklin did not have perfect foresight of those changes.--Joe]

Barb and I had lunch with my parents on Sunday.  We stopped by the Boomershoot site on our way home so I could measure the shooting line in both the .50 BMG and smaller caliber shooting areas. 

I have plenty of room for all the .50 BMG shooters as well as the people with 'normal' guns.  I currently have only 11 out of 60 slots left with at least one more entry "in the mail" so I expect Boomershoot 2006 will be completely filled.  The shooting line will be over 250 yards long which reminds me that I need to get some handheld air horns for the range officers.  The battery powered horn worked fine when the line was only a couple hundred feet long but it just can't be heard well enough 100 yards away.

The site is still very wet with ducks swimming in the standing water in the field, and the grass is still brown from the winter.  But for the middle of March it's doing fine.  But with the clouds it made for a nice picture from the shooting area:

Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do so.

Bertrand Russell
[I'm specifically thinking of people in favor of gun control but it applies to freedom haters of all types.--Joe]

I have a minor glitch with the ATF regarding the locks I'm using on the Taj Mahal (my explosives storage magazine for Boomershoot).  I was pretty annoyed with things but I tried not to let it show in my email to Crystal--my contact at the Spokane office.  It wasn't her fault and from my vantage point it appeared she was doing everything right.  My email was polite but she was smart enough to read between the lines and gave me a call about two minutes after I pressed send.  We had a nice chat and I think we are on the path to getting things all straightened out.  She gave me suggestion on a "last resort" means to make do with what I have if I can't get through all the bureaucracy in time.  It was something I had pretty much planned on doing anyway with a minor twist.  And I didn't know that it would be officially sanctioned as a means to get around my problems.

If you have differences to work out with the "jack-booted thugs" it's best to get things straightened out over the phone rather than having their SWAT team explain things to you at 3:00 AM.  Crystal has done a good job of keeping me from getting a visit from her friends on the other side of the hallway and I'm grateful for that.