Barb and I will be in Branson, Missouri during the middle of August to celebrating our 30th wedding anniversary. We will be visiting Ozark Pyrotechnics (who put on a dynamite shoot the week before Boomershoot 2006) as well as various activities both Barb and I will enjoy. If anyone else in the area and would like to get together for dinner or something let me know.

The introduction of tough laws to control guns and knives appears to be failing to keep lethal weapons out of the hands of Australian criminals.

An Australian Institute of Criminology study of interviews with more than 2300 prisoners also found that drug users were more likely to carry - and use - weapons than other offenders.

Greg Ansley
July 6, 2006
Tough new weapons laws 'miss hard core of criminal underworld'
The New Zealand Herald
[We told you so. And a reminder of Just One Question. Thanks to David Hardy at Of Arms & the Law--Joe]

I'm the webmaster for the Lewis Clark Wildlife Club. I finally got around to updating their website after months of essentially ignoring it. Probably the most interesting thing I updated is the training page. They have a carbine class coming up July 21 through the 23.

A comparison between the early days of home computers and the current state of the art with genetics makes for some interesting thought experiments:

In the 1970s, before the PC era, there were computer hobbyists. A group of them formed the Homebrew Computer Club in a Menlo Park garage in 1975 to trade integrated circuits and swap tips on assembling rudimentary computers, like the Altair 8800, a rig with no inputs or outputs and half a megabyte of memory.

Among the Club's members were Apple founders Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs.

As the tools of biotechnology become accessible (and affordable) to a wider public for the first time, hobbyists are recapturing that collaborative ethos and applying it to tinkering with the building blocks of life.

Eugene Thacker is a professor of literature, culture and communications at Georgia Tech and a member of the Biotech Hobbyist collective. Just as the computer hobbyists sought unconventional applications for computer circuitry, the new collective is looking for "non-prescribed uses" of biotechnology, Thacker said.

Computer hobbyists brought us the spreadsheet, BBS's (forerunners of web forums), personal word processors, and incredibly cheap porn.  On the downside they also brought us computer viruses, Internet worms, and gave voice to barking moonbats. Now imagine what might come of genetic hobbyists. A cure for baldness, a pill that really does increase the size of your penis, food plants that don't need fertilizer or pesticides, and killer viruses that only affect people with hazel eyes.

I wonder if there will be anti-virus services like McAfee and Norton that you will have to subscribe to prevent getting wasted by the latest "script kiddie" that sets something free that turns your skin green or causes your fingernails to fall off.

As I've reported before (and here) when it comes to political affiliation people don't behave rationally. Our son James also has expressed frustration at this irrational behavior. Here is some research (via Lyle at UltiMAK) that attempts to explain why people do it:

"These sacred truths are unverifiable, and unfalsifiable, but the faithful nevertheless accept them to be unquestionable. In doing so, like assemblies of the faithful since the dawn of language, they bind themselves together for protection or common action against unbelievers and their lies."
--Nicholas Wade, Before the Dawn, p. 165-166

When people in business meet for the first time to discuss a transaction, they often exchange what I call "trust cues" in order to reduce mutual suspicion. For example, they may recite empty phrases from popular business books, such as "win-win," "synergy," "principles," "customer-driven," or "raising the bar."

Nicholas Wade provides a readable, wide-ranging survey of the impact of recent advances in genetics on anthropology. In one chapter, he argues that the origins of what I observe in business behavior can be found in early religious rituals. Religions produce trust cues. Trust cues are necessary for large societies and trade among strangers to emerge. They serve to protect people from cheaters and liars.

What I am going to suggest in this essay is that political beliefs can serve the function of trust cues. Political beliefs may have at best a tenuous empirical basis, but they function to demonstrate one's membership in a trusted group.

I am impressed. That helps me understand better.

That's impressive. I'm going to have something to drink now.

James Huffman-Scott
July 6, 2006
[James just met "The Man" at Dixies.--Joe]

This "Gun Guy" must have been inspired not only by Orwell's writing but by Gobel. From his daily email:

The gun lobby wants everything to be the fault of the trigger-pullers.  If someone shoots someone else, they only want one person to go to jail: the person who pulled the trigger.  They don't want any blame placed on any of the other parts of the network of people who delivered the gun used in the murder to the trigger-puller.  They don't want the illegal gun dealer who sold them that gun to have any responsibility.  They don't want the legal gun dealer who sold that gun (likely through a straw purchase) to have any responsibility.  And they definitely don't want the industry that made that gun to have any responsibility at all, even though they likely knew that gun would be used by a criminal (because the legal gun market is already flooded with firearms).

...

And it's a very important first step in realizing the truth about gun violence in America:  It's not just the fault of the trigger-puller.  We all are involved in a gun culture that allows children to shoot up schools, and criminals to own handguns by the case.  If we really want to stop the violence, we're all going to have to take responsibility.

The manufacture should "take responsibility"? Why not the provider of the steel for the gun? Or the miner of the iron ore?

Mental problems, that's the only way I can make sense of these type of bigots.

I suspect it was a troll trying to fly just under the radar that brought it up but still it was entertaining to see the DU people squirm. It appears the best they could come up with to Just One Question was this:

The author goes on to say:

There are three possible answers to this question.

1. "I don't know." In which case my response is, "Come back to the debate when you can answer 'Yes' or 'No'."

2. "No." In which case my response is, "Then you should be advocating the repeal of ALL gun control laws and I don't want to hear a single anti-freedom word from you on this topic again."

3. "Yes and here is my demonstration."

Well, he's wrong. There is another answer -- my answer, the only good answer. And it is:

What colour is orange:
True or False?

If he really claims not to get it, then he can be given a clue: ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer.

It's better than what I expected. As Ry said in another situation, "Ah, the voice of reason."

Ry wrote about commitment the other day. Here is another example.

Both examples cause a severe cringing reaction in me.

It turns out new research has shown Dr. Joe's cure for everything, more sex, is worth about $50K/year in terms of happiness:

English economists reckon having more sex can be as beneficial to lifelong happiness as an extra $50,000 in the pocket.

The study, done by no-sex-please-we're-British economists and titled Money, Sex and Happiness: an Empirical Study, said that increasing the frequency of sex from once a month to once a week caused the same amount of happiness as getting a $50,000-a-year pay rise.

Researched by Dartmouth College economics professor David Blanchflower, along with Warwick University's Andrew Oswald, the study took 1990s American data of about 16,000 people and generalised the results for males and females of all ages.

"The most interesting thing this study shows is that money buys happiness, but not as much as you would think," Blanchflower said in his summary.

For a limited time only (until Barb finds out) Dr. Joe is offering qualified customers a 20% discount on treatments. Send a recent picture and if you qualify I'll work you into my schedule.

Anti-gun people are anti-liberty people. There is no such thing as a righteous, good faith anti-gun position. Good people cannot endorse gun control.

John Longenecker
July 4, 2006
Repeal All Gun Laws, Part IV: Motivation Influences Perception

Some stuff to think about:

A SIGNIFICANT minority of British Muslims believe they are at war with the rest of society, the largest poll of Muslims in this country suggests.

The Populus survey for The Times and ITV News has found that more than one in ten thinks that the men who carried out the London bombings of 7/7 should be regarded as “martyrs”. Sixteen per cent of British Muslims, equivalent to more than 150,000 adults, believe that while the attacks were wrong, the cause was right.

...

Assistant Met Commissioner Tariq Ghaffur, Britain’s most prominent Muslim policeman, said: “The poll shows that we do have a minority of people within our community who do effectively pose a danger.

“The tipping point between someone feeling anger and alienation and then engaging in the kind of atrocities we saw last July or being exploited by somebody who wants to commit a terrible act is very, very small.”

Update: More numbers from the UK. As Ry has told me, it's too late for some parts of Europe. I hope it's not too late for the UK. Emphasis is in the original:

A SHOCKING 400,000 British Muslims are sympathetic to “violent jihad around the world,” spy agency MI5 revealed last night.

The figure contains 1,200 fanatics who are actively engaged in an Islamic “holy war” at home or abroad.

...

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Clarke said his branch has SEVENTY current investigations on the go. These are in London, around Britain and across the world.

And there are SIXTY people awaiting trial in the UK for terrorism-related offences.

He added: “This is unprecedented and the flow of new cases shows no sign of abating — if anything it is accelerating.”

Mr Clarke added there were two other factors “even more alarming” than the gravity of allegations facing the defendants.

He said: “The first is the majority relate to the activities of British citizens against their fellow countrymen. Second is the extreme youth of some of those charged.”

Mr Clarke said police had disrupted three or possibly four attacks since the London bombings — a year ago on Friday.

He added that Britons were being kept in the dark about the true threat from al-Qaeda fanatics. He said: “It is a very, very concerning intelligence picture. It sometimes feels as if the public are not well informed about the reality of the threat.”

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.

Abraham Lincoln
[We have faltered. A great many freedoms have already been lost. There is much work to be done to restore our freedoms.--Joe]

If God forbid, they should hurt the soldier, our operations will be far, far worse. The sky will fall on their heads if they dare to harm Gilad Shalit.

Ehud Olmert
Israeli Prime Minister
July 3, 2006
Gaza Militants Deadline Expires
Mr Olmert has given the green light to the Israeli military to do everything possible to secure the safe return of Cpl Gilad Shalit, captured in a cross-border raid nine days ago. The militants had given Israel until 0300 GMT to comply with their demand or face unspecified "consequences". Hours before the deadline expired, Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon said Israel will respond severely if Cpl Shalit was harmed.

That is so bad-ass.

Xenia Huffman-Scott
July 1, 2006
During the movie Superman Returns as a bullet, in slow motion, hits, flattens, and drops to the ground.
[They did a very good job with the bullet. It looked very much like a real pistol bullet when it hits a steel plate.--Joe]
Update: Xenia posted on the same topic. She gives more details which I considered spoilers, but she and James insist were not.

I was doing my laundry this morning and chatted briefly with a young woman, 19 years old. She was on her way to do a topless car wash at a private club.

That must be an interesting club; very interesting indeed. 

She was at the club last night and had a good time but was a little overwhelmed for a bit. Because, as she said, "there were three couples on top of me at one time". She had to tell them just one couple at a time. Does she have a boyfriend? She did but he got really jealous and told her he was never going to take her to the club again. So now she just goes to the club with her mom and her moms boyfriend.

It's amazing what people will tell you if you ask the right questions.

This is one of those web pages you bookmark for later use: Gun Control: AP Blames NRA for Violent Crime

Yesterday I bumped into a friend in the parking lot.  We chatted for a few minutes and brought each other up to speed and discussed getting together with our wifes for lunch sometime. But the most interesting then he had to tell me was the almost mind boggling bigotry he ran into in a recent job interview.

My friend used to own a gun range and after ending up on the losing end of a lease dispute decided to go back into software development rather than reopen his gun range some place else. Of course the eight or ten years running the gun range shows up either on his resume or in any discussion about that gap in his employment history. He had been through several one-on-one interviews and was being recommended as a hire by them. Then he was interviewed by one last person.

For 40 minutes he was peppered with questions like:

• Do you have a problem anger managment?
• What would you do if you didn't get the promotion you expected?

He didn't get the job.

We, gun owners, are being treated like the gays of 20 years ago and the blacks of 60 years ago.

Israel gave them the land they wanted because so many people told them it would bring them peace. And how did the Palestinians react? See my post here.

And then how many days was it before that land was used for rocket attacks on Israel? I can't find the information to confirm it but my recollection was it was less than a week.

And what was the stated objective of party elected to power in the most recent election? To wipe Israeli off the map.

It was my opinion when Israel gave the land back that the world would then see, beyond any doubt, what Israel was dealing with. That people would realize the culture of these people must be destroyed if we are to have any hope of peace in the mid-east. I was partially wrong. As usual I made the mistake of believing people would think rationally. At least among rational people who have studied the problem there is no doubt about what has to be done. Let me "spell it out for you".

Israel has tried so many "diplomatic solutions" over the decades that it would take weeks to enumerate them and their failures due to Palestinian persistence in the eradication of Israel. If the Palestinian people said they just wanted to be left alone and to "live and let live" I would be opposed the destruction of their infrastructure--but they haven't. On the whole, they have declared a war to the death with the Israel. Those that don't agree with that agenda should leave while Israel gives the remainder what they have been demanding. Israel has no other viable options. If they could be contained while the world "corrupted" their youth and "incorruptible" elders died off I would suggest a 40 year plan to welcome them into civilized society.  But the Palestinians are just like Ted Bundy, he either could not or would not stop killing and he had escaped from jail twice (or was it three times?). He would be a threat to people as long as he lived. It's distasteful, it's horrible, and it will haunt many of us for the rest of our lives. But it's the best of all the bad alternatives. I say to Israel, I'm sorry the job falls to you, but you have moral authority in this case to do what needs to be done. Just make it quick and be done with it. I'll be looking the other way as the tears roll down my cheeks.

Instead of giving a politician the keys to the city, it might be better to change the locks.

Doug Larson

Have you ever spent any time fighting fire? In the woods or maybe a grass fire? If you have you know you need to jump on things as soon as you can. Extinguish it while it is still small. A spark might start something on the other side of your fire break and if you don't put it out soon it will quickly get as big as the original blaze.

John Snyder is helping us by dealing with a spark from the mostly contained, but still burning fire, of the gun control movement. The Vatican is supporting gun control at the UN:

The St. Gabriel Possenti Society, a Virginia-based organization devoted to protecting the individual's right to self-defense, criticized statements by Archbishop Celestino Migliore, the Holy See's representative at the UN, endorsing "the promotion of disarmament" and calling for stiffer international controls on the sale and possession of firearms.

John Snyder, the founder and chairman of the St. Gabriel Possenti Society, said the archbishop's words pointed to a "terribly misguided secular political initiative." He urged Catholics in the US to protest that initiative.

This isn't the first time I've mentioned Mr. Snyder. He was dealing with another small fire a few months ago.

You should also know that John Snyder isn't just some random person. He's also the Capital Hill Editor of Gun Week.

Some of the first evidence in the Miami Muslims case is coming out. I'm sure bringing down the tallest building in the U.S. would get the attention of neighbors:

A man accused of leading a group that authorities said was plotting to blow up the Sears Tower wanted to create a distraction so he could free Muslim prisoners at a nearby jail, a prosecutor said Friday.

Narseal Batiste, 32, who is accused of leading the group, was recorded as he spoke to an FBI informant who was posing as an al-Qaida operative, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Jacqueline Arango.

He said that his plan was to blow up the Sears Tower, distract law enforcement and break into a nearby jail to set his "Muslim brothers" free, Arango said.

The video tape is going to be tough to refute:

During a video clip from surveillance footage played by the prosecution, Batiste said that he wanted to start "a real ground war." Arango said Baptiste likened bin Laden to "an angel" at another meeting.

My impression of these guys is that they were sincere in their stated desire to kill Americans but they were incompetent. But it could be the FBI just wants the general public to believe they were incompetent. That would give other terrorists reason to be less cautious. The desired mindset might be, "Those bozos got caught because they were stupid.  We just need to be smarter and we will be fine."  Rather than, "We need to be exceedingly careful. Those Miami dudes were no dummies and still got caught."

It's hard to say.

It doesn't give me a lot of confidence that the first terror cell caught, at least publicly, in a long time appears to be incompetent. It may mean that there are lots of others operating out there that are competent and just aren't being detected by our law enforcement people.

From Britain:

Train fares double in secret deal by ministers
By Ben Webster, Transport Correspondent

THE Government struck a secret deal with Britain’s biggest train company to double fares on some routes as the cheapest way of reducing overcrowding.

...

A spokesman for the department said: “We accepted that this was a good commercial solution to the problem of overcrowding.”

He admitted that the department had not been as transparent as it could have been but the decision about when to make the increase had been left to First.

Asked whether similar increases would be imposed at South West Trains, the spokesman said: “We are open to any innovative solutions which can reduce overcrowding on SWT.”

Prices might increase in a free market too--if there were significant barriers to increasing the capacity. But you don't "solve the problem" of more demand for your product than you can supply by increasing the price. You increase the supply! But the socialists seem unable to learn from history. A friend who was in the USSR in the '80s told me of the long lines of people waiting for toilet paper, sugar, shoes, butter, and just about everything. The demand far, far exceeded the supply yet they could never figure out how to solve the problem.

One of my favorite examples of the failures of government is that the USSR, a socialist system of government, tried for 80 years to increase food production enough to feed their own people. For the last 75 years the U.S., a capitalist society, tried to decrease food production enough for the prices to increase. Both failed.

I just got some new software for my cellphone and I can now login to my blog and post using it. Very cool! It's not fast but I can do it.

This post was done using my cellphone while at James place and using his WiFi network.

The main topic of this article is Osama bin Laden grieving over the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. I'm so sad for him--I wish someone would just put him out of his misery. We do have some more 500 pound bombs, right? Even a properly placed 168 grain bullet would end his suffering.

But that's not the most interesting point in the article to me.  This is interesting:

"I say to Bush, you should deliver the body (of al-Zarqawi) to his family, and don't be too happy. Our flag hasn't fallen, thanks be to God. It has passed from one lion to another lion in Islam," the message in Arabic says, according to a translation by Octavia Nasr, CNN's senior editor for Arab affairs.

"We will continue, God willing, to fight you and your allies everywhere, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and Sudan, until we drain your money and kill your men and send you home defeated, God willing, as we defeated you before, thanks to God, in Somalia."

Notice that you can thank Bill Clinton for contributing to this war because of what he did in Somalia.  He encouraged the Muslim extremists by tucked his tail between his legs and running away.

But this is the most interesting:

The U.S. government has never given a public accounting of what happened to al-Zarqawi's body after the autopsy.

Perhaps the pig hasn't finished digesting him yet so we can send the remains home.

I been wondering if the U.S. quietly slipped the leash off of Israel and said, "KILL!". They sure have been aggressive in the last few days. Here is the latest story:

Israeli warplanes struck the Palestinian Interior Ministry early Friday, setting it ablaze as Arab leaders tried to forge a deal that would halt the Israeli offensive and free a 19-year-old soldier held by gunmen allied with the ruling Islamic Hamas.

The bombing was one of more than a dozen across the Gaza Strip after midnight, though Israel called off a planned ground invasion of northern Gaza on Thursday in order to give diplomacy another chance.

If Israel were to draw some of the fighters from Iraq and Afghanistan into Gaza for extermination it wouldn't hurt my feelings any. Show us how it is done. Just let us know if we are going to be downwind of any hazardous dust.

I stumbled across some old work of mine yesterday.  I was just one of a few that provided comments to the King County (Seattle area) Board of Health in January of 2000. They announced they were going to hear a report on "Firearms as a Public Health Issue" and public input was welcome. I and a few other good guy activists showed up to give our input. The procedure was rather odd. We had to give our input before we heard their report. We also had to sign up ahead of time and they called our names one at a time to talk to the board about our topic. Another odd thing was there were none of the bad guys signed up to testify as the cutoff time came and went.  IIRC Joe Waldron speculated they figured it was a slam dunk and they didn't need to bother showing up.

But what to say? We hadn't heard the report, so how could we comment? We had some hints though. The "public health" meme was probably at it's peak about then and the arguments were well known. I had my laptop with me and started writing up a little speech. I took the laptop to the podium with me and read from the screen. I forget how much time I had, something like two minutes or so.

Here are the official meeting notes. Here is what the notes say about my input:

Joe Huffman lives in Moscow, Idaho, but also maintains a home in Redmond, Washington.

Any study of gun ownership and use must take into account the benefits. He is concerned that in the report to the Board, they're unlikely to see the lives saved, the rapes stopped, and all the other millions of times each year that firearms are used by private citizens for self-defense. Ninety-eight percent of the time, that's without a single shot being fired. You might think he exaggerating when he says millions of times each year, but he's not. Numerous peer reviewed studies by criminologists put the number literally as high as 2.5 to 3 million times per year. When the people here today listen to the report, he'd like them to remember the silent benefits of gun ownership. Ask if it includes the health benefits as well as the trauma, crippling, and deaths that are caused by firearms. Ask if the trauma and deaths are police shootings that are completely justified or are accidents or criminal acts. If they don't include the benefits, ask why not. Ask if they can point to a single place or time where reducing the availability of weapons had made the common people safer. Mr. Huffman has been asking that question in debates for years, and has yet to hear a verifiable affirmative response. If the report is only on the costs and not on the benefits, ask why they don't have an interest in the benefits. Ask if it would be appropriate to report on the 100,000 medical accidents each year that result in death without noting the millions of lives saved and improved. Of course, it wouldn't be appropriate, but yet it's the same thing.

After our testimony we got to listen to the report being presented. It wasn't as bad as it could have been. You can read about it in the notes.

Then a most outrageous thing happened. Pam Eakes, President of Mothers Against Violence in America was invited to speak even though she hadn't signed in before the deadline, didn't get there until after most of us had spoken, and then she was given more time than any of the good guys were. I suspect she was called when the input was all going against them and she rushed into town to try and help.

That evening I heard my voice on the radio.  The meeting was recorded and the radio station had extracted a few sound bites. I provided the sound bite for the good guys.

At that time many gun rights leaders thought we were just fighting to slow them down as best we could. They didn't say that in public of course.  But in private, when no one was within earshot they would tell the insiders, the people whose loyalty wasn't in question and asked the right questions. They told me it wasn't going to be possible to stop them or reverse the tide. We were fighting a lost battle they said. Another 10 years and it would all be over except for the shouting. The courts wouldn't help us and the 2nd Amendment would just be a vestigial organ that in another 10 or 20 years after that no one really knew what it had ever meant.

Today, as near as I can tell, Mothers Against Violence in America doesn't exist anymore (http://www.mavia.org was their website). I'm pretty sure Ms. Eakes was the founder and the only public face to that organization. She got lots of media attention. I suppose it wasn't really a fair fight. Ms. Eakes against the millions of NRA members, hundreds of thousands of members in SAF and CCRKBA, the JPFO and dozens of other organizations. The media tried to even things up by giving her far more than her fair share of coverage. But in a fight of millions against a handful it's generally safer to bet on the millions.

Even though I was, and am, just one of millions of people that contributed to some of our recent victories for the right to keep and bear arms I'd like to think I contributed a measurable part in stopping the bad guys in King County Washington that day. And mostly it was because I, an Idaho resident living 300 miles from the battle front that day, bothered to show up. You can show up and make a difference too. Ry and I were talking about this on Wednesday. Human nature applies to gun (and anti-gun) activists too. If you can just show up you can make a much bigger impact than you might imagine because most of the time showing up is 90% of the battle.

For all their grunting and hawing about how bad criminals are, the gun lobby actually has a pretty good deal going with murders and illegal gun traffickers. The gun industry sells guns to the criminals, and the criminals get in trouble for it. The gun lobby gets paid, and they set up the laws so that the penalties go only to the person who uses the gun, and no further.

Gun Guys
The NRA Sees "Value" in Protecting Illegal Gun Traffickers
June 29, 2006
[When they say things like that I don't think I need to explain how these Gun Guys have mental problems.--Joe]

He is not immune, no matter where he is. He definitely is in our sights, just as every terrorist, every person who operates against us by means of terror, is a target.

Haim Ramon
Israeli justice minister
June 29, 2006
Warning that Israel could target Khaled Meshaal, Hamas' exiled political chief, based in Damascus, Syria, who has been blamed for blocking Shalit's (a kidnapped Israeli soldier) release by the militants in Gaza.
[Israel also bombed the electrical power generation capabilities of Gaza, and took out three bridges, and arrested dozens of politicians. I say it's a good first step. I still think feeding them to the hogs is the right way to handle the Islamic extremists.--Joe]