I consider the ownership of arms not only a right, but the duty of a free people to themselves and future generations.

"Dan" in Pennsylvania
Armed America page 60.
[Do your duty.--Joe]

Dear Jamie,

Money is the root of all evil. A man does need roots.

Remember to dream with your eyes open so you can act on them to make them real.

G. Eric Engstrom
March 23, 2000
Inscription inside the front cover of Renegades of the Empire: How Three Software Warriors Started a Revolution Behind the Walls of Fortress Microsoft
[This inscription was addressed to our son James--who now works at Microsoft. The book is about Eric, Craig Eisler, and Alex St. John. I worked for them when I first started doing contract work for Microsoft in 1995. I've known Eric for about 20 years now starting when we both worked for Zortech (they sold a C/C++ compiler for MSDOS and later OS/2 and Windows). While researching this quote, much to my surprise, I discovered Craig is now back at Microsoft.--Joe]

As I (and others) have been saying for quite some time we are winning:

A recent Zogby International poll question conducted for Associated Television News found that 66% of the American voting public in a recent poll of 1,020 Americans from August 8-11, 2007 (margin of error of +/- 3.1%) found that the American public rejects the notion that new gun control laws are needed.

The poll asked: "Which of the following two statements regarding gun control comes closer to your own opinion? Statement A: There needs to be new and tougher gun control legislation to help in the fight against gun crime. Statement B: There are enough laws on the books. What is needed is better enforcement of current laws regarding gun control.

Conversely, only 31% of the American public think new and tougher gun control legislation are needed.

A majority of voters who support enforcement of gun laws already on the books exists virtually across all demographic groups and in all regions of the country with the only exception being Asian and liberal voters.

Don't slack off, don't celebrate for more than a day. We need to politically exterminate them. Our job isn't done until they are as unpopular as the KKK and the neo-Nazis.

When our first child was born, and again after the second, a state case worker was assigned to visit us, inspect our new house, ask us a list of questions and determine whether we were deemed by the state to be fit to keep our own child.  We were allowed, but only after installing fire extinguishers and making a few minor changes around the house, which I had planned anyway.  I had almost forgotten about that small, (to me then) but at the same time insidious, outrage.

Fast forward 14 years, to a post I’d already been working on:

***

Your Doctor as a Politician, Politicians as Doctors

My wife took our son in for a sports-physical the other day.  The kid's as healthy as any.  I can almost be persuaded to go along and agree with the school's requirement, but only in empathy with the administrators, in light of what the trial lawyers have done to our society.   Football is strenuous, sure, but so are a lot of things.  We don't get a checkup every time we plan a bicycle trip, or for doing farm work, which he did this summer, or shoveling the snow...

The typical string of health related questions was asked, then this question, tagged on at the end:

"Are there any guns in your house?"
"Yes, several"
"Are any of them loaded?"
"Uh, I don't think so."
"Well.......stay safe!"

Aside from being completely irrelevant to a sports exam, it’s a bit of a trick question, isn't it-- are any of them loaded?  We teach our kids to treat every gun as if its loaded, never to assume it is unloaded, but I digress.

I wish I'd been there, so I could have explained my point of view to the good doctor, preferably while holding a baseball bat, you know, just to demonstrate that although we keep baseball bats in our house, we keep them for sporting purposes only.

We all need a medical doctor once in a while.  Sometimes our lives may depend on it.  This of course is why people who desire control over other people are trying so desperately to get hold of the medical industry.  Our doctor had ceased being a doctor with those gun questions, and had become a schlep/tool for anti-gun activists, fishing for potential leverage against gun owners.  Remember during the 1990s when they were defining "gun crime" as a "public health" issue?  That was about the same time our co-president was pushing for full nationalization of health care (I say “full” because we’re already halfway there).

Our doctor asked no questions about any of several more common and statistically far greaterd dangers found in a typical home.  "Do you have any insect poisons? for  instance, was not asked.  Nor was anyone in the medical field interested in how much time our kids are spending on bicycles, around a swimming pool, around matches and gasoline, in the sun without sunscreen, or whether there are stairs in the house, or unlocked liquors (which there are, by the way).  They didn't ask about access to sharp knives, time spent on the highways, running with scissors, unprotected sex, or the condition of our house wiring.  Therefore the gun questions can without hesitation be said to have been motivated exclusively by politics.

***

After writing that, I came across the following, courtesy of K. Dutoit.  The Britts are taking kids away from parents by the thousands, it seems:

He tells Mrs Brookes: "I would like you and your baby to stay in hospital until the courts have made a decision."

As though they were being given a choice.  That's cute.  Its also dishonest and sickening.

The social worker says the two or three days the mother has with her baby in hospital will allow her to begin breast-feeding and that once the infant is taken away, social services will pick up expressed breast milk from her home and deliver it to the foster carers (sic) for bottle-feeding.

I can imagine the Social Services (SS) worker speaking in a German accent:  Vee haff come for zee breast milk.  If you haff not met zee quota, schnell! (Those of you with children will understand.  The rest of you will think I'm trying to be funny.)

The social worker admits to the couple that a back-up plan is being drawn up in case the judge refuses the application for a care order. He says: "What we also have to think about is a child protection plan that looks at you, at home, with your baby. There is no immediate risk to your child from yourselves, that's my understanding from reading documents."

Throw 'em a bone of hope in an insane situation, like you're on their side.  F*<%ers!  Those of you with children will understand.  Those without children:  You can never understand the extent of the pure evil of this.  Its how they get you.  You cannot fight them.  You cannot do anything but hope you can have your child back.  Its all that matters to you, and you won’t do anything to risk upsetting those in charge of your baby’s fate.  It is a hell like you cannot imagine.  Nothing alleged to have happened at Abu Ghraib under U.S. control comes anywhere close. I am not kidding.

Juxtapose the UK story with our doctor's incongrous gun questions for my son here in the U.S., and I submit that unless we stop this sort of thing, smack it down wherever it pops up, we'll end up with our very own police state, with the medical profession, social services, and lets not forget education, as integral parts of the enforcement system.  All acting very polite of course, saying, "Please do this" and, "Please do that" while they have absolute power over you.

Hillary-Care anyone?

No.  I'll opt for Liberty, thank you very much.

Mrs. William Jefferson Clinton, among others, is telling us that we might "honor" our troops.  This "honor" is not to come in the form of allowing them to win, and not through convincing the enemy that they will be utterly defeated no matter what it takes, but by bringing our troops home.

Lets apply that same logic to our firemen:  Lets "honor" our firemen by keeping them out of fire trucks and away from fires.  While we're at it, we can "honor" our public school teachers in similar fashion, by sending them home, sparing them the difficult and often unpleasant task of dealing with the ins and outs of teaching kids: Planning course syllabi, meeting on-going certification requirements, writing and grading assignments, dealing with administration and parents, etc..  We can further "honor" our poor, suffering teachers by accusing them of torturing kids.  We can then "honor" them by launching false prosecutions and endless investigations against them.

As long as we're "honoring" whole cross sections of society, we might consider "honoring" our senators by reducing legislative sessions (and adjusting pay, of course) to one day per year.  Would could at least "honor" Hillary by "redeploying" her out of Washington, possibly to the Philippines, where she could be called in on two or three-days' notice in the event we desperately need her inside an hour.

As is typical with other words misused by leftists, it seems the words "honor" and "support" have taken on new and diametrically opposite meanings.

I would therefore like to; "Honor Hillary.  Send her home!"  She can't win anyway.  Her war against America is a lost cause, based on a lie.

If you have sometimes suspected that the ecofascists hate humans then you may be pleased to see the evidence to support that hypothesis--The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement:

Phasing out the human race by voluntarily ceasing to breed will allow Earth's biosphere to return to good health. Crowded conditions and resource shortages will improve as we become less dense.

"Crowded conditions" are either voluntary or imposed by government action. They are not an inevitable result of our present population.

"Resource shortages" would get worse if there were far fewer people on the planet. This point might not be obvious so I will explain. Imagine you and a few hundred others are marooned on a large isolated island that in addition to the sand, has tillable soil, fresh water, metal ores and, deep underground, oil. How long before you will have tractors and cultivators such that you can raise a surplus of food? How long before you will have electrical power, air conditioning, computers, and cell phones? There are a great many things that are only possible because there is a large enough market to justify the initial investment.

VHEMT apparently lives in a fantasy world.

Update: VHEMT responded on their Yahoo email group confirming my suspicions:

I think this is one of the funniest views of VHEMT I've seen so far:

[...snip of my post above...]

I don't know what "Crap for brains" refers to at the end. It was
placed to the right like a signature.

Les

Apparently he was unable to determine that "Crap for brains" was a topic tag.

Obviously Joe Huffman has never lived off the grid without A/C,
refrigeration or phone service.  I have, and must confess I prefer life
without all the amenities.

Camille

Camille (and Bob) have a Yahoo profile. Occupation: Eco-Smugs.

Does anyone else find it ironic their favorite quote is "The need to be right is the sign of a vulgar mind. Albert Camus"?

When growing up on the farm there were several years we did not have a phone or A/C. However, we did always have refrigeration. I've been camping and backpacking many times without any of the amenities. It's enjoyable for a few days but I wouldn't want to live my entire life like that. I find it ironic that Camille is posting on the Internet about her preference for living without "all the amenities".

Well, his blog is subtitled, "Ramblings of a red-necked,
knuckle-dragging, Neanderthal" so I do think "crap for brains" is a
signature!


Doris

Another person in the group that couldn't figure out the topic tag "Crap for brains"--confirming the correctness of my categorization.

I consider Stottlemire's actions unethical. But he does have a point:

Stottlemire, 42, of Fremont, California, insists there was no encryption or hacking involved, and therefore he did not violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. "I honestly think there are big problems when you are not allowed to delete files off of your computer," says Stottlemire.

I also think he is on shaky, at best, legal ground. The law says:

`(2) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that--

`(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title;

`(B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title; or

`(C) is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person's knowledge for use in circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.

The law doesn't say the circumvention has to have anything to do with "encryption or hacking".

Where it gets interesting to me is that if someone were to design their copy protection based on the existence of a browser cookie such that if you had the cookie you couldn't copy the "protected work" and if you didn't you could do the copy. Then if someone make a program or script that selectively deleted just that one cookie they would be violating the law. But a web browser which allowed the user to selectively delete cookies would apparently not subject the authors to legal action. And furthermore someone who told you how delete the cookie with the browser or even the command prompt would not be subject to legal action either.

I grew up in Idaho and when I wasn't residing there I lived in next door Washington. As I have reported before my interactions with and knowledge of local law enforcement have been what I considered very fair. And as I have also reported before that isn't the case in New Jersey. And apparently it isn't the case in New York City either:

When motorists see traffic-control officers breaking the same rules they are paid to enforce, it can send them over the edge.

Meet “Jimmy Justice,” one of those frustrated motorists.

But instead of railing against fate, he decided to do something about it. Taking camcorder in hand, he’s compiled nearly 30 hours of video — most of it accompanied by his own highly indignant commentary — of traffic enforcement officers parking in front of fire hydrants while going for lunch, making illegal U-turns, and breaking every other traffic rule in the city.

“The traffic cops in New York City are especially mean-spirited and very aggressive,” the 36-year-old video vigilante told TODAY’s David Gregory.

“Although they’re doing their jobs, they go over their bounds a lot. What hurts a lot more than getting a ticket — especially if you didn’t deserve a ticket — is watching the same person who gave you a ticket go and commit the same violation with their official vehicle. That’s just wrong. The whole goal of traffic enforcement is to increase safety in the city for pedestrians and motorists.”

[...]

Keeping his real identity secret is, he said, is a matter of self-defense

“I think there will definitely be reprisal attacks against me by different city agencies that I’m embarrassing by showing the public the truth,” he said.

Gregory asked Jimmy how he can be sure the officials he tapes are not on official police business.

“It’s pretty obvious if they park blocking a fire hydrant and then walk into a restaurant and then stand on line ordering their lunch,” he said. “That’s not doing their job, that’s ordering lunch. We’re not allowed to block a fire hydrant — it’s a matter of safety. What’s the difference if it’s my vehicle blocking a fire pump or the vehicle of a traffic enforcement agent?”

Is this just an "east coast thing"? Or is it because cops are the only ones who can legally possess firearms in public and they feel superior to the people that supply their paycheck?

If we had less guns on the street, more people would be alive today.

Traci Hughs
August 21, 2007
D.C. police spokeswoman
In Study Of Gun Traffic, Va. Stands Out
[She doesn't address the issue of whether the homicides she is referring to were felonious, justified, or praiseworthy. She doesn't address the issue of substitution of other weapons as a means of homicide. She doesn't address the issue of felonious homicides that are committed without a gun that could have been prevented had the victim possessed a gun. And I'll bet she can't answer Just One Question. And I don't think it is a misunderstanding of the English language that throughout the article author, Alison Klein, refers to firearms being seized by law enforcement as being "recovered". "Recover" means "to bring back to normal position or condition".--Joe]

You do not know our culture, our ethics, or the unwritten codes that already provide our society more order than could be obtained by any of your impositions.

John Perry Barlow
[Barlow was speaking of the Internet but he just as well could have been talking about the gun culture in our country.--Joe]

Lots of people have been reporting on the high price and shortages of ammo recently. I know the folks over at Master Blasters Bullets and they told me the price they pay for lead has increased something like a factor of four in the last two years.

And if you are, or will be, into reloading you should buy some bullets before the price goes up again. I know the prices at MBB will be going up very soon and I have my order in at the existing prices.

And stocking up now is a good idea just to help counteract the anti-gun bigots.

Recently I posted a quote about sociopaths. Auntie Tam tells us of how one such sicko died a violent death after being responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands including:

In 1868, when the allies were pressing him hard, he convinced himself that his Paraguayan supporters had actually formed a conspiracy against his life. Thereupon several hundred prominent Paraguayan citizens were seized and executed by his order, including his brothers and brothers-in-law, cabinet ministers, judges, prefects, military officers, bishops and priests, and nine-tenths of the civil officers, together with more than two hundred foreigners, among them several members of the diplomatic legations (the San Fernando massacres). During this time he also had his mother flogged and ordered her execution, and also attempted to have himself canonized by the local bishops.

Sociopaths; just one of the many reasons gun control fails my Jews in the Attic Test.

The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.

John Gilmore
[This, or a similar, quote is often attributed to John Perry Barlow but Barlow gives credit to Gilmore (and here) for at least the concept if not the exact words. Regardless, this point is being hammered into the psyche of the anti-gun bigots. They no longer have their hand on the throttle of information dissemination. Freedom of information is something some people just can't tolerate.--Joe]

She tends to put her best face forward but sometimes she is a slacker and just doesn't care.

A number of sources on the left held up for praise in the decision the one dissenting judge, Karen LeCraft Henderson, whose opinion that the gun ban was constitutionally permissible was based on at least two stellar deductions. The first was that since the District of Columbia is not a state (as in "necessary to the security of a free State…"), then the 2nd Amendment did not apply in that part of America. This is a wonderful precedent, not only for the District, but also for America's other territories such a Puerto Rico.

According to this same logic, Amendments 14, 15, 19, 24 and 26 (among others) do not apply in the District either, which means the District is free to a) deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, b) deny the vote to blacks, c) deny the vote to women, d) institute a poll tax, and e) deny the vote based on age. Clearly, Henderson deserves her new status as a liberal hero.

Mac Johnson
Court Rediscovers 2nd Amendment, Liberals Fear Other 'Rights' May Soon be Found
March 15, 2007

I've installed a new version of the blogging software. It seems to have fixed the problem I had with comments bringing down the server CPU. It runs just fine on my 32-bit Vista Ultimate home machines. But there are some problems on my website and on my 64-bit Vista machine.

Patience please...

Update: The most serious problems are solved! I can now log in and create/edit posts on the site rather than editing them on my local machine then uploading the new entry to the website, then "touching" web.config to reload the content. The comment preview still doesn't work and the comment box overlaps the right panel if your screen width isn't wide enough. But it's now usable.

You can make a crude stun gun from a disposable camera. A better quality flash unit will have a faster recycle time.

There is no limit the number and type of weapons that can be easily made and gotten past the Theater Security Agents (TSA). I've already mentioned making dust explosions with flour (powdered coffee creamer works too). It's long past time to consider some alternatives to existing airplane security.

Via Bruce:

Unlock Plastic Handcuffs! Police Style!

Daughter Kim and Caleb are on their (belated) honeymoon. They have sent us over 500 pictures so far. Here is one of the better ones:

As usual Kim is wearing a smile that would make my face hurt, although Xenia claims Kim has my smile.

It’s a gun. It’s an instrument of death. It’s the most violent, the most vile instrument of death you could have in your house.

[...]

I’d love to be able to take your hand gun.

Tim Heyne
August 16, 2007
TIM HEYNE TURNS TRAGEDY TO TRIUMPH
From VC Reporter

[Just in case there is any doubt about what the anti-gun bigots really think about guns and what their objectives are. I do give this guy a little bit of slack. He was walking with his wife and best friend when all three of them were shot. His friend and wife both died. That would mess up the mind of anyone. It's ironic though that the best chance of surviving an attack like that would have been if one or more of the three had been armed and now he is trying to prevent others from defending themselves from a similar attack.--Joe]

It's a frequent complaint of mine when dealing with neurotypicals. Some people believe they know something about which they cannot possible know and most often they get it wrong. Garen Wintemute, director of the violence-prevention research program at the University of California, Davis is no different. In an August 12 article in the Star-Telegram, Gun control back as national issue it is claimed:

In 2005 and 2006, Wintemute attended 28 gun shows in Texas (in Dallas and Houston), Nevada, Florida, Arizona and California -- areas where he said guns are acquired and later used in crimes in California. Afterward, he urged lawmakers nationwide to put more restrictions on gun shows.

"I would like to see a policy change that makes direct private-party transfers of guns illegal," Wintemute said. "And I'd like much more vigorous law enforcement presence at gun shows. I noticed the illegal stuff was conducted right out in the open.

"Bad guys had no concern they might be caught."

What "illegal stuff" did he observe? Whenever I've confronted people about this sort of thing it turns out they confuse what they would like the law to be with what the law really is. They frequently claim they saw "criminals" buying guns--but they can't explain how they knew they were criminals. As near as I can tell they imagined they were criminals. They thought they just knew from looking at someone. Apparently they believe they have some sort of extra sensory perception I guess.

Wintemute should be asked to explain how he knew who the "bad guys" were. Did they have "FELON" tattooed on their foreheads? Or maybe it was their skin color--were they "bad guys" because their skin was black? Or was it because it was white? Did they have their baseball cap on backward? Or were they wearing camo pants?

I suspect Wintemute is just another anti-gun bigot. I sent the following email a few minutes ago. I'll let you know if he responds.

From: Joe Huffman
Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2007 7:22 AM
To: 'gjwintemute@ucdavis.edu'
Subject: A question about your study.

 

In the article Gun control back as a national issue you are quoted as saying “I noticed the illegal stuff was conducted right out in the open. Bad guys had no concern they might be caught."

 

Could you tell me what sort of “illegal stuff” was conducted? And how did you identify people as being “bad guys”.

 

Thank you.

The mystique of the Western gun rested on an inflated belief in the individual and the power within reach of an ordinary human being.

[...]

The gun has become a fetish--an emotional response to a changing America, the idea that somehow, the social problems of the U.S. will be solved through private gun ownership and a lot more guns.

Joan Burbick
Professor of English and American Studies at Washington State University
Author of Gun Show Nation: Gun Culture and American Democracy
Quotes found at Guns R Us -- Is it time to re-examine the West’s fascination with firearms? in Missoula Independent By: Ray Ring August 16, 2007
[It's interesting to me that Mr. Ring referred to Ms. Burbick as "Jean Burbick" instead of "Joan Burbick". Typical of an anti-gun bigot--getting the facts straight don't seem to matter. Please note that Burbick is engaging in a bit of projection with her claim "the gun has become a fetish". It's the anti-gun bigots that believe gun regulation have magical power to protect people. And Burbick also overlooks that the concept of individual power, and even the individual itself, is the one distinguishing difference between Western Civilization and all others. For her to denigrate the concept of individual power and rights is to undermine the very basis of our culture.--Joe]

Shall we modify and make new laws such that (A) probation and early release are eliminated, (B) the limit of DUI is set at zero and pictures from advanced technology cell phones with timestamps of drinking or drug taking is acceptable in any court, and (C) all violent offenders must have Global Positioning System (GPS) chips installed in their body by the government. The ATG must sue if non-conformance exists anywhere.

INITIATIVE 971
Washington State
[Some people just won't be happy until they have a police state.--Joe]