I don't care for horror flicks. I don't find it fun to be scared. In most cases the victims do some really stupid things and avoid doing things that would obviously improve their odds of surviving until the end of the movie. However, here is a horror video that is "more like it". Via Clayton and Arms and the Law.

Occasionaly I have some sympathy for the media. They can't be experts on everything they write about. But this instance is just too rich. And Alan Korwin does such a good job of skewering them:

The lamestream media told you:
An armored car heist in Phoenix was committed using automatic weapons. An unknown amount of cash was stolen, and police are looking for the suspects. No shots were fired during the robbery.

...

Several days later, the followup story claimed that automatic OR semiautomatic weapons MAY have been used, and suspects were in custody, increasing skepticism in those parts of the community that are awake.

Today (July 28), the headline says "Toy rifles aided three in heist," and Bosnia-Herzegovina natives were the apparent culprits. "Fake AK-47 assault rifles" were used in combination with pepper spray. I am not making this up.

According to the report, toy fakes can be scary sounding "assault rifles." The money has been recovered. No correction has been issued. The reporter is still at large.

I can't comment authoritatively on everything this guy says but I do know at least some of it is without basis in fact. And yet he claims to be a professor. Well, I suppose really it all makes sense then:

The National Rifle Association (NRA), which makes millions of dollars through the manufacture and sales of weapons, has always opposed vigorously any law that would restrict citizens from easy access to the purchase of weapons. As a result, the United Sates has turned into a very violent society. Statistics show us that more people are killed by the gun in the United States every year than in all of the countries combined!

...

The United States is the only nation on earth that views the constitutional "right" for every citizen to bear weapons on a 24 hour basis.

News flash: The NRA doesn't manufacture weapons, doesn't sell weapons, and doesn't get membership dues from firearms manufactures. They do sell advertising space to the manufactures.

News flash: England has a higher violent crime rate than the U.S. As I have said many times before here measuring violence only in terms of crimes committed with firearms is irrelevant. There is Just One Question.

News flash: He should check out the gun laws in some other countries such as Switzerland and Bolivia. They may not a have constitutionally guaranteed right to firearms but they don't have many restrictions either. Perhaps he has and that is why he worded the statement so narrowly.

However, many people in the United States and the world at large have witnessed other types of Americans whose ultimate goal was to exploit them and to inflict in them endless pain and suffering. These are the capitalistic American industrialists who want to control the economy of every single nation on earth. Anyone that resists their domination is viewed as the enemy and they will soon ask the US government officials, whose campaign for election they financed, to punish such heads of states through boycotts and sanctions. This has been the case of Fidel Castro of Cuba who said from the very beginning, "the economy of Cuba belongs to the Cubans and not to American industrialists."

Okay. We are done. No need to read any further. Castro's Cuba is a workers paradise which is why so many of them risk death to flee to the U.S. The guy is clueless.

Castro is getting old and feeble. Some are even saying he is already dead. There could be fighting break out there too. A Cuba without Castro could be very interesting. It would be hard to imagine it being any worse than it is under the thumb of Castro.

One of the things we teach in self-defense classes is to not be timid. If you take an aggressive stance, preferably with a loaded large caliber firearm, your attacker is far more likely to rearrange their to-do list such that causing you harm is placed at a much lower priority than previously. On the other hand if your voice quivers and you look like you are about to break and run that increases the odds of violence being committed against you. Apparently Israel understands this:

The Israeli cabinet has agreed to widen the country's ground offensive against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

The decision, made at a closed door session, received unanimous approval, a senior political source said.

Earlier Prime Minister Ehud Olmert ruled out an immediate truce, saying Israel would continue its offensive as long as its security was threatened.

Good for them. I hope we are giving them satellite images and/or whatever else help we can without being too overt about it. Some good deals on bombs for their warplanes wouldn't hurt my feelings either.

I would like to think that with last Friday's tragic event we can wake the Jews up in this country to the benefits of sensible gun control (trigger prep, sight alignment, squeeze). Israpundit gives them a good shake here:

Now we remember why we have such little use for the Anti-Defense League: this is the same batch of Kumbaya-singers that supports gun laws like those enacted to disarm Jews in Nazi Germany and thus facilitates exactly the same kind of terroristic violence that took place last Friday.

I rather like this cartoon too:

Via Samantha, a collection of computer related quotes. My favorite is this one:

1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d

Time to go back to bed. Barb is waiting for me.

I realize the Israel/Lebanon situation is very stressful, to put it mildly, for Muslims. But this sort of response to the shooting at the Seattle Jewish center is a very good thing.

Thank you Shahed Amanullah.

The sad fact is that the anti-gun lobby's "vision" of gun control just doesn't work. It can't because it targets exactly the wrong group of people: law-abiding gun owners. Gun control isn't crime control -- it is only about divesting law-abiding citizens of their rights.

Bruce N. Mills
July 31, 2006
Guns and rights
Globe and Mail, Toronto Ontario

My magazine changes are pretty good, but not anywhere near this good.

And the anti-gun bigots wonder why we think restricting a magazine capacity is just plain stupid as a means of reducing crime.

Some time ago our son James took the Myers-Briggs temperment test and came out as an INTJ. This describes how to deal with him quite well:

1. Be willing to back up your statements with facts - or at least some pretty sound reasoning.
2. Don't expect them to respect you or your viewpoints just because you say so. INTJ respect must be earned.
3. Be willing to concede when you are wrong. The average INTJ respects the truth over being "right". Withdraw your erroneous comment and admit your mistake and they will see you as a very reasonable person. Stick to erroneous comments and they will think you are an irrational idiot and treat everything you say as being questionable.
4. Try not to be repetitive. It annoys them.
5. Do not feed them a line of bull.
6. Expect debate. INTJs like to tear ideas apart and prove their worthiness. They will even argue a point they don't actually support for the sake of argument.
7. Do not mistake the strength of your conviction with the strength of your argument. INTJs do not need to believe in a position to argue it or argue it well. Therefore, it will take more than fervor to sway them.
8. Do not be surprised at sarcasm.
9. Remember that INTJs believe in workable solutions. They are extremely open-minded to possibilities, but they will quickly discard any idea that is unfeasible. INTJ open-mindedness means that they are willing to have a go at an idea by trying to pull it apart. This horrifies people who expect oohs and ahhs and reverence. The ultimate INTJ insult to an idea is to ignore it, because that means it's not even interesting enough to deconstruct.
   This also means that they will not just accept any viewpoint that is presented to them. The bottom line is "Does it work?" - end discussion.
10. Do not expect INTJs to actually care about how you view them. They already know that they are arrogant bastards with a morbid sense of humor. Telling them the obvious accomplishes nothing.

Ahh.... that is my boy!

Barb and I bumped into a friend today and we innocently asked "What have you been up to?". Our innocence was taken away when he said he and his girlfriend just got back from Las Vegas where they attended the Lifestyle conference. There were 3000 people there. That's a very big sex party.

He reported they both had a really good time.

I participated in a steel match at the Lewiston Pistol Club last weekend. I just posted the results on the Lewiston Pistol Club web site. Although the same people are ahead of me that were ahead of me last month I've closed the gap some. I really need to start shooting while I'm in the Seattle area during the week.

Continuing my watch on the enemy I found Washington Ceasefire does a very interesting dance with numbers. From their Gun Facts page:

• Last year in the United States, approximately 214 children died from accidental shootings and more than 1,000 suffered from non-fatal firearm injuries.
• In 2001, there were 14,571 kids injured by a firearm.
• Every 7.5 hours a child or teen was killed in a firearm-related accident or suicide in 2000.

At first glance you think they aren't consistent. After all if a child was killed every 7.5 hours you would have almost 1200 dead in a year instead of the 214 on the first line. But the first line just references accidental shootings. The last line includes suicides, justifiable and praiseworthy homicides, and is for a different year as well. And doesn't injury in the second line include those killed? Well... probably the 1,000 in the first line refers only to accidental shooting that were not fatal and again it's for a different year. And "injured by a firearm" would include injuries on the "non-business" end of the gun such as "scope eye" from shooting a rifle with your face too close the to scope and recoil from firing cause it to hit your face (typically just above your eye).

And it's interesting to me they spend most of their time on "kids and guns". Apparently they are shooting for maximum emotional appeal.

The numbers they should be looking for are the ones that answer Just One Question.

I just browsed over to the Brady Bunch website and found them claiming in a recent press release that lax gun laws increase the violent crime:

Weak gun laws have not made Florida a leader in fighting crime: Arguably, they have helped to make it one of the two most violent states in the Nation.

They, of course, cherry-picked their states. They should have looked at my post on the Brady "Report Card" versus crime rates. But maybe they did and that is why they chose to cherry-pick their states.

Friday night I met Barb in the Tri-Cities and the next day we visited her aunt and uncle before driving back to the Seattle area to visit our Jewish friends (Randy and his new wife Kim). On the three plus hour drive alone I figured it would be appropriate to listen to some of Randy's music. So I listened to the album Slop. I found myself very pleased with the combination of technology and sex in the song Virtual Babe (WMA, 1.34 MB).

I have never been able to get an answer from these type of people. They say things like this:

As for Australia, a study from Oxford University Press states: "Despite reports of a crime wave in Australia following recent restrictions on the private ownership of firearms, evidence actually shows sweeping reductions in gun-related death, injury, and crime." (Small Arms Survey 2004 Yearbook, June 2004)

The results in Australia are important because more than 700,000 guns were removed from the community (the equivalent figure in the USA would be 40 million guns). No other nation had ever attempted anything on this scale. In the country’s leading newspaper, the Sydney Morning Herald, the question was asked, "So, ten years later, can we see a difference?" The answer was resoundingly, yes. The results are in: Australia’s tightened gun controls have been followed by remarkable reductions in gun deaths.

It is true that in an area that arouses such passions as gun control, statistics are a minefield because of the difficulty in comparing like with like. But in all the stuff that came my way as a result of what I wrote, one point stood out: "Stick to apples and apples: real gun violence versus real gun violence.

It just doesn't seem to matter to them that the violent crime rate can go up as long as the crime rate where guns were used goes down. A million people a month could be killed with machetes because their guns were taken away from them (Rwanda) and that's better than if a few people were killed with guns.

These people have mental problems.

Scientists have created artificial sperm from stem cells. Similar techniques can probably be used to create artificial eggs. Hence:

..it may even prove possible to produce sperm from female stem cells, and eggs from male ones, allowing homosexual couples to have children that bear the genes of both parents.

This would also enable a single man or woman to provide both the sperm and eggs needed to create an embryo, so that a person could essentially mate with himself or herself.

This means the arguments based on "marriage is about raising children" currently used against homosexual marriage may soon fall by the wayside. I always found those arguments weak anyway. Do supporters of that argument think that a woman past child bearing age should not be allowed to marry either? Or what of a man that is sterile? My view is that if two (or more) people want to get married to each other and spend their lives together then what's the problem? Where's the victim?

Remember when Kennesaw, Georgia, made it mandatory for all households to be armed, and the media viewed this with dismay?  Well note further that in Kennesaw, Georgia, where there used to be very little armed violence, there now seems to be none.

What was it that Heinlein said about an armed society?

Jeff Cooper
From Jeff Cooper's Commentaries
Vol. 3, No. 1
13 January 1995
[Barb, James, and I spent the evening last night with some Jewish friends that are loosely associated with the Jewish center that was shot up on Friday. More Jews need to be armed in this country when (not if) they are attacked again the response needs to be immediate and decisive. This will reduce future attacks. Taking a 13 year old girl hostage and shooting a pregnant women is a cowardly thing to do. It wouldn't take much display of force to convince cowards such as these to reconsider their actions. I also give my endorsement of some Muslims condemning the attack and expressing sympathy for the victims.--Joe]

The View From North Central Idaho has a new contributor. Lyle from UltiMAK. Lyle's UltiMAK facility is almost reachable with a good slingshot from my house. I have known Lyle for many years now. He's been to numerous Boomershoots. I can't tell you the number of times we have spent hours talking about all the problems of the world and how to solve them. He is has also left the most comments on this blog. And most importantly I can't recall every disagreeing with any of his views. Hence his contributions to this blog are almost for certain going to be very compatible with mine.

Ry and I both have been very impressed with some of Lyle's ideas and the way he has expressed them. There are some excellent essays he as written but they usually only get distributed in email to a few of his friends. With this new outlet that should change.

Lyle, thanks for coming on-board.

When you have shot and killed a man you have in some measure clarified your attitude toward him.  You have given a definite answer to a definite problem.  For better or worse you have acted decisively.

In a way, the next move is up to him.

R. A. Lafferty
[This reminds me of the situation in the Mideast.--Joe]

Does this seem at all familiar, Joe?

Professor Thomas Klocek a Roman Catholic…was dismissed by DePaul University for allegedly offending Muslim students when discussing Christian interests in Israel, disputing that Israeli treatment of Palestinians was akin to the Nazi treatment of the Jews and then terminating the discussion when it appeared that the students were more interested in Israel-bashing than discussing the issues.

It is our understanding that Prof. Klocek alleges:

1) He was never allowed to meet with his accusers.

2) He was never presented with a written list of the complaints or charges against him.

3) He was suspended by the Dean of the School for New Learning in clear violation of the University's own stated Faculty Handbook procedures.

4) He was never given a hearing.

5) A vote by the DePaul Faculty Council affirmed that the same rules that apply for a formal academic hearing apply to all professors, full-time and adjuncts alike.

Read more here http://www.spme.net/cgi-bin/display_petitions.cgi?ID=3

I just realized that Dr. Joe's Cure for Everything is one of the viable options to winning WWIII (or IV depending...). As I have said before we must destroy their culture. One of the ways we can do that is by "corrupting" their youth and leading them away from a strict Islamic lifestyle. Hence giving their young hormonally overdosed youths a steady diet of porn could lead them to "the dark side" of western culture.

It could work! I even have a slogan for this campaign: "Porn for Peace."

I also have cameras and spare bandwidth. I'm hereby volunteering to help in this new campaign. I just need volunteer models. Send me an email with a sample photo if you want to participate. Hillary need not apply--we want to win this war, not put a bullet through our own brain.

Bruce Schneier must have different, and much better, search terms than I do for these things. Here is a sample of what airport security is about (emphasis added):

The point of the training class is simple - to teach you to identify the FAA test items on the x ray machine. Pat downs, hand wands, those sort of things were covered in a cursory manner. Pat downs, incidentally, had their own picture, illustrating that a man cupping a woman's breast served no purpose for security measures. The rest of the days were spent on the test items. We were drilled frame by frame, chanting in unison -
"Gun"
"Knife"
"Bomb"
"Clear"
"Knife"
This went on for hours, then the tests became "tricky". The film strip was inserted backwards, and we did it again. We lost two trainees that first run, two men who insisted that the slide they had just looked at left to right no longer contained the bomb when viewed right to left. Then they ran the strip upside down. When we concluded, it was time to be tested.

Test items. Not actual items considered a threat. Do you think I'm just displaying my Aspergers? Ha! Got you this time. Check out this:

"How do you know it's a gun?" He asked me.
"it looks like one," I said, and was immediately pounded on the back.
"Goddamn right it does. You get over here," yelled Mike to Will.
"How do you know it's a gun?"
"I look for the outline of the cartridge and the..." Will started.
"What?"
"The barrel you can see right here," Will continued, oblivious to his pending doom.
"What the hell are you talking about? That's not how you find this gun"
"No sir. It's how you find any gun, sir," said Will. I knew right then that this was a disaster.
"Any gun? Any gun? I don't give a fuck about any gun, dipshit. I care about this gun. The FAA will not test you with another gun. The FAA will never put any gun but this one in the machine. I don't care if you are a fucking gun nut who can tell the caliber by sniffing the barrel, you look for this gun. THIS ONE." Mike strode to the test bag and dumped it out at the feet of the metal detector, sending the machine into a frenzy.

"THIS bomb. This knife. I don't care if you miss a goddamn bazooka and some son of a bitch cuts your throat with a knife you let through as long as you find THIS GUN."
"But we're supposed to find," Will insisted.
"You find what I trained you to find. The other shit doesn't get taken out of my paycheck when you miss it," said Mike.

The incentives are screwed up. It's important they pass the tests, not that they catch you or I with a knife in the bottom of our carry-on luggage. Bruce has another post that points us in generally in the correct direction. But we really need to consider alternatives. The incentives need to be aligned with the desired goals--safe air travel. The passengers and crew of the plane have the motivation and are in the best position to implement appropriate security measures. Let them do their job instead of taking away their defensive tools.

I was talking with a friend at work yesterday. He grew up in Lebanon and his mother is still there. Nearly every day when I see him I ask about his mother (she evacuated safely and is doing fine so far). He told me the extremists are about 1000 years behind the times. They are brain washed and the entire world has a problem. I agreed.

If you don't agree then take a look at the evidence Michelle Malkin presents:

...a 16-year-old girl hanged in a public square in the Iranian city of Neka. Her death sentence was imposed by Islamic mullahs for "crimes against chastity."

That is just a hint of what we are fighting against. As long as we tolerate "crimes against chastity" and other affronts to the Islamic extremists we will be attacked. It will not stop until we capture or kill them. Yes, there are innocents die as we, and now Israel, fight this evil but the number of innocents killed will be greater if we do nothing. It is better to fight them now before they obtain atomic weapons rather than after. I just hope enough people of the world realize the seriousness of this war such that we have the resources and the will to finish it.

It's bad enough that cops enforcing speed limits have quotas. But think about the implications if Federal Air Marshals have quotas. And there's evidence that some of them do have quotas to meet. It's time to consider some alternatives and scrape the TSA efforts.

She does bind oxygen and carbon together and produce heat. So I suppose she is good for something.

Ry Jones
13:10 July 27, 2006
Referencing an individual he has low regard for.
[I suppose the same could be said of the barking moonbats. Ry is such a tolerant person. It must be rubbing off on me. Ry was in good form at lunch yesterday. He also had this to say.--Joe]

Ry sent me a link to a video. Pretty funny stuff. Probably safe for most work environments. It's a beer ad but you wouldn't have guessed it from the first 1/2 of the video. It could be considered an exaggeration of the sexual attitude differences between men and women.

I've never been to a museum of sex (it was a bordello museum, not a sex museum). I think would probably enjoy such a visit but not if they have exhibits of Hillary. Even if you drop the title of "The First Woman President of the United States of America" this image just drains it all out of me:

The criticism is right on but the proposals are only a step in the right direction. The optimal won't currently pass political muster so one has to go with the baby step:

This approach would begin with the fundamentally different assumption that the function of aviation security is to identify and isolate dangerous persons, not dangerous objects per se. The challenge is to keep bad people from causing harm, either in the terminal area or to the planes themselves. The TSA currently devotes the lion’s share of its airport resources to only one of these threats: preventing would-be hijackers from boarding planes with weapons. Far less money and effort is spent on securing airport terminal lobbies and the ramp areas where planes park and on keeping airline tickets out of the hands of known and suspected terrorists.

One summer I worked for a short time for a local guy doing contract game development. I got an email from him yesterday asking if I or anyone I knew would be interested in working for him again:

I have a game development position open and am trying to get the word out to people who might be interested. This is work much the same as before. Lots of C++ network & graphics coding. Initially it will be code maintenance on our PS2 and PSP titles, but will transition to new code development on the PS3 in the 6-12 month time-frame. If this sounds like it might fit with your current situation, please contact me. If not, please spread the word if you know of anybody you can recommend.

...

If you know any talented programmers who would like to get out of the city and would like to work long hours for low pay in the environs of Deary, please give them my address...

I turned it down. Right now I need a fairly high income to accomplish some particular goals and I'm pretty happy with the work I'm doing. It's very challenging and being forced to stretch myself is probably a good thing. It can be comfortable to coast but I'm sure I'm a better person accomplishing difficult tasks.

Where is Deary? It's about 20 miles east of Moscow on highway 3. As near as I can tell it has nine streets. And my recollection is that it doesn't have any stop lights. There are lots of trees and mountains however.

Let me know if you are interested and I'll forward your name on to him.

It's like a B-grade science fiction movie: Yellow jacket nests as large as Volkswagens.

Although I am fond of the saying, "There is no problem the proper application of high explosives can't solve.", I'm not convinced Ry has the correct approach with high explosives. I think some tests are in order to test that hypothesis.

Is it just me or do you see a similarity in people that are fearful of guns and gun owners? I remember the rallies against I-676 (Washington State initiative to register handguns) where a few pro-676 people showed up and a couple years later attending a rally in Olympia (capital of Washington State).  The anti-gun people just looked different. Here I see the same look. I want to say timid but that's not quite it. I sense a weakness. Perhaps a lack of assertiveness. Here's the picture:

I keep thinking "grass eaters", "sheep", and "prey". Why is that? And is it something that could be changed with training? Would a few hours on the range and in the classroom convert them to "sheep dogs"? Would their appearances change such that other "sheep dogs" such as I, and the "wolves", notice the difference?

Update: It's fear. That's what I see. I figured it out when I was in the shower this morning. It's like they are in a German concentration camp and they are submitting a petition to the camp commander.

I also should have commented on the text of the article. They say Cincinnati should ban handguns like Morton Grove, IL. That ordinance was held up as constitutional. There's just one problem. The Ohio Constitution has a provision for the right to keep and bear arms that IL doesn't have. And of course, there is Just One Question for these fearful people.

Be sure to read the comments to this post. More enlightenment is awaiting you there.

She appears to have taken after her father. That's my girl!

The war with Israel does not depend on cease-fires ... . It is a Jihad for God's sake and will last until (our) religion prevails...from Spain to Iraq. We will attack everywhere.

Ayman al-Zawahri
Second in command to Osama bin Laden
July 26, 2006
As quoted in the Jerusalem Post
[This is entirely consisted with Osama bin Laden's letter to America. This extremist culture must be destroyed worldwide.--Joe]

How interesting! Just yesterday I was just explaining to a lawyer how information is leaked in your search terms when you search the web. One of my blog visitors from the General Services Administration did a search for "nuke medina".

It probably was just some individual with free time on their hands as opposed to true government interest. But it's amusing all the same:

Domain Name		gsa.gov ? (United States Government)
IP Address		159.142.227.# (GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION)
ISP		GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION
Location		Continent  :  North America Country  :  United States  (Facts) State  :  District of Columbia City  :  Washington Lat/Long  :  38.8933, -77.0146 (Map) Distance  :  2,072 miles
Language		English (United States) en-us
Operating System		Microsoft Win2000
Browser		Mozilla 1.6 Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040113
Javascript		version 1.5
Monitor		Resolution  :  1024 x 768 Color Depth  :  32 bits
Time of Visit		Jul 26 2006 12:44:00 pm
Last Page View		Jul 26 2006 12:44:00 pm
Visit Length		0 seconds
Page Views		1
Referring URL		http://search.yahoo....earch&ei=UTF-8&x=wrt
Search Engine		search.yahoo.com
Search Words		nuke medina
Visit Entry Page		http://blog.joehuffm...Them Into Glass.aspx
Visit Exit Page		http://blog.joehuffm...Them Into Glass.aspx
Out Click
Time Zone		UTC-5:00
Visitor's Time		Jul 26 2006 3:44:00 pm
Visit Number		91,300

The ruling has come out. No gay marriage in Washington State for the time being.

I'm all in favor of gay marriage but it needs to be approved by the majority of legislature and/or the people. The people working this issue have more foundation to lay before they can erect the institution.

Gun rights advocates can learn from this. Going to the courts to resolve your issue can backfire. If you don't win you can make things worse.

Of course, the Marxian definition of value is ridiculous. All the work one cares to add will not turn a mud pie into an apple tart; it remains a mud pie, value zero. By corollary, unskillful work can easily subtract value; an untalented cook can turn wholesome dough and fresh green apples, valuable already, into an inedible mess, value zero. Conversely, a great chef can fashion of those same materials a confection of greater value than a commonplace apple tart, with no more effort than an ordinary cook uses to prepare an ordinary sweet.

These kitchen illustrations demolish the Marxian theory of value--the fallacy from which the entire magnificent fraud of communism derives--and illustrate the truth of the common-sense definition as measured in terms of use.

Mr. Dubois
Instructor of History and Moral Philosophy
A character in Robert A. Heinlein's book Starship Troopers
Page 90
[Do not think for an instant that Marxism, the most thoroughly tested and failed political philosophy in human history, is dead. It should be but millions of people still yearn for it. It's a mind numbing addictive drug that gives an initial euphoria and the illusion of well-being but ultimately it destroys initiative, your economic health, and then your life.--Joe]

Keep your blood pressure medicine handy as you read this. USA Today doesn't want to hear about defensive gun use. They made up details to avoid reporting about it in a story.

There are no dangerous weapons; there are only dangerous men. We're trying to teach you to be dangerous--to the enemy. Dangerous even without a knife. Deadly as long as you still have one hand or one foot and are still alive.

Robert A. Heinlein
Sergeant Zim
A character in Robert A. Heinlein's book Starship Troopers
Page 61
[I would probably say it slightly different. I would say, "There are no dangerous weapons; there are only dangerous minds." In any case the anti-gun bigots need to learn this lesson.

In case you hadn't guessed I'm listening to Starship Troopers on my long commute to/from Idaho/Seattle. I had read it before but that was probably in the mid-70s. I remember Heinlein being a major influence on my world view. I sometimes have wondered if I would still be as impressed with him now that I am 30 years older than when I read his works. I'm not wondering anymore. It has a lot more meaning to me now than what I remember from then. And I'm recommending to Xenia that she read this book. Her boyfriend is in the U.S. Army. I had kept my Heinlein collection all these years "for my children, if I ever have any". I could never get any of them interested before--but things change when members of the opposite sex start influencing your children.--Joe]

When you travel by air with your firearm do not leave the magazine in your semi-auto. Especially if the magazine is loaded. Claiming that having an empty chamber counts as an unloaded gun may not work. Some jurisdictions may even consider the gun loaded if the magazine is loaded and in a different suitcase from the gun.

I once had two TSA employees argue for 15 minuts about a loaded magazine I had even with the gun completely empty. The smarter of the two finally won that arguement but I could have had to argue that point myself to a prosecutor and/or judge. And one time I wait for over 30 minutes because the TSA guy claimed he couldn't determine via the X-ray if the magazine in the grip of my Ruger P-89 was empty or loaded. The rules wouldn't allow him to touch the gun and drop the magazine to check it out, I wasn't allowed to touch anything once they had it under their control. So we to wait for a police officer to arrive from some distant city or something to take all of five seconds to pick up the gun drop the magazine, say, "It's fine.", reinsert the magazine, put my gun back in it's case and walk off.

Even if it is a muzzle loader. A fifty caliber hole will let all the blood out and ventilate your insides. And in someways perhaps even do a better job than many of the more modern defensive tools.

From Clayton.

One could argue that the "government stupidity" is redundant, but please don't bring up that argument this time. The following example provides more material for illustrating your point today:

The U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security said while in Edmonton on Tuesday that certain types of travel will be exempt from new regulations on border crossings between Canada and the U.S.

While speaking to legislators and business leaders from both sides of the border at the Pacific NorthWest Economic Region's annual summit, Michael Chertoff said a "practical approach" is necessary.

"In particular, we will not be, for example, including in this set of regulations a requirement for passports for ferries or private watercraft, recognizing that this is a particular form of transportation that we don't want to interfere with," said Chertoff.

Security, defensive security in particular, is only as good as it's weakest link. If a passport requirement for travel between the U.S. and Canada provides some sort of security advantage (I question that it does, but that is why the requirement was put in place) then having an exemption for ferries and private watercraft is of dubious wisdom. Does this mean that terrorists don't know how to board boats? Does Mr. Chertoff think they are all scared of the water?

I suppose it's possible that the water routes have some sort of different security mechanism that provides as good as or better security than checking your passport as you drive across the border. But I doubt it. Most likely they don't have the facilities and resources to deal with all the crossings.

Take a look as places like Detroit, which is actually directly north of parts of Canada. End to end Lake St. Clair is only 25 miles long and provides direct access into Detroit from Canada. Personal watercraft can easily cross that gap in 45 minutes. It's just not possible to interdict all the water skiers, fishermen, and people just crossing the lake to eat dinner in the city and ask them for their passports without pissing everyone off. Similar claims could be made about Lake Erie, and in the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

And what's the point with passports anyway? Does someone think having "good ID" somehow makes everyone safer? Here is a case where fake ID is saving lives.

The bottom line is that passports cannot improve security. The reason our government is requiring passports, in some cases, is to make some people feel more secure. Real security depends on hunting down those that try inflict violence upon us and capturing or killing them. Exactly the solution Israel is implementing now.

Thanks to Bruce Schneier for his no passports needed for water traffic and the fake ID saving lives posts.

In India you can get free Yoga instruction if you want. As much as Dr. Joe advocates more sex as a cure for everything I think perhaps paying for your Yoga instruction would be the better alternative if you are considering changing your vocation just for the free instruction:

Now, sex workers throughout the country would be taught Yoga under the aegis of Bhartiya Patita Uddhar Samiti, an organization devoted to the welfare of prostitutes. Another organization - The Friends Society - has also decided to help them.

The first camp has commenced in the Shivdaspur area of Varanasi by Swamy Yogeshwaranand, a disciple of Yoga Guru Swami Ramdeo.

According to President of Bhartiya Patita Uddhar Sabha, Yoga will help the sex workers in keeping themselves mentally and physically fit. Prolonged sex act makes them physically very tiring if a sex worker has to attend to many customers in a day.

Often sex causes vaginal pain and mental stress. Yoga would help them enjoy the act which otherwise is an act of drudgery for a sex worker.

...

According to President of the Friends Society Ashish Agarwal, yoga classes would be held in more than 1100 red light areas across India and such classes would benefit 23.85 lakh sex workers who often satiate the hunger of as many as 80 lakh customers.

Perhaps it's because I can't relate to the environment. No one in my grade school (I never went to nursery school or kindergarten) had "two dads" or "two mums". In my little school, where I was in the largest class ever with six students, there weren't even any single parents. I didn't even get a hint of what homosexuality was about until L.J. tried to explain in to me in about the fifth grade. But in any case this seems just a little off base:

Nursery teachers should promote tolerance of same-sex partnerships and outlaw the use of offensive homophobic language in the classroom or playground, a teaching union said today.

...

The NUT said: "It is particularly important to begin to make three to five-year-olds aware of the range of families that exist in the UK today". That would includes families with single parents or those with "two mums" or "two dads", the union said.

...

The guidance, which has so far been voluntary, is due to become compulsory for early years staff from next year, following the outcome of the consultation.

Is this really an issue in the lives of three to five-year-olds? It would be difficult for me to defend this against the obvious accusations and baggage of "promoting the homosexual agenda" or some such thing.

Anyone who clings to the historically untrue--and thoroughly immoral--doctrine that 'violence never settles anything' I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk, and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedom.

Mr. Dubois
Instructor of History and Moral Philosophy
A character in Robert A. Heinlein's book Starship Troopers
Page 26

Democracy is also a form of worship.  It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses.

H. L. Mencken

NOT!

Those of you that have requested more frequent Boomershoots don't know what you are asking for. It was 104F there today.

I went out to the Boomershoot site to inventory and organize a few things then fix the broken table we use for making reactive targets that sometimes fell down when we're using it. For some reason my helpers seem uncomfortable with a hundred pounds of explosives falling to the ground all around them. I can't imagine why.

Anyway, I arrived by about 8:45 AM and it was already warm. The Taj Mahal was buzzing with wasps and I threw out between five and ten nests and killed a half dozen or so individual wasps. I got stung by a wasp I never did see. I did all my inventory and organizational chores as the temperature kept rising. It was really hot and there wasn't even the hint of a breeze. I was dripping wet with sweat even though I was working in the shade. I left about 10:45 and when I arrived at my parents house two miles away it was 99F. By 13:30 it had risen to 104F.

Doug and I went back out about 15:30 after the temperature had dropped back down to 99F. We fixed the table and scoped out the possibility of putting in a culvert to get better access during our wet springs. After the last trip through the creek this spring Scott said he would need a snorkel if he had to go through again. And the year before that Ry got his van stuck there (as well as in the middle of the field).

No matter how great the ballistics would be on a day like today you don't want to lay out in the middle of dry hay field when it's over 100F and the wasps are stinging you. You really, really don't.

These numbers should make everyone question the NRA's campaign for lax CCW laws under the guise of fighting crime.  If the gun lobby is truly interested in reducing crime, they should work for common sense measures like stopping criminals from getting guns at gun shows and limiting handgun sales to one per person per month to cut gun trafficking. Working with lawmakers, law enforcement, the public health community and civic leaders on proven crime-fighting strategies, we can make America safer for everyone.

Sarah Brady
Regarding a 'study' that claims crime rates fell faster in states that did not have 'shall issue' concealed carry laws.
Originally from: http://www.handguncontrol.org/press/RLSE.htm (As of January 20, 1999)
Currently found here: CONCEALED TRUTH Concealed Weapons Laws and Trends in Violent Crime in the United States
Issued October 22, 1999
[What she fails to tell you is that the crime rate was much higher in the states with disarmed vicitims both at the beginning and at the end of the time period under consideration. The crime rate could be zero at both the beginning and the end in states with lots of guns and 1000 murders per 100,000 and then later 999 murders per 100,000 in the Sarah's utopia and she would still be singing the same song of joy and be entirely truthful.--Joe]

You cannot defeat your enemy unless you take the offense. We are opening up another offensive front:

Former U.S. representative Bob Barr of Georgia filed a $400 million lawsuit against New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg yesterday, claiming Bloomberg's attempt to crack down on gun dealers was "careless, willful and clearly illegal."

The lawsuit, filed in Cobb County Superior Court in Marietta, Ga., came in response to a federal lawsuit filed by Bloomberg in May alleging that 15 firearm brokers in five states, including Georgia, were "rogue gun dealers."

...

Barr's lawsuit alleges that Bloomberg made misleading statements to the national media that were defamatory toward Smyrna, Ga., gun dealer Adventure Outdoors.

"We didn't start this fight. They did," Barr told a cheering crowd in Marietta's city square. "But we intend to finish it and win."
Bloomberg's lawsuit claims that the dealer sold 21 guns over a seven-year period that were used in New York crimes. The shop's owner, Jay Wallace, said his name has been "trashed in the public eye of the nation."

"I've run my business with honesty and integrity, and I take pride in being part of the firearm industry,"he said.

The announcement took on a patriotic tune as flag-waving supporters cheered the news of the lawsuit and danced.

"We will fight to prove the Constitution of the United States is still intact, and that Mr. Bloomberg's fight to abolish the Second Amendment must and will fail," said Edwin Marger, a lawyer who filed the lawsuit with Barr.

See also the press release that Cam Edwards received.

I'm hoping to open up a new offensive front of my own soon. Sometimes things move far, far slower than one hopes.

In the last five months of World War II, American bombing raids claimed the lives of more than 900,000 Japanese civilians -- not counting the casualties from the atomic strikes against Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is more than twice the total number of combat deaths that the United States has suffered in all its foreign wars combined.

On one night, that of March 9-10, 1945, 234 Superfortresses dropped 1,167 tons of incendiary bombs over downtown Tokyo; 83,793 Japanese bodies were found in the charred remains--a number greater than the 80,942 combat fatalities that the United States sustained in the Korean and Vietnam Wars combined.

Walter Russell Mead
The Jacksonian Tradition and American Foreign Policy
[Thanks to Kevin Baker for pointing this out. The Barking Moon Bats and the Muslim extremists should be reminded of this every time they whine about the civilian deaths in the MidEast. If you really piss us off you will have something to complain about.--Joe]

Interesting news from California. A guy had some incinderary bullets (not cartridges, just the bullets). He was arrested. Each bullet is a seperate felony.

Read the comments to the post.

We will win because we are good and they are evil. We will win because we always came in peace and they came with a call for the destruction of the state of Israel.

...

If the international community will not make an end to the Hezbollah, we will make an end to the Hezbollah. We are after the terrorists and we will be after them until Israel will be 100 percent, from all the world, secure.

Ehod Danoch
Israel's general consul to the Southwest United States
July 19, 2006
Las Vegas Jewish community told Israel to prevail in current war
[Like no other country on this planet, Israel knows what we are dealing with in this world war. Just as Hitler wanted to kill all the Jews so do the Islamic extremists. Israel, you've got the ball, now run with it and don't stop until you've won.--Joe]

In the summer of '95 I was a contractor for Microsoft working on Direct X video drivers. I wrote about that before.

Randy, a fellow contractor and video driver writer had a band, The Swine, as well as a show on public access cable television. A couple of Randy's bandmembers wrote a song about our experience. Mister Bill's Machine (WMA, 1.52 MB) does a fairly good job of capturing my summer of '95.

Some other time when my inhibitions are much, much lower from lack of sleep or something I'll explain how I ended up on the cover of their CD album in a camo poncho with an SKS rifle in my arms:

I'm almost caught up on the Lewiston Pistol Club website now. At least until Sunday when they have another steel match.

Unless you are local there probably isn't much of interest.

I participated in a couple of the matches. I hadn't fired my pistol in months (since November I believe) so I had a mediocre performance. See here and here.

Dante Alighieri
[I'm thinking of the current war against Islamic extremists... WW III or WW IV depending on how you keep count.--Joe]

The Canadian kook Cukier is blabbering away again:

REGINA (CP) - The shooting deaths of two RCMP officers in northern Saskatchewan and other crimes like it in recent years show the need to maintain the federal registry for long-barrelled firearms, gun control advocates say.

...

The deaths of constables Robin Cameron, 29, and Marc Bourdages, 26, have tugged at the heartstrings of people across the country and plunged the tiny farming community of Spiritwood, Sask., into a state of grief.

Police say the two young officers died after being shot by a man who fled the scene armed with either a hunting rifle or a shotgun on the night of July 7.

...

Wendy Cukier, a professor of justice studies at Ryerson University and president of the Toronto-based Coalition for Gun Control, says it doesn't make any sense to dismantle the long-gun registry.

Just how does the registry prevent or help solve this crime? Was the criminal so stupid he left the gun, registered in his name or someone that could connect to him, at the crime scene? Nope. The kooks thinking is that of a simpleton.

But Cukier says registration is a tool that allows police to trace a firearm back to its original owner.

It's a good way to prevent someone who shouldn't have a gun from buying one legally and it forces legal gun owners to be accountable by making sure their weapons don't fall into the wrong hands, she argued.

It can also serve as an early warning tool for officers, letting them know that a routine situation could turn dangerous because guns may be involved.

"No system is perfect, but it reduces the chances that people will be killed," Cukier said. "The system, however imperfect it might be, is better than nothing at all."

How does a gun registry prevent stolen guns or smuggled guns (think recreational drug smuggling) from ending up in the hands of anyone that wants one? And no it is not "better than nothing at all". It took between one and two billion dollars (Canadian) to implement the registry which could have been spent on police personnel and equipment.

I have Just One Question for Ms. Cukier.

Update: I realize I should have explained things just a bit better. Cukier claims this crime shows the need to maintain the registry but the registry wasn't a factor in solving this crime. And furthermore the last time I had an update on the topic since Canada started registering handguns decades ago there has only been one crime that the registry did help solve.

Ry and I have talked about this type of thing until the wee hours of the morning many times. It always came down to destroying their culture or engaging in some really nasty stuff. It turns out we weren't the only ones that came up with those conclusions. This is from 2003:

A Pew poll finds 40% of Americans worry that an US city will be destroyed by a terrorist nuclear attack. James Lileks thinks the annihilation of a city is a dead certainty and will only mark the start of a long, wearying struggle against Islamists armed with nuclear car bombs.

...

In stark contrast, the nuclear threshold against a terrorism may be crossed once they get the capability to attack with weapons of mass destruction. Unlike the old early warning systems, designed to gauge Soviet intent, the intelligence systems of the War on Terror are meant to measure capability. The relevant Cold War question was 'do they intend to use the Bomb?'.  In the War on Terror, the relevant question is simply 'do they have the Bomb?' This puts the nuclear threshold very low.

...

This fixity of malice was recognized in President Bush's West Point address in the summer of 2002, when he concluded that "deterrence -- the promise of massive retaliation against nations -- means nothing against shadowy terrorist networks with no nation or citizens to defend."

...

Because capability is the sole variable of interest in the war against terrorism, the greater the Islamic strike capability becomes, the stronger the response will be. An unrepeatable attack with a stolen WMD weapon would elicit a different response from one arising from a capability to strike on a sustained and repetitive basis. The riposte to an unrepeatable attack would be limited. However, suppose Pakistan or North Korea engineered a reliable plutonium weapon that could be built to one-point safety in any machine shop with a minimum of skill, giving Islamic terrorists the means to repeatedly attack America indefinitely. Under these circumstances, there would no incentive to retaliate proportionately. The WMD exchange would escalate uncontrollably until Islam was destroyed.

...

The so-called strengths of Islamic terrorism: fanatical intent; lack of a centralized leadership; absence of a final authority and cellular structure guarantee uncontrollable escalation once the nuclear threshold is crossed. Therefore the 'rational' American response to the initiation of terrorist WMD attack would be all out retaliation from the outset. 

...

It is supremely ironic that the survival of the Islamic world should hinge on an American victory in the War on Terror, the last chance to prevent that terrible day in which all the decisions will have already been made for us. That effort really consists of two separate aspects: a campaign to destroy the locus of militant Islam and prevent their acquisition of WMDs; and an attempt to awaken the world to the urgency of the threat.

I wish Israel well in their efforts to exterminate radical Muslims from their neighborhood. It's a start down the appropriate path. The alternate paths are far too uncomfortable for me.

The English may have some sexual hangups but this former Socialist Scottish party leader doesn't appear to have many:

A former Scottish Socialist party member today told a jury how she had a three-in-a-bed sex session with its former leader, Tommy Sheridan MSP, and his brother-in-law.

Katrine Trolle, 31, said she first had sex with the Glasgow MSP months after his wedding in June 2000.

The Danish occupational therapist also described a visit to Cupids, a swingers' sex club in Manchester, and said Mr Sheridan had offered her a "wonder drug" at a house party later that night.

...

Ms Trolle, from Dundee, told the court that Mr Sheridan flirted with her and made remarks about how liberal Danes and Scandinavians were compared to the British.

The witness said her second sexual encounter with Mr Sheridan took place at his brother-in-law's home in Glasgow.

Asked by Michael Jones QC, representing the Sunday newspaper, who was in the house, Ms Trolle replied: "Andy (McFarlane), Tommy and myself."

Mr Jones said: "What happened?" The witness replied: "We had sex."

Mr Jones sought clarification as to what Ms Trolle meant when she used the term "we".

She replied: "All three of us."

Mr Jones asked: "Together?" Ms Trolle said: "Yes."

Earlier she described her first sexual encounter with the MSP, which she said happened at his house.

Ms Trolle said: "He offered me a glass of wine. We talked a wee bit about politics and then went upstairs to the bedroom."

Asked what happened in the bedroom, Ms Trolle said: "We had sex."

The witness also told the court it was Mr Sheridan's idea to visit the swingers club in Manchester in 2001.

She confirmed the party which left Glasgow to travel south included Mr Sheridan, his brother-in-law, journalist Anvar Khan and a man named Gary.

...

The witness said: "We went into one of the small side rooms and had sex."

Mr Jones said: "Who went into this room and had sex?"

Ms Trolle replied: "Tommy, Anvar Khan, myself and Andrew. I can't remember if Gary was there or not."

Barb knows some occupational therapists at her work. I wonder...

They want to destroy Israel and kill all Jews. That's the truth. Got a solution Katie? We'd all love to hear your perky plan.

Michelle Malkin
Vent--July 18, 2006
On Katie Couric saying "We heard from many people that the news is just too depressing... I believe we can be a little more solution-oriented."
["Don't be surprised if Katie's "solutions" are socialistic, involved the loss of personal freedoms, and masquerade as "news". Malkin introduces Couric to a cluebat.--Joe]

Xenia has posted a bunch more pictures (and a little bit of story) from her visit here and her trip to Oklahoma to see her boyfriend graduate from Army Boot Camp.

• Private John
• Dressing up Sara
• Visit to Seattle proper

My favorite pictures from the collection:

Xenia's pinkie. My toes (I wear size 14 shoes).

Sara and Xenia get the ultimate desert offered at the Space Needle.

As in my previous post/QOTD I pointed out that English women leave the country to get some good sex. Here's more from the U.K closely related to the same topic:

WOMEN are getting a rough deal in bed — with some rating dull sex as a “household chore”.

And over a third complained of a lack of thrills from their fellas in a survey.

The poll proves women are NOT getting enough satisfaction in spite of greater sexual liberation.

A quarter of women in the 25 to 34-year-old age bracket find it difficult to get aroused.

And 45 per cent of women rarely or never make the first move for sex.

One in ten women said they have sex when they do not want it and regularly fake orgasm. And one in 20 think sex is a chore.

Meanwhile a quarter of men are snubbed for sex HALF the time by their regular partner.

Heavy sigh. So much work for Dr. Joe and I just don't have the time to do it all.

I'm not naïve. I've been around the block. I come for sex - of course the sun, but mostly the sex.

I'm not coming to live and set up house with a guy. I just want some fun and good sex.

A 42-year-old English woman
She travels at least three times a year to Boca Chica in the Dominican Republic for sun and sex.
[Those English and sex... I'm telling you they are bit on the strange side. It must be because the men in the U.K. have been neutered, in part, by the removal of their firearms. I think Dr. Joe has a lot of work to do there. Or else NRA Instructor Joe. One of the two.--Joe]

Xenia visited part of week before last and then again last week. Here are some of her pictures and comments. I like this one best:

Of course I took the picture and it is a picture of my daughter so I suppose there is the possibility of some bias.

It would have required courage to hang out with the Mahdi Army, if there were any likelihood that a member of the Iraqi "insurgency" would regard a representative of the New York Times as an enemy.

John Hinderaker
July 15, 2006
Power Line post commenting on this picture.

All lies and jest, still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.

Paul Simon
Recorded 1968
The Boxer
[In part this is what happens When Prophecy Fails, Bush Derangement Syndrome, and in everyday life.--Joe]

An anti-gun bigot targeted the SKS again. Pretty much every thing I said before when the SKS was singled out for "being evil" is true this time as well. The new stuff is taken care of by Kevin.

I spend $2 million [campaigning] every election. If my colleagues are smart, they’ll pay their $20,000 and Michael will draw the district they can win in. Those who have refused to pay? God help them.

Rep. Loretta Sanchez
From Stealing Democracy: How to Rig Elections by Spencer Overton
Pages 19 and 20
[Sanchez was referring to Gerrymandering the election districts to win elections. If you read the Amazon description of the book and the comments by the author be sure to keep your blood pressure medicine close by. Hat tip to Larry Pratt for pointing out the Sanchez quote. Read Pratt's article for the gun rights connection.--Joe]

I just love it when they say things like this:

..no matter how much training is involved, or who’s holding it, a gun is always dangerous. This guy, it seems, thought that because he was a police officer (and weapons instructor– which probably means NRA member), that he could be above the law. After all, he’s a cop, right? He would never do anything wrong, right?

Wrong. These fully automatic weapons are illegal for a reason, and it’s because they’re not safe in anyone’s hands, police officer, NRA member, weapons instructor, “law-abiding gun owner,” or otherwise.

These "guys" have no clue. They don't realize just how far out of touch with the rest of the world, and reality, they are. Or else they really are our friends and are trying to further discredit the anti-gun movement.

We call upon the city government and Congress to immediately repeal the District's Draconian gun regulations. The city's law-abiding citizens must be allowed to fight back, and regain control of their neighborhoods. Any politician, whether in the municipal government or on Capitol Hill, who does not trust the citizens of Washington, D.C. with their Second Amendment rights does not deserve to hold office, and should hand in his or her resignation. This risk-free working environment for criminals must end now.

Alan Gottlieb
July 13, 2006 News Release
Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms

The murderous attack that took place this morning was not a terror attack. It was an act of war by the state of Lebanon against the state of Israel within its sovereign territory.

The government of Lebanon, of which Hezbollah is a part, is trying to undermine regional stability. Lebanon is responsible and Lebanon will bear the consequences of its actions.

Ehud Olmert
Prime Minister of Israel
July 12, 2006
Chicago Tribune

I want to make clear that the event this morning is not a terror act, but an act of a sovereign state that attacked Israel without reason. The government of Lebanon, of which Hezbollah is a part, is trying to shake the stability of the region.

Ehud Olmert
Prime Minister of Israel
July 12, 2006
New York Times

[Regardless of which quote is more accurate (the Times Online of the UK agrees with The Chicago Tribune) the spirit is the same. This is war.--Joe]

Okay. Maybe there is some evidence of global warming. But it's not as conclusive as the caption makes it out to be. And there's no evidence given that it's caused by man.

[The link is work safe.]

Faced with genuine horrific physical abuse and cold-blooded murder of captured human beings by Muslim jihadis in Iraq, Amnesty International was strangely silent, prompting some observers to question their neutrality.

Joining in the lack of response were typically outspoken Jimmy Carter and the International Red Cross. Joint statements from Arab defense leagues and Muslim anti-defamation groups were not made. The United Nations has scheduled no hearings, and has thus far proposed no sanctions.

In stark contrast, U.S. use of humiliation tactics similar to college-fraternity pranks, to get prisoners to reveal information, were broadly denounced as grotesque affronts to humanity, barbarous criminal abuse and violations of human rights, by the now silent critics.

The U.S. procedures involved putting underwear on a person's head, leading a prisoner around on a leash, and taking sexually explicit photographs, none of which lead to physical harm or death.

U.S. authorities, bowing to world opinion, court martialed and imprisoned some of the prison guards involved in the college-prank styled interrogations. A search for the Islamist insurgent perpetrators of the horrific murders has not yielded any suspects.

Alan Korwin
Writing under the pen name of The Uninvited Ombudsman
July 9, 2006
Page Nine -- No. 7 (an email list posting)

Thanks to Ry for pointing this out.

Now that the war on legal guns is won (the war on illegally owned guns cannot ever be won). The Scots have a new tool for their war on the knife culture:

METAL detectors that look like gardening gloves could save lives by taking knives off Scotland's streets.

The gloves conceal hi-tech gadgetry which officers will unleash this weekend on people suspected of carrying switch-blades and other knives.

Seven pairs of the specially-designed gloves, costing about £200 a pair, will be tried out for a month in Strathclyde and central Scotland. The battery-operated gloves allow officers to scan an individual for weapons with the fingertips or the palms of the hands. If metal is found, the glove, which is made from stab-proof Kevlar, starts to vibrate at the wrist.

Scottish police have already been issued with 1,000 hand-held scanners as part of the Safer Scotland campaign, but they have decided to give the gloves a try as they allow for people to be searched more discreetly. The manufacturers also say the glove enables police to carry out covert searches as only the wearer is aware when a knife is detected.

Karyn McCluskey, the deputy head of the Glasgow-based Violence Reduction Unit, said: "We are constantly looking at utilising new technology to detect weapons and take them off the streets of Scotland.

"It's important we look at innovative ways of tackling violence, and we are confident that these gloves will allow officers to search people in a safe and efficient manner."

This enrages me.

"Tackling violence"? All they are doing is shouting to the world that they have mental problems.

"More discreetly"? "Covert searches"? "Allow officers to search people in a safe and efficient manner"? In the U.S. we have the 2nd Amendment to enforce the 4th Amendment against violations like this.

There's the good news that this animal was killed:

MOSCOW — Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, responsible for modern Russia's worst terrorist attacks, was killed Monday when a dynamite-laden truck exploded in his convoy, Russian officials said.

Federal Security Service head Nikolai Patrushev told President Vladimir Putin that Basayev had been killed overnight in a special operation conducted by Russian forces in Ingushetia, the area of southern Russia that borders Chechnya. Patrushev's meeting with Putin was shown on Russian state television.

Basayev, 41, was behind some of Russia's worst terror attacks, including the seizure of a Moscow theater in 2002 in which dozens of hostages and militants died, the 2004 school hostage taking in Beslan that killed 331, and the seizure of about 1,000 hostages at a hospital in Budyonnovsk that killed about 100.

...

The Interfax news agency quoted Ingush Deputy Prime Minister Bashir Aushev as saying that Basayev's body had been identified "through some of the fragments, including his head."

Then the part that is most interesting to me is this line buried deep in the article:

Basayev was the most notorious of the Chechen warlords, eluding Russian forces for years despite Kremlin vows to hunt him down and an offer of $10 million and plastic surgery to anyone providing information leading to his death.

Do you notice anything a little different from what we are doing when we put a reward on a terrorist's head? The Russians don't waste time with the things like Club Gitmo. It's, "If we find him we are going to kill him."

I just hope they follow up on my suggestion for dealing with this type of vermin. It was the Russian school children incident that inspired me to come up with that disposal method so I think it would entirely appropriate for them to implement it with the fragments of this scumbag.

I wish it were true--that it were legal to actually carry your personal protection tools with you when you visited the Washington D.C. area. But this US News and World Report article does have a point, we are making some progress. We still have a lot of work ahead of us and we can't back of. We need to drive them into political extinction.

Packing heat on the hill

The NRA is riding high; gun control is a political loser

Oklahoma Rep. Dan Boren's Washington office features his hunting trophies, including a stuffed wild turkey and a mounted deer head. The freshman congressman's enthusiasm for firearms might always have stood out in the Democratic Party, but Boren now finds himself among an even more endangered species: Democrats willing to discuss guns at all.

"When we as Democrats are trying to reach out and speak to voters in the center of the country, I don't think that we can support gun control," he explains. After seeing Democrats hammered at the polls for voting to regulate guns, many of his colleagues seem to agree. As a result, a number of pro-gun measures moving through Congress will most likely face little opposition, as advocates of gun control increasingly find themselves marginalized and ignored.

Not long ago, it was the gun lobby on the defensive from the passage of the Brady bill in 1993 and the 1994 ban on "assault" weapons. But some say support for gun control cost Democrats the House in 1994, and former President Clinton credited it with Al Gore's 2000 presidential defeat. "It's different than it was in the early '90s. Those were, in retrospect, the glory years," says Paul Helmke, former GOP mayor of Fort Wayne, Ind., who recently took the reins of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

Meanwhile, with little fanfare, National Rifle Association backers in Congress allowed the assault weapons ban to expire in 2004 and last year shielded gun makers from being sued over crimes committed using their products. Since 1999, nine states have eased restrictions on concealed weapons, and NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre says the freedom of gun owners is in "the best shape it's been in decades."

Today, Israel is really terrorising our people ... Israel and America, which talked too much about this terrorism in past are the worst, severest and ugliest examples of terrorism.

Khaled Mashal
The exiled supreme leader of Hamas
UK Times: Uncompromising message from exiled Hamas leader
July 10, 2006
[I'm sure Mashal can back up this claim with hours of video tape of Americans and Israelis doing more severe and ugly things than the beheadings of civilians, bombings of civilian aircraft in-flight, the torture and killings of school children, and violent, brutal, aircraft hijackings for the destruction of skyscrapers filled with innocent civilians.--Joe]

Ry and I have often spent hours talking until the sun rose on the "solving of the worlds problems". Our conclusions have sometimes been uncomfortable and things we don't really share in public. My "feed them to the hogs" approach is an extrapolation of some of those conclusions. My suggestion that Israel needs to do some very distasteful work now is also an extrapolation of those conclusions.

Kevin has elaborated, quoting numerous books and people, on how this is the American way. Along the way he explains why my wife, Barbara Scott, without hesitation and somewhat to my surprise supports the "feed them to the hogs" approach. My wife's last name and her heritage is a significant part of that explanation. He also echos other private discussions I have had where we concluded that it would take another 9-11 type hit on our home soil before we would obtain the resolve to do what we need to do and that when that happens we will do what needs to be done no matter how distasteful a job it is.

Thank you Kevin.

Contrary to widespread opinion, to rationally demonstrate or justify a belief is not synonymous with claiming certainty for that belief.  Depending on various factors, such as the nature and amount of available evidence, a belief may be categorized as probable to some degree.  If this is what the evidence warrants, the belief has been justified.  Reason demands that the degree of certitude assigned to a belief must be in accordance with the available evidence.  Reason does not demand that every bit of human knowledge must be accepted as certain or closed to further investigation.

George H. Smith
From: Atheism: The Case Against God
[Although not directly mentioned in this quote I took Smith's approach to theism in my approach to gun control. Translated that comes out as, demonstrate to me that your belief in the goodness of gun restrictions is valid. Hence, I have Just One Question. I have been asking that question for over six years now and still there is no answer other than the absurd.--Joe]

No doubt you have heard that Diane Feinstein, among others, is seeking to abolish the Office of Civilian Marksmanship, on the grounds that civilians ought not to know how to shoot. The leftist elite obviously fears an armed citizenry, which is, of course, the sole barrier to tyranny.

From the opposite point of view, what ought to be abolished is the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, a rogue organization that was never needed in the first place and which has now developed into an uncontrolled instrument of harassment recruited from the dregs of the federal employment establishment.

Let us by all means economize, but let us get our priorities straight.

Jeff Cooper
From Jeff Cooper's Commentaries
Vol. 3, No. 8
21 June 1995
[Feinstein is still a threat to liberty and one of the larger stains in the U.S. political system.--Joe]

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