Xenia reports on the snow in Moscow with a bunch of pictures. There is a snow drift four foot deep in our back yard:

Nearly everything in town is shut down. The weather forecasts are for more snow for several days.

On the western front the Snoqualmie pass report is interesting too:

Snoqualmie Pass remains closed from milepost 34 near North Bend to milepost 106 near Ellensburg. The earlier estimate of opening Thursday morning was based on a forecast of cooler temperatures and dry snow accumulations. The overnight snow accumulations have more than double the moisture predicted and temperatures have risen. Therefore the avalanche danger has increased instead of decreased and an estimated time of opening is not known. Additional information will be available at 10:00 a.m. // Snowing with areas of poor visibility

Nope. No more information at 10:00. It's possible Barb is stuck with me for longer than she planned.

If Karl, instead of writing a lot about capital, had made a lot of it ... it would have been much better.

Karl Marx's mother
[I've been listening to The Big Three in Economics by Mark Skousen. Fascinating stuff about Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Hegel, and several others. Then there are the unsolved problems of economics. If I were younger I might consider trying to solve some of them. It's all very interesting stuff. And of course the huge impact these various theories had on the entire world. Marx is responsible for more deaths and suffering than any other human who as ever lived. Adam Smith played a huge part in the industrial revolution.--Joe]

Barb left Moscow this morning to visit me at my super secret hardened bunker in the Seattle area. Traffic stopped moving when she reached the very top of Snoqualmie summit at about 3:15 PM. I've been watching the web cam and getting updates via the web. The latest story is that she has been stopped for two hours now and the pass is now closed in both directions. The latest word from WSDOT:

She may be spending the night in the Jeep. She has blankets, sleeping bag, and food. She’ll survive just fine but it won’t be fun.

If she had left 10 minutes earlier she would be here by now.

Heavy sigh….

Update: 6:32 PM. She is off the freeway now on a side road near the ski lodge. They are not allowed to travel in either direction.

She went inside the lodge and found "about a 100 people in the lobby". They had 19 rooms available. She is settling in for the night in her Jeep.

There is a small store open and people are stocking up on supplies. Barb is in a better situation than some. There is one woman there with several small kids. There are also some cars trapped in the slide area. The low tonight is supposed be 26^oF so she shouldn't have any problem staying warm and she has about 3/4 of a tank of gas.

Assuming she can travel tomorrow morning it will just be one of those "interesting stories" you have to tell your grandkids.

Update2: 7:55 PM. Barb says, "This is a very boring adventure. You can put that on your damn blog."

A police car drove by announcing the westbound on ramp will be opening soon. She may make it over here yet!

Update3: 8:15 PM. A police car drove by again. This time the officer said there was a short delay, "But you guys are going to make it."

Update4: 8:23 PM. They are taking westbound traffic out in convoys. She should make it to my bunker within a couple hours.

Update5: 8:48 PM. One convoy per hour until 10:00 PM and she apparently missed the first one. But she is moving again now.

Update6: 8:59 PM. No further word from Barb but KIRO has a story and pictures of the avalanche. There were two cars caught in the avalanche but no one was hurt. The video is more impressive.

Update7: 9:23 PM. She made it to North Bend which is out of the snow. She should be here in 45 minutes or so.

Update8: 10:02 PM. She made it to my bunker. All is well.

Uncle discusses, "How do we win this political gun battle?", asks for some help, and gets this suggestion. Then Sebastian offers this.

There is some good stuff there but there were a few items left out.

• Join pro gun groups. The first group you should join is the NRA; even if you think they compromise too much. They are the 800 pound gorilla in the legislative kitchen and just the raw number of members causes the politicians to think twice before cooking up an anti-gun scheme. Other groups serve useful purposes and should be considered as well. Some of them are 501(c)(3) corporations and your donations are tax deductible.
• Come out of the closet. In the early days of the gay rights movement there was a phrase, "Silence equals death!". Getting people to come out in the open about being a gun owner helps the anti-gun people realize we aren't red-necked, knuckle dragging, Neanderthals, who beat their wives, complain about the "coloreds" lusting after our women folk, and whose idea of a good time is shooting our empties while chugging beer from the tailgate of our pickups. It worked for the gays and it can work for us.
• Closely related to the previous item is to speak up when someone says something hostile about gun ownership. Know your facts, know the anti-gun position fallacies, and don't be afraid to share them when someone tries to push that failed agenda. Come up with sound-bites and don't belabor things. People will "turn off" if your viewpoint takes more than about 30 seconds to explain. If you don't have anything more directly to the point, ask Just One Question.
• Invite the media to your pro-gun events and put announcements of your events in their "whats happening" section. Most media outlets are starved for material. If you are having a special event invite them to come, watch, and report on it. Write a decent news release (such that they can easily and quickly plagiarize it for their own use) and you increase the odds of attendance and positive coverage considerably. See, for example, Boomershoot coverage.
• In the end game, which we may just be entering, we need to drive them to political extinction. You don't get there by saying, "They have a valid point and everyone is entitled to their opinion." We must make their position as socially uncomfortable as that of the KKK. See this post for how to do that.

LawDog
Meditations on Self Defence
January 27, 2008
[Via Tam. I'm in full agreement with this philosophy but not all people are.

I had an interesting discussion with my officemate last week. She is from India and a Jain. Just a quick refresher on that philosophy of life:

Nonviolence includes the concepts of vegetarianism. Jains are expected to be non-violent in thought, word, and deed, both toward humans and toward all other living beings, including their own selves. Jain monks and nuns walk barefoot and sweep the ground in front of them to avoid killing any insects or other tiny beings. Even though all life is considered sacred by the Jains, human life is deemed the highest form of life. For this reason, it is considered vital never to harm or upset any person.

They also don't eat the roots of plants because of the increased chance of harming some organism that lives in the soil or the root. She does eat dairy products but not eggs.

Quite a contrast from me. I asked her, "If a lion was about to have you, or your children, for lunch does your religion require you to submit? The answer was that in the most pure form, yes, you are required to tolerate being lunch. But of course most people would not do that. They would fight back. Similar responses were obtained after gentle probes about taking antibiotics and defending against a human attacker. I dropped the subject. Maybe some other time when we have lots of time (this was to/from a lunch for our group) I'll explore more. It seems so odd to me that their ideal and the admitted practical are so divergent. And that she is so positive about my explosive videos. Maybe it's just the contrast from her live experience in a non-threatening form. Or maybe she is just being a Jain and doesn't want to upset me by showing her disapproval.

[shrug]

Those are questions for another time--we have a product to ship...--Joe]

In Election Season, Mum’s the Word about Gun Control, By Don B. Kates Jr.

He goes on to tell us about all the research done that concludes guns in the hands of ordinary people do more good than harm.

I recently found out about the site http://green.msn.com/. It's a site for environmentalists with a significant slant toward the viewpoint, "It doesn't matter what the cost is if it's for the environment". What I found most interesting was the reason for the creation of the site. It wasn't that MS management particularly shared that viewpoint. It was that there was a major sponsor willing to spend advertising dollars on such a site. MS threw the site up in record time and started collecting the dollars because the viewpoint all MS management does agree on is, "Don't leave loose money on the table."

Similar analysis of many of the anti-gun groups reveals money is the significant motivator for them too. For example GunGuys.com gets grants from the Joyce Foundation. The one guy that runs that family of sites gets hundreds of thousands of dollars plus all the donations he can get by dancing in the blood of victims whom most would have had better survival chances had they been armed.

There are no principles--it's all about the money. Just look at me and all those wheelbarrows full of cash I get for accepting marching orders from the Apex of the Triangle of Death.

I think it must be that they just can't help themselves.

I was reading this article which mentioned the Reno brief on the Heller case and something struck me as odd. Thinking maybe the WaPo got it wrong I went directly to the Reno brief. Nope, WaPo got it right. Reno et al misrepresented something from the Miller case.

Reno et al say:

In opposing Second Amendment challenges to those prosecutions, the government contended for more than 60 years that the Second Amendment did not protect an individual right to keep and bear arms for purposes unrelated to participation in a well-regulated militia. The government set out that position in its brief in United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939), the only prior case in which this Court has squarely addressed a Second Amendment challenge to federal firearms legislation. In rejecting the defendants’ Second Amendment challenge to the NFA, which rendered unlawful their transport of an unregistered sawed-off shotgun across state lines, the Court agreed with the government that the "possession or use" of a firearm must "ha[ve] some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia" to fall within the scope of the Second Amendment.

What the Miller decision actually says is:

In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a 'shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length' at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument.  Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment or that its use could contribute to the common defense.

In Miller the shotgun must have "some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia" to be protected against government regulation. Not that the individual must have "some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia". Hence by substituting individual for shotgun Reno et al attempt to completely change the meaning of the Miller decision.

Also note that using the reasoning of Reno et al the enslavement of some minority would be completely acceptable if it had not been successfully challenged for 60 years or more. All those runaway slaves in jail might want to challenge their convictions if the courts were to rule this particular minority should be regarded as freemen. And we can't have that sort of disruption to our society, it just wouldn't be right.

The world would have been better off if Reno et al had traded places with their victims at Waco.

We've all head the news about the satellite that's going to make reentry some day soon.  They say it's a spy satellite and that it contains hazardous materials.  I don't know what that tells most people, but to me, even the term "spy satellite" says, "nuclear power on board".  So, is that uranium or plutonium?  I guess it would have been too much trouble to go and either refuel the bird's rockets, or at least remove the fissionable material?

It's not exactly a trend but it's a start. I think the TSA should mandated it. It would make more sense from a security standpoint than what they do now. And it would only be slightly more offensive to some people. Others, including myself, would consider it less offensive.

Fly naked on nudist holiday flight.

I don't like to miss an opportunity to mock the shooters in the Seattle area who shutdown their matches in the winter. The shooters in Idaho are made of better stuff.

The following pictures are from the steel match at the Lewiston Pistol Club on Sunday.

This was the scene as I walked out my door Sunday morning.

Scene at the range.

Adam gives us the stage walk-through.

Joe M. is terminally ill and I was pleased to be able to see him again. Don W. is the range officer.

Another picture of Joe M. with brass in the air above his rear sight.

When Joe M. can make it to the range and shoot in the snow the shooters in the Seattle area have truly earned their wimp badges.

Sunday night I drove from my home in Moscow, Idaho to my secret bunker in the Seattle area in preparation for another week of work for The Borg. The road was compact snow and ice from home to Vantage when I got on I-90. Most of that drive was across the desert of Eastern and Central Washington.

Yes, desert. Othello, Washington only gets about 8.4 inches of precipitation per year. A desert is defined as getting less than 10 inches per year. The picture below was taken a few miles east of Othello:

Quick! Tell Algore global warming is destroying our deserts!

The school VP suspended a kid because he had a pen with a Glock Logo on it.

I'd show up to pick up my kid with my lawyer while wearing this shirt:

Then I'd give the VP a copy of 18 USC 242 and tell the VP I was going to visit the Federal Prosecutor next. The tone of my voice would scare him far more than the words I used.

In Moscow Idaho my daughter (above) actually wore the shirt you see above to school. She only showed it to one teacher, but still, he thought it was cool.

H/T to Uncle and Bruce.

Fans are clearly split as to whether a handgun can ever be tolerated on a superhero long regarded as a symbol of untainted righteousness.

Tom Leonard

I think the TSA has an impossible job. I think they are way out of bounds on the 4^th Amendment. I think they are blowing smoke just to try and keep their jobs. I think they should be abolished and that $5,000,000,000 per year should go toward something useful. But I don't hate them.

This guy hates them. And I guess I can see his point. Here is a sample:

Hate is a pretty strong word. But it's not strong enough to express how I feel about the TSA -- the Transportation Security Administration or Thousands Standing Around, depending on your point of view -- which runs those security checkpoints at American airports.

I may fear the IRS, and I may dread the DMV -- but for shear bureaucratic stupidity and its affront to personal liberties, the TSA has earned a special place of loathing in my heart.

[...]

My family and I - which means all three kids, including the baby - were returning home from vacation last week and dutifully filed in line for the ol' "Papers, please" routine at the Honolulu airport. I handed our five boarding passes and our ID to the lone TSA guy who gets paid to look at boarding documents and, according to TSA chief Hawley, use them to root out would-be terrorists every day. But this genius couldn't find any of our names on the boarding passes and handed them back to me, demanding that I show him where the names were. Heck, I didn't know. It's not my yob, man.

[...]

Apparently there was something in our "behavior" and/or our "documents" which triggered the crackerjack TSA security guards' suspicions. Yes, a middle-class white family with three young children, including a 16-month-old baby, returning from vacation set off alarm bells in some bureaucrat's mind. So we were instructed to move to the side for "enhanced" screening while all of our carry-on bags, including the baby's stroller, were hand-inspected.

Out of morbid curiosity, I asked if this was simply a "random check" that we'd been so lucky to be honored with. The terse reply from the agent on the front-lines of the war against terrorists was a simple, "No." So our selection couldn't even be explained away by the stupidity of random selection; these people intentionally singled us out as a potential security threat.

Barney Fife then proceeded to get a female agent to pat down my wife and two daughters before feeling me up-and-down himself. At which point my wife was instructed to hold the baby out with outstretched arms like Rafiki did with Simba on the rock ledge in "The Lion King" for a pat-down. Absolutely ridiculous.

In the meantime, another crackerjack TSA agent was busy rifling through our carry-on bags, and lo and behold, he caught my wife trying to smuggle onboard a tube of skin cream which exceeded the federally-mandated 3-ounce limit. Goober informed us he was confiscating the potentially lethal tube of Lubriderm, much to the relief of the other passengers standing in line who clearly were worried it might be used to send us all to a watery grave in Davy Jones' Locker somewhere over the Pacific.

With one of our bags now 5 ounces lighter, we finally were allowed to leave Checkpoint Charlie and proceed to the gate. Now for the kicker.

When we finally get home and unpack, I discover that the girls had inadvertently packed a pair of metal scissors they found at the condo where we stayed in their carry-on knapsack. Neither the TSA's expensive, super-sensitive X-ray machine nor hand-inspection of the bag detected this pair a metal scissors - but they did find the Lubriderm! Don't you feel safer now?

And here is a video of someone actually sneaking a simulated bomb through security. Anyone that doesn't believe we need to explore different means for airplane security is either willfully ignorant or has some agenda they aren't sharing.

A little over a year ago I reported the U.K. hospitals were putting women and men in the same rooms together and the government was fiddling with the numbers to make it look like it wasn't as bad as it actually was. Now it turns out they have just decided to give up trying:

Labour has admitted it had abandoned its historic commitment to eliminate mixed-sex wards from NHS hospitals.

Health minister Lord Darzi of Denham told the House of Lords that the key manifesto pledge repeated in 1997 and 2001 was "an aspiration that cannot be met".

But with typical socialist doublespeak they go on to say:

A Department of Health spokesman said Monday night: "Lord Darzi's comments were fully in line with the Government's long-standing commitment on mixed-sex accommodation. The aim of the NHS is to reduce mixed-sex accommodation and ensure privacy and dignity for all patients.

Don't let socialized medicine happen here.

Update: Phil has other news about the "free" (and worth every shilling too!) health care in the U.K.

A couple of people sent me an email yesterday asking about the caliber of rifle required for Boomershoot, other general questions, and said they planned to be spectators this year and participate next year. I gave them the best advice I could and encouraged them to attend, ask questions, etc.

What was interesting to me was the domain for email address QueerArms.com. They have a website and it appears they don't get a lot of traffic but it's a decent site.

They even have a link to Boomershoot under "Games". Cool! I've only received one referral from them but, hey, it's the thought that counts. I don't know if it was Tammy that put the link there, but whoever it was, thanks!

Just announced:

How do the best outdo themselves? Attention to details. Crafted with classic 1911 design, the STI International Sentinel Premier is a traditional 1911 built to modern highest-end standards for an exceptional competition, duty, and self-defense pistol. With the exclusive new Dawson Precision/STI "Perfect Impact" style white outline Tritium adjustable sights and the STI Tritium competition front, it is ready to compete in either IPSC or IDPA right out of the box (and look good doing it.)

The Sentinel Premier is built on a forged steel, government length, standard width frame that includes a 30 LPI checkered front strap, checkered steel mainspring housing, and custom blended magwell. The controls are STI International’s blued steel single sided thumb safety and knuckle relief high-rise beavertail grip safety. The slide features traditional 1911 styling with STI front and rear cocking serrations, oversized ejection port, and is flat topped with Diamond LPI. The barrel is 5.0" ramped and supported with a match grade fitted bushing, fully crowned to sit flush with the end of the barrel. This exceptional firearm comes standard with an STI commander hammer, patented STI aluminum trigger system, STI S-7 sear, and titanium strut for smooth, reliable function. The Sentinel Premier comes standard with case, owner’s manual, and one Wilson Combat ® Elite Tactical magazine.

Available in .45 ACP.

In competition I shoot a STI gun, I carry a STI gun and you should too.

Every friend of freedom must be as revolted as I am by the prospect of turning the United States into an armed camp, by the vision of jails filled with casual drug users and of an army of enforcers empowered to invade the liberty of citizens on slight evidence.

Milton Friedman
[Friedman was referring to casual drug users but in regards to firearms things are even worse. There are people, such as Chris Matthews, who want an army of enforcers empowered to invade the liberty of citizens on ZERO evidence (H/T to Jeff and Uncle). And of course we already have that for our airplanes. What baffles me is that millions of people put up with it every day with only minor whining.--Joe]

I believe the Supreme Court's review should not be limited to the construction of the Second Amendment. The court also should consider whether its enunciated constitutional right of privacy extends to an individual's right to possess a handgun in his home.

[...]

The Supreme Court has held that the zone of privacy applies only to "fundamental" personal rights. Also, the privacy of one's home has been particularly important to the court: thus, in Payton v. New York the court described the zone of privacy as unambiguously applying to an individual's home.

Therefore, the Supreme Court should consider not only whether an individual's right to possess a handgun in his home is expressly protected by the Second Amendment; but, in addition, whether the possession of a handgun within one's home is a fundamental right protected under the court's recognition of a zone of privacy.

Don Kornreich
The Second Amendment, gun control and the right of privacy
Originally published January 27, 2008
[Excellent point.--Joe]

I received the following story from an email list I subscribe to. It's just a funny story but I do sometimes wonder if this sort of thing might have contributed to our current political mess. Politicians, and the people that elected them, ignore and deliberately bend the first principles of our Constitution and even the philosophical underpinning (yes, Ayn Rand's book Philosophy: Who Needs It has made big impact on me) of how we determine true from falsity and right from wrong. Little by little the nature of our government morphs into something completely unrecognizable and unrestrained by the founding document.

A new monk arrives at the monastery. He is assigned to help the other monks in copying the old texts by hand. He notices, however, that they are copying from copies, not the original manuscripts. So, the new monk goes to the head monk to ask him about this. He points out that if there were an error in the first copy, that error would be continued in all of the other copies.

The head monk says, "We have been copying from the copies for centuries, but you make a good point, my son." So, he goes down into the cellar with one of the copies to check it against the original. Hours go by and nobody sees him. So, one of the monks goes downstairs to look for him. He hears sobbing coming from the back of the cellar, and finds the old monk leaning over one of the original books crying.

He asks the old monk what's wrong, and in a choked voice comes the reply..."The word is 'celebrate.'"

Even in the simple story above it would be tough to change. All those centuries of tradition and the hundreds of collaborating volumes by "great teachers" who based their scholarly works on simple clerical errors. Who would be willing to say their greatest leaders through the ages were mistaken and totally wrong?

So, what was the fatal error or errors of our founding documents that allowed the replication errors to be introduced and never corrected? It's not as if we were actually making copies of the copies. The original documents are available and other than perhaps the question of a comma or two no one questions the integrity of copies.

I believe there is a single flaw that allowed this to happen. This fatal flaw permeates our state constitutions as well as our U.S. Constitution. That flaw is that there is no punishment for those that violate the Constitution. If a politician votes for a law, another signs the law, the judges, the police, and the prosecutors enforce the law. If it is later declared to be unconstitutional the very worst that happens to all of the people involved is they say, "Whoops." Hence there is nothing to lose for them when they engage in illegal activities. How can you expect any other outcome than what we have today? Imagine how your children, your employees, employer, your local merchants, your banker, your neighbors, etc. would behave if they could cheat, steal, lie, and injury people and the worst that would happen to them is they had to say, "Whoops, I'm sorry." That is what has happened to our governments.

I keep wondering how to restore our Constitutions (yes, I remember Jack Anderson's quote--I deal with him in that post). There needs to be some punishment for those who violated the constitution. But the same judges, prosecutors, and police who violated the constitution would be reluctant to convict themselves. One thing that might work is a separate branch of government whose sole task is to prosecute violators of the constitution. But at this point I don't think our government needs to get any bigger. I have a better plan. This plan will not only eliminate the problem of unconstitutional laws being passed and enforced it will also reduce the size of government.

Joe's Enforcement of Enumerated Powers (JEEP) would be implemented as follows:

• Whosoever shall identify a government employee who is acting under the color of law but outside constitutional boundaries shall post said transgression on a special Internet website.
• The identified government employee will have seven days to constitutionally justify their actions on the same website, correct their error, or remove themselves from government employment for life.
• If, after the seven days have elapsed, anyone who does not believe the constitutional justification or correction of the error was adequate may remove said government employee from the gene pool. This shall also apply to anyone that attempts to prevent him from said gene pool cleaning.
• After successfully cleaning the gene pool the pool cleaner(s) must identify themselves and may post information on the same website to support their actions.
• After successfully removing the pond scum from the gene pool said pool cleaner(s) will stand trial via a popular election in the jurisdiction of the government employee. Hence in the case of a city mayor being removed from the gene pool the pool cleaner(s) will be judged by the voters of the city. A U.S. Senator would require a state election. A President would require a national election.
• The criteria for finding the pool cleaner(s) not guilty of murder will be that if 10% or more of the voters, having read the web postings and tested to make sure they actually did read the postings, believe the pool cleaners had probable cause to engage in said pool cleaning the pool cleaners will be declared to have engaged in praiseworthy homicide. Note that is "Probable Cause", not "Preponderance of Evidence" or "Beyond a Reasonable Doubt".
• If the pool cleaner(s) are found NOT guilty of murder they will receive all of the material assets of the pond scum which they removed from the gene pool.
• If the pool cleaner(s) are found guilty of murder they will be punished as any other murderer.

Expect a rapid and dramatic reduction in the size of government and strict adherence to the enumerated powers.

See, that wasn't so tough was it?

Promote JEEP, it's the for the good of our children.

Thank you for saving my life, and to the rest of you thank you for fighting for this man's right to protect me and my child. Tell him for me that I will no longer be part of the group who invades his home, and tries to tell him how to store his guns. Tell him I will never be part of any group who tries to make it impossible for him to buy his tool he used to save me. And tell him I will never again tell him how to raise his children properly, because obviously I was oblivious to the fact that responsible people such as him know how to raise their children better than I do.

Anonymous
Forgive me, for I have sinned.--An About Face After Being Saved by a Gun Owner
Via Uncle
[This is one of those stories that is almost too good to be true and I'm suspicious. I could email the person that supplied the story, Brian Clifford, but I haven't. If someone finds out it is a fabrication please let me know.

Update: More suspicion of fakery.--Joe]

Xenia is our daughter who made the vagina cake, wore "Vagina Day" shirts to school, and did the Celebration of Ovulation anthology. Here is her cake:

Thanks to Tam we now have a couch I can only imagine Xenia wanting. A sample picture:

One of the things I frequently dwell on is the ability of people to see their targets at Boomershoot. My informal tests concluded I could see 1 Minute of Angle (MOA) objects with good contrast and lighting. An email from a list I'm on confirmed that conclusion:

Contrary to common perception, 20/20 vision is not "perfect eyesight."

It is common to refer to 20/20 vision as being "perfect eyesight," but by definition it is "normal" visual acuity. 20/20 means your eyes can resolve a spatial pattern separated by an angle of one minute of arc. Put another way, 20/20 vision signifies that you can see at 20 feet (the first number) what a normal person can see at 20 feet (the second).

However, it is common for young people to have visual acuity around 20/15 or 20/12. Recent innovations in corrective eye surgery suggest that 20/10 acuity, or even 20/5, may be possible.

Wikipedia reports the following:

Visual acuity depends upon how accurately light is focused on the retina (mostly the macular region), the integrity of the eye's neural elements, and the interpretative faculty of the brain. ^[9] "Normal" visual acuity is frequently considered to be what was defined by Snellen as the ability to recognize an optotype when it subtended 5 minutes of arc, that is Snellen's chart 20/20 feet, 6/6 meter, 1.00 decimal or 0.0 logMAR. In humans, the maximum acuity of a healthy, emmetropic eye (and even ametropic eyes with correctors) is approximately 20/16 to 20/12, so it is inaccurate to refer to 20/20 visual acuity as "perfect" vision. 20/20 is the visual acuity needed to discriminate two points separated by 1 arc minute. The significance of the 20/20 standard can best be thought of as the lower limit of normal or as a screening cutoff. When used as a screening test subjects that reach this level need no further investigation, even though the average visual acuity of healthy eyes is 20/16 or 20/12.

[...]

Normally visual acuity refers to the ability to resolve two separated points or lines, but there are other measures of the ability of the visual system to discern spatial differences.

Vernier acuity measures the ability to align two line segments. Humans can do this with remarkable accuracy. Under optimal conditions of good illumination, high contrast, and long line segments, the limit to vernier acuity is about 8 arc seconds or 0.13 arc minutes, compared to about 0.6 arc minutes (20/12) for normal visual acuity or the 0.4 arc minute diameter of a foveal cone. Because the limit of vernier acuity is well below that imposed on regular visual acuity by the "retinal grain" or size of the foveal cones, it is thought to be a process of the visual cortex rather than the retina. Supporting this idea, vernier acuity seems to correspond very closely (and may have the same underlying mechanism) enabling one to discern very slight differences in the orientations of two lines, where orientation is known to be processed in the visual cortex.

So, if you have fine straight lines in your scope and are aligning with another line on your target you can align things about 4.5 times as accurately than you can with a scope that doesn't have straight lines (think "post" type reticles) or targets with straight lines.

I'm wondering if this accounts for some of the increased consumption of the square targets we have been using the last couple of years compared to the round targets we used previously.

This tidbit has obvious application to snipers, and perhaps less obviously, to their camouflage.

A perceptual consciousness is unable to believe that ideas can be of personal importance to anyone; it regards ideas as matter of arbitrary choice, as means to some immediate ends. On this view, a man does not seek to be elected to a public office in order to carry out certain policies--he advocates certain policies in order to be elected.

Ayn Rand
Philosophy: Who Needs It, page 49
[I don't need to point out the application of this quote in the current space-time context.--Joe]

Sebastian asks, "Why is it that anti-gun folks love pushing bills in response to tragedy that would in no way shape or form have even remotely prevented it?"

It probably was a rhetorical question but it fit in so well with the book I've been listening to, Philosophy: Who Needs It by Ayn Rand, that I felt compelled to offer some answers.

There are several plausible answers to Sebastian's question and they are not exclusive, it could be several of them are correct depending on the individual and the tribe they belong to. More on "the tribe" later but first a quote from Rand, page 9:

Those who seek to destroy this country, seek to disarm it--intellectually and physically. But it is not a mere political issue; politics is not the cause, but the last consequence of philosophical ideas. It is not a communist conspiracy, though some communists may be involved--as maggots cashing in on a disaster they had no power to originate. The motive of the destroyers is not love for communism, but the hatred for America. Why hated? Because America is the living refutation of Kantian universe.

Today's mawkish concern with and compassion for the feeble, the flawed, the suffering, the guilty, is a cover for the profoundly Kantian hatred of the innocent, the strong, the able, the successful, the virtuous, the confident, the happy. A philosophy out to destroy man's mind is necessarily a philosophy of hatred for man, for man's life, and for every human value. Hatred of the good for being good, is the hallmark of the twentieth century. This is the enemy you are facing.

And from page 41, where the tribe reference originates in this post:

As an example of the principle that the rational is the moral, observe that the anti-conceptual is the profoundly anti-moral. The basic commandment of all such groups, which take precedence over any other rules, is: loyalty to the group--not to ideas, but to people; not to the group's beliefs, which are minimal and chiefly ritualistic, but to the group's members and leaders. Whether a given member is right or wrong, the others must protect him from outsiders; whether he is innocent or guilty, the others must stand by him against all outsiders; whether he is competent or not, the others must employ him or trade with him in preference to outsiders. Thus a physical qualification--the accident of birth in a given village or tribe--takes precedence over morality and justice. (But the physical is only the most frequent apparent and superficial qualification, since such groups reject the nonconforming children of their own members. The actual qualification is psycho-epistemological: men bound by the same concretes.)

With that background I offer several possible answers to Sebastian's question. All come, perhaps in a somewhat obscure manner, from the first few chapters of Rand's book.

1. Because the gun is a means of individual power and threatens the power of the collective. The more power an individual has the less it needs the collective. They believe the collective is more important than any, and in fact all, individuals and therefore must be suppressed by any means possible to preserve the collective.
2. The tribe of the people of the gun are outsiders to the tribe of the people of the non-gun. Anything that harms the outsider is good because outsiders are viewed as threats to the tribe.
3. The question assumes facts not in evidence. In particular the question assumes the anti-gun mind is capable of understanding cause and effect. Therefore the question has little or no meaning within the context of the anti-gun tribe advocating restrictions on guns.
4. Because they are incapable of distinguishing action from accomplishment. These are the same people that protest, demonstrate, and chant. Action for the sake of action is their "currency".
5. The leaders of the anti-gun movement know the truth but also know that the majority of people are so philosophical bankrupt they can be persuaded to use the force of government against innocents to further their own agenda.

Just announced:

With the GP6, STI International, Inc. delivers a compact SA/DA polymer pistol which serves equally well either on or off duty. With its integrated tactical rails, it is equally suitable for Military, Law Enforcement or Civilian carry.

Built on a light weight, highly durable polymer (Polyamide GF 30) frame, the GP6 incorporates integrated tactical rails and textured side panels, front and rear straps. The GP6’s all steel slide is tri-topped with front and rear cocking serrations and features a fixed 3 dot sight system. The controls consist of ambi-thumb safeties, an ambi–slide release, firing pin safety, and a user configurable magazine release for equal ease of use in either right or left handed configuration. The barrel is 4.25” in length featuring an innovative rotational lock up system. Long term durability testing units have fired more than 110,000 shots without any change in internal geometry. The GP6 comes standard with a storage case, 2 magazines, and sight keys.

The GP6 is currently available exclusively in 9mm.

In competition I shoot a STI gun, I carry a STI gun and you should too.

When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.

Ben Franklin
[And behold! There came upon the country the Democrats. Then the Republicans became tempted and they too became as like Democrats. And there was much wailing and sorrow for the righteous knew the end was near.--Joe]

A few years ago this would have seemed like a scene from behind the Iron Curtain or some futuristic George Orwell movie, but in our post-9/11 world it was just a Tuesday at the Reno airport. As silly and un-American as it all sounds, I do it because I want to do my part to help the good folks at Homeland Security keep our country safe; that and because they will pull me aside for a cavity search if I don't.

Rick Seley
January 19, 2008, 12:05 AM
What's up with our Homeland Security?
[Think about it. What would you have thought had someone told you that in order to use common, public accessable, transportation you would have to take off your coat, hat, shoes, and submit to being patted down by a government official before you proceed? And that there would be lines of hundreds of people ready to submit to this at every boarding station? It is a scene from behind the Iron Curtain or a Orwellian movie and we have meekly granted them permission to do it.--Joe]

My post yesterday on government gathering information on it's citizens triggered a post by Sebastian on a Transparent Society. So this is a good time to post about something that has been bouncing around in my brain for a while but I never got around to putting it out on the tubes of the Internet.

People that don't see anything wrong with licensing gun owners, registration of firearms, being searched at the airport, and just about every other intrusion into your privacy will often say, "If you don't have anything to hide then you have nothing to fear."

How about if we turn this around and see if it still makes sense?

What if every firearm owned by our government were "registered" in a publicly accessible (read only) database that was required to be kept up to date including information on who was responsible for the firearm? What if every "public servant" were required to put their firearms qualifications, credit history, fingerprints, iris scans, pictures, physical description, firearm possession, home address, vehicle registration, spouse, children, financial data, phone numbers, property records, and mental health records in a publicly available database?

After all, they are public servants. Shouldn't we know all those sorts of things about our servants? If they don't have anything to hide then they have nothing to fear, right?

But if the claim is that only government employees should be allowed to keep that information on private citizens then who is really the servant and who is the master?

If you missed out on getting a shooting position for Boomershoot 2008 here is another chance.

Last May Boomershoot donated a position to the King County Friends of NRA to be auctioned off at the 2008 Seattle Sportsmen's Convention:

http://www.working4wildlife.com/

Show up at the Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue, WA February 15th and 16th to get another shot at Boomershoot 2008 and know your entry fee will go to a good cause.

This is a really bad idea. It would run counter to our tradition and the principles on which we operate our community.

John Roush
Centre College President
Campus gun bill is likely to die--Various officials oppose proposal
January 22, 2008
[Roush was referring to a bill that would allow people to bring guns onto college campuses -- and use them if they were threatened. Yes, I suppose it would run counter to their principles. I suspect those principles are those espoused by Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Bunch, who in the same article said, "The colleges and universities are the ones who should be making the decision on how to keep people safe." I wonder what those principles are exactly.

One of the following I suspect:

• Sheep are supposed to obey their owners and only bleat whenever they are threatened with death or permanent injury.
• The individual is of no concern to their society. Only the collective is important.
• All people are considered of equal value. The predator has just as much right to not be harmed as the victim.
• You are not authorized to make decisions for yourself. The Central Committee will make your decisions for you.

Regardless of the principles Roush and Helmke subscribe to they are at extreme odds to the principles I subscribe to and are guaranteed by the 2^nd Amendment.--Joe]

There are some aspects of security the government is and should be responsible for. But when you give the government too much "responsibility" (power) it becomes a source of insecurity. Guns are probably the example most of my readers will readily identify with. The government has a need for weapons but it must never have a monopoly on weapons. To do so would change the fundamental relationship between a free people and their government.

Information is a weapon as well. Giving the government too much information puts innocent people at risk. Read IBM and the Holocaust or for a hint read my Jews in the Attic Test and think about it a little bit.

Here we get still another glimpse of why governments collecting data on people is risky:

Here's an ugly prediction that you can take to the bank: as the amount of data that the feds collect on innocent civilians grows, so will the number of people who are victims of crimes that were made possible by unauthorized access to a government database. I'm not just talking about identity theft, though that is a huge danger with Real ID, but violent crimes as well. As I explained in the OneDOJ post linked above, this prediction is just Metcalfe's Law at work:

This is, of course, a fundamental problem inherent in the very nature of any massive, centralized government data-sharing plan that spans multiple agencies and connects untold numbers of state and federal law enforcement officers: the usefulness of such a system to any one individual (a white hat or a black hat) grows roughly with the square of the number of participants who are using it to share data (Metcalfe's law). So the more white hats that any of these programs manage to connect to each other, the more useful the network as a whole will be to the small handful of black hats who gain access to it at any point.

There is another ugly prediction you can take to the bank when these incidents happen: The politicians will always propose solutions that involve more money and more power being handed over to the government.

On this day set aside to honor the great warrior for the rights of Americans to be free of oppression by their government I like to reflect on the great struggle of the '60s and remember the sacrifices made in the name of Constitutional Rights.

Happy Robert E. Lee's birthday!

Mike Brown
January 21, 2008
Lewiston Pistol Club Email Discussion List
[If others can bring up John Moses Browning today then I figure Mike is within his rights to put even a little more twist into it.--Joe]

Via an email from Rob we have this collection of pictures. It includes replicas of Richard Reid's shoe and a letter bomb from Ted Kaczinski.

TSA cannot defend against everything. We need to consider alternatives.

In an opinion piece in the Washington Post and an article in the Seattle PI (via Uncle) about a brief filed in the Heller case the following argument is made; The Federal government should allow local control. The local know what is best for their society, and what is needed to reduce crime with the type of people they have in their cities and states. Apparently this argument generates considerable traction. I, on the other hand, am shocked that anyone could subscribe to such a concept.

What happens in my mind is that the word "ni**er" or a variation thereof is substituted for variations of the words gun, and gun-owner in all their arguments. And the 13^th Amendment is substituted for the 2^nd Amendment and the argument is reevaluated. The wording of both is absolute in both. If you are to argue that "reasonable restrictions of firearms" is acceptable then you must also argue that "reasonable involuntary servitude" is acceptable.

As an exercise do that on your own with the following paragraphs from the WaPo piece. Imagine the year is 1866 just after the 13^th amendment was ratified:

In Heller, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit struck down the District's ban on handguns on the grounds that any law banning any single type of "arms" is, necessarily, a violation of the Second Amendment right to bear arms. We believe this is wrong.

[...]

There are hundreds of state and local gun control laws. Each of those measures was enacted by local elected officials in response to local needs and desires. And each of those local governments is called on to balance people's desire to possess weapons for self-defense against the obligation to protect public safety.

In the District -- where handgun violence is particularly acute -- our elected mayor and council struck this balance by prohibiting handguns in the home but permitting rifles and shotguns. Congress could have overturned this decision, but it did not.

People in other parts of the country might have struck this balance differently. In fact, many jurisdictions have permitted handguns when the District's elected officials have not.

But the question is not what is the right policy for the District but who should make that policy. The standard the Supreme Court should apply in the pending gun case is whether the District's gun law is reasonable. And "reasonable" means that the law is a reasonable public safety response to the city's handgun violence and protects residents' right to possess other types of arms for self-defense.

The plaintiffs in Heller would prefer a gun control law different from the one enacted by the D.C. Council. But the Supreme Court should not defer to the plaintiffs and use the Second Amendment as a vehicle for federal courts to micromanage gun laws in this country.

Instead, as Justice Anthony Kennedy said in a case we quoted in our brief, local legislatures should be allowed to devise "various solutions" to local problems "where the best solution is far from clear." That is what our mayor and council did. The Supreme Court should uphold their decision.

These bigots would do well to remember this quote:

Foolish liberals who are trying to read the Second Amendment out of the Constitution by claiming it's not an individual right or that it's too much of safety hazard don't see the danger of the big picture.  They're courting disaster by encouraging others to use the same means to eliminate portions of the Constitution they don't like.

Alan Dershowitz
Quoted in Dan Gifford
The Conceptual Foundations of Anglo-American Jurisprudence in Religion and Reason
62 TENN. L. REV. 759 (1995)

But then I can't help but sometimes think my comparison to the 13^th Amendment won't get that much traction with the socialists even when it is presented to them. The socialists do want to treat the 13^th Amendment as they do the 2^nd. The only difference between 1865 and now is that the socialist want government to own all the slaves instead of individuals. The elimination of the 2^nd Amendment is just a bump on the road to their true goal. As the slave owners of 150 years ago knew, you can't allow your slaves access to weapons or you would have a revolt on your hands.

Update: Similar exercises are available for the reader in the Solicitor General's brief in D.C. v. Heller. An example is this snippet:

As the court of appeals correctly held, the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess firearms, including for private purposes unrelated to militia operations. But like other constitutional rights, that individual right is subject to reasonable restrictions, must be applied in light of context and history, and does not provide any protections to individuals who have never been understood to be within the Amendment’s protections.

Announced just a few days ago:

Inspiration from STI International’s proven race pistol design led to the creation of the STI SteelMaster; a shorter, lighter race pistol for faster target acquisition and reduced muzzle flip and dip. With patented 2011 technology, a 4.15" classic slide, Trubor compensated barrel system, and STI’s revolutionary Recoil Master, the STI SteelMaster delivers all the advantages of a full size race pistol in a smaller, lighter, faster reacting, and less violent package.

Built on the patented modular steel frame with polymer grip, the STI SteelMaster utilizes the innovative Trubor compensated barrel which is designed to eliminate misalignment of the barrel and compensator bore or movement of the compensator on the barrel. The shorter Trubor barrel system in the SteelMaster gives an even greater reduction in muzzle flip and the shorter slide decreases overall slide cycle time allowing the shooter to achieve faster follow up shots. The slide is flat topped with slide lightening cuts on the front and rear to reduce weight, and custom "Sabertooth" serrations. With an overall weight of 38.9 oz, the SteelMaster is significantly lighter in weight than full size race pistols. The SteelMaster is mounted with a C-More, 6 minute red dot scope with blast shield and thumb rest. Additional enhancements include aluminum magwell, stainless steel ambidextrous safeties, stainless steel high rise grip safety, STI’s "Spur" hammer, STI’s RecoilMaster guide rod system, & checkered front strap and mainspring housing.

The STI SteelMaster is available in 9mm.

In compettion I shoot a STI gun, I carry a STI gun and you should too.

I've talked about this concept before, basically the extremist Muslim culture must be destroyed if Western civilization is to survive. I believe that, long term, their restrictions on human sexuality is a flaw that can be exploited to bring about a more tolerant Muslim culture. Here is part of the reason I believe that.

1. From the book Infidel (see also The Caged Virgin: An Emancipation Proclamation for Women and Islam) by Ayaan Hirsi Ali we find that women, even those that have been subjected to severe genital mutilation, have strong sexual desires. Women, upon the pain of death, are required to be virgins on their wedding nights. Even if it was a brutal rape the woman can be severely punished for her failure to remain "pure".
2. Again from Infidel many Muslims believe that if a woman shows her skin, even a portion of their neckline or face, in public it will cause the breakdown of society. Men will be so overcome with lust that it will cause them to be unable to drive on the roads, work, or even restrain themselves from attacking the woman.
3. The age of marriage has been increasing. In some areas the average age is near 30 now. By contrast when those Islamic laws were created by the prophet Mohammad the norm was much younger. For example Mohammad married one of his wives when she was nine years old and most "women" were married in their early teens. This puts more stress on both men and women (see for example The right of young Muslimas to have sex--Virginity rule 'leads to hypocrisy').
4. Men are allowed to marry more than one woman leading to a shortage of marriage partners for many men.
5. Jihad "martyrs" are told they will receive "72 virgins in paradise".
6. The extremist Muslims are adhering to a very strict interpretation of the Koran. And the restrictions and mandates that we find so abhorrent such as the punishment of rape victims, death penalties for apostates, non Muslims must be subjugated or killed, etc. are all in there. And if they are to be "good Muslims" they will not fit in with our "society of tolerance".
7. In Preachers of Hate: Islam and the War on America Kenneth Timmerman (this has been brought up by other authors as well) points out that Muslims are taught they are the "chosen people" and are rightly superior to other religions and cultures. Increased contact with Western Civilizations via TV, books (Ali in Infidel credits Nancy Drew and Harlequin Romances among others), and the Internet has caused Muslims to question their teachings. The extremists acknowledge the discrepancy between the quality of life in Western society and Muslim society but believe the solution is to become "better" (more extreme) Muslims and to attack the non-believers.

8. It's not easy for people to change (see for example this--thanks to Kevin). And it is much more difficult for people in Muslim cultures to change than ours. We value individuality and in their society deviance from the family, clan, and religious leaders are almost unthinkable. And even the simplest of scientific method experiments may "go right over their heads". They think very differently than we do. One example from Preachers of Hate is when one Muslim was asked by Timmerman, if he had to make the choice, which he would choose, "To give up your land or give up your wife?" The response was immediate and unambiguous. "My wife of course. I can always get another wife." Another example made throughout the book it that they believe all their problems and inadequacies are the fault of the Jews (and to some extent Christians). Even where there are no Jews, such as in Saudi Arabia, every problem, even the tiniest most local issue, has it's origin in the continued existence of Jews someplace on the planet. This kind of "thinking" will be difficult to reform because it is not facts and logic that guide their thoughts and actions. Supplying them with facts and logic are almost pointless.

By exposing young Muslim men and women to Western society and showing them what is available we undermine the authority of the extremists in their culture. After water, food, and physical comfort, sex is one of the most powerful drives in humans. Muslim extremists have created a society where this desire is unfulfillable by many, severely restricted in most, then offer them death (and "72 virgins in paradise") as their outlet. By offering them a more acceptable (to us) outlet for this desire we can drive a wedge between the extremists in their culture and the young people.

We can exploit their obvious disconnect from reality via their obsession with sexual repression. For example Hirsi related in Infidel how in the Netherlands she experimented by going in public without her scarf and expecting men to drive off the road when they saw her face and neck. It didn't happen and she was forced to question her teachings. But because the scientific method is not something that comes natural to them we must augment it with the offering of sexual release. Another possibility is as Hirsi points out many of women understand the more blatant injustices and would welcome change in those areas. And the sex drive can do amazing things. Hirsi's own sexual desires pushed her into actions she knew were extremely risky. As for the young men remember that up to 70% of the files exchanged between Saudi teenagers phones contain pornography.

Western society communication technology and sexual freedom is causing extreme conflict in their society. We need to encourage this conflict and support those that reject the extremists. It is far better that they rid themselves of these zealots than for our military, with the best of intentions, to be a "bull in a china shop" in the process of neutralizing that threat to our safety.

Support open communication, fight censorship, and enable access of young Muslims to as much sexual content/contact as you can. Support Porn for Peace and Dr. Joe's Cure for Everything.

We will be in a struggle with the Islamic world for the next 100 years.

Sen. Richard Shelby
R-Alabama
January 19, 2008
Athens Alabama
[The Islamic world has been at war with Western Civilization for the last 700 years, so what is another 100 years? We do what we have to do.--Joe]

According to the ATF website if you have black tip 7.62 NATA or 7.62x39 steel core ammo it is considered illegal armor piercing ammo. But .223 green tip and 30.06 black tip are not considered illegal:

List of Armor Piercing Ammunition

KTW AMMUNITION, all calibers. (Identified by a green coating on the projectile)

ARCANE AMMUNITION, all calibers. (Identified by a pointed bronze or brass projectile)

THV AMMUNITION, all calibers. (Identified by a brass or bronze projectile and having a headstamp containing the letters SFM and THV)

CZECHOSLOVAKIAN manufactured 9mm Parabellum (Luger) ammunition having an iron or steel core. (Identified by a cupronickel jacket and headstamp containing a triangle, star and dates 49, 50, 51, or 52. The bullet is attracted to a magnet)

GERMAN manufactured 9mm Parabellum (Luger) having an iron or steel bullet core. (Original packaging is marked Pisolenpatronen 08 m.E. May have black colored bullet. This bullet is attracted to a magnet)

MSC AMMUNITION, Caliber .25. (Identified by a hollow point brass bullet. NOTE: MSC ammunition Caliber .25 identified by a hollow point copper bullet is not armor piercing)

BLACK STEEL ARMOR PIERCING AMMUNITION, All Calibers, as produced by National Cartridge, Atlanta, Georgia.

BLACK STEEL METAL PIERCING AMMUNITION, All Calibers, as produced by National Cartridge, Atlanta, Georgia.

7.62mm NATO AP (Identified by black coloring in the bullet tip. This ammunition is used by various NATO countries. The U.S. military designation is M61 AP)

7.62mm NATO SLAP (identified by projectile having a plastic sabot around a hard penetrator. The penetrator protrudes above the sabot and is similar in appearance to a Remington accelerator cartridge)

PMC ULTRAMAG .38 Special caliber, constructed entirely of a brass type material, and plastic pusher disc located at the base of the projectile. NOTE: PMC ULTRAMAG 38J late production made of copper with lead alloy projectile is not armor piercing.

OMNISHOCK, a .38 Special cartridge with a lead bullet containing a mild steel core with a flattened head resembling a wad cutter. (NOTE: OMNISHOCK cartridges having a bullet with an aluminum core are not armor piercing.)

7.62x39mm with steel core. (NOTE: these projectiles have a steel core. Projectiles having a lead core with steel jacket or steel case are not armor piercing)

NOTE: THE FOLLOWING CARTRIDGES HAVE BEEN REMOVED FROM THE DEFINITION OF ARMOR PIERCING AMMUNITION:

5.56MM (.223) SS109 and M855 Ammunition, Identified by a green coating on the projectile tip.

U.S. .30-06 M2 AP, Identified by a black coating on the projectile tip.

The distinction in the law is made on the basis of whether or not it is handgun ammo. Apparently because there are sufficient numbers of handguns that will fire the 7.62x39 (huh? I didn't know there were any!) and .308 cartridges they declared it handgun ammo.

I love the part about the .25 ACP ammo with a brass bullet is considered AP but with a copper bullet is just fine. Considering what most experts think of the .25 ACP round I find it incredibly amusing our Congress Critters consider it AP.

Just another one of the contributors to Huffman's rule of firearms law.

In the past there has been some criticism of the NRA's response to the current administration's brief in the Heller case. Some thought it was a bit tepid. The latest alerts from the Apex of the Triangle of Death will quiet most critics. Here are some of the points they make:

• Contrary to DOJ’s suggestion, this case is not about felons or machine guns. (Let's stay on topic, don't confuse the issue, there is only one question being asked.)
• NRA strongly disagrees with many of the arguments in DOJ’s brief. (Same link as above.)
• In U.S. v. Cruikshank (1876), the Court said the right preexisted the Constitution. (Same link as above. The right is not granted by the 2^nd Amendment and would still exist even if the 2^nd Amendment were repealed.)
• Anti-gun criminologists James Alan Fox and David McDowell make the remarkable claims... (Same link as above. Mocking the enemies of freedom should be a pastime of everyone.)
• Obviously blinded by their own anti-gun bigotry and ignorance... (The anti-gun ADL brief is called bigoted. I love that this meme being used. I've been pushing it for a long time. I believe this meme will have to be used if we ever hope to drive the anti-gun forces into political extinction.)

This post was brought to you by a wheelbarrow full of cash from the Apex of the Triangle of Death.

The U.S., fortunately, is still on a demographic expansion wave and will be till at least 2050. But if the Islamists achieve their dream of nuking “crusader” cities, they’ll make crusaders out of the U.S., too. And this time, a West with a chauvinized America at its head would smite the Saracen with weapons that would destroy entire populations and fuse Mecca into glass. The horror of our victory would echo for a thousand years.

I remain more optimistic than this. I think there is still an excellent chance that the West can recover from suicidalism without going through a fevered fascist episode and waging a genocidal war. But to do so, we have to do more than recognize Stalin’s memes; we have to reject them. We have to eject postmodern leftism from our universities, transnational progressivism from our politics, and volk-Marxism from our media.

As Schneier points out this is as stupid as locking the fire alarm boxes (as they were in Chicago prior to 1870--guess what happened in 1871). Bloomberg wants people to have a license before they "possess or deploy" biological, chemical, or radiological detectors. This would be to prevent false alarms, just like the locked fire alarms.

You already knew Bloomberg wants to get rid of guns and I'm thinking he is going about all this the wrong way. Rather than enumerating the objects you are not allowed to have he should make a list of the items his subjects are allowed to possess. I'm thinking that ultimately the second list would be shorter and easier to maintain than the first.

Update: Further confirmation my approach would be simpler arrives via Uncle with this story:

And in what appeared to be a direct shot at his predecessor, Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, Bloomberg described the city government he inherited when he took office in 2002 as "insular and provincial and married to the conventional."

At first glance I thought he said, "married to the constitution". But of course that wouldn't make sense because he was talking about Guiliani.

He also announced that the city is challenging the private sector to create a portable device for police officers to carry that will analyze DNA right at a crime scene. A monetary prize will go to whoever comes up with the technology, he said.

Bloomberg also outlined two law enforcement initiatives that would need the state Legislature's approval: a proposal to collect DNA from suspects upon arrest and another to make it easier to trace bullets used in crimes.

Lots of people are having fun with this (video):

• Karma can be a bitch (I love the comment from Marko at 10:59)
• Why we shouldn’t ban rubber testicles
• Tam is betting

Of course nearly everyone is thinking this is a good thing. So maybe we should make this sort of thing more likely to happen. Urge your legislative critters to pass holster control instead of gun control laws. Only the good guys should have holsters.

Of course expect the anti-gun people to put this accidental shooting in the "bad thing" column.

In high school and college I played a LOT of chess. I still have the records of hundreds of games I played and dozens of books and magazines. I had thought maybe my children would be interested in chess but kids seem to develop interests in things other than what their parents are interested in.

In any case I was a big into chess before Bobby Fischer became the first American world chess champion. Fischer winning the championship made chess in the U.S. popular for a while. And I remember walking into the high school cafeteria on the first day of school in the fall of '72 shortly after he had won and my friend Lance Jones yelling across the room, "Yea Fischer!".

In later years after I was most of the way through college my electrical engineering classes started sucking up the desire for challenging intellectual stimulation and I mostly dropped out of the chess scene.

Fischer made the news again a few years ago and I wrote about him then. The news about him made me sad and now that he is dead at the age of 64 it's like another milestone in my life. A childhood hero is gone.

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.

Ben Franklin
[I have heard many variations of this and so few give credit to Franklin that I'm not certain it is he that deserves it. For example see the following quote from a (now deceased--his gun inventory is available) friend of mine. In any case, this quote is a follow up to yesterdays QOTD.--Joe]

Liberty is two wolves attempting to have a sheep for dinner and finding a well-informed, well-armed sheep.

Lance 07/SOT
Lance Haserot
gunrunnr@moscow.com
May not have been original from Lance.
He did use it as his signature in email on 10/31/97

Last week James and I finished watching Wonderfalls and then started Farscape this week (we found Season One in a far off, obscure video rental store and are shipping it in/out at great expense).

Wonderfalls was a pretty good show. I think James liked it better than I did. There were some good quotes:

Jaye: [spying on a little boy customer] He's eyeing the Slinky. You know, he has to steal, like, four of those for me to even get a dollar.
Wonderfalls Security Guard: Is this one of those stores that gives its employees a cash bonus when they apprehend a shoplifter?
Jaye: Ten percent of whatever they were gonna steal. One time, I "accidentally" left the watch case open and I got like 500 bucks!

Hale: The Blonde one's gay. Look at her. The fingernails are a dead giveaway.
Hale: Cut all nice and short. Clean cuticle beds. Lesbians always trim their nails like that. You know why?

Jaye: [talking about Bianca] She's nice. We should take her clubbing.
Mahandra: ...baby seals?

Or noticing the bartender's cell phone is ringing in his back pocket--- Jaye says, "Your ass is ringing." Bartender: "My ass rings a lot." Jaye: "Have you ever thought of setting it on vibrate? Bartender: "I'm not sure I'm secure enough with my manhood to do that." Jaye: "So, why do you have an ass if you don't answer it?"

James lamented that too many good shows are canceled after one season. In this case I thing I understand why it wouldn't have that big of audience. Even though had a rather flimsy premise it was well executed and witty but I think the delivery speed and the intelligence required to catch all the jokes as they came whizzing by would eliminate 80% of the population.

[heavy sigh]

Our demographic probably isn't the best investment of T.V. talent and airtime.

They are Blue citadels and bastions of power, pure and simple, and the ultimate effect of this proposal is that it exploits the "states making side deals" blind spot in our constitution to implement a bald power grab on the part of the cities.

Having studied history carefully, I've got to say that this is the sort of thing that future historians may well file under chapters with grim titles.

geekWithA.45
Converting a Republic to A Mere Majoritarian Exercise...
[There are far to many history chapters with grim titles. Majority rule without "checks and balances" is responsible for a lot of them.--Joe]

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.

Thomas Jefferson
[And I predict future unhappiness if we continue down this superhighway to socialism.--Joe]

It's probably because I'm "different" but Sebastian's statement here just strikes me as odd:

The gun vote was a primary driver for making sure Bush won the White House in 2000 and 2004, and the NRA endorsements he received played a big role on that. The Heller case is arguably the most important struggle gun owners have ever faced, and I don’t think its unreasonable to demand something greater than lukewarm support from The Administration on this matter.

The first thought that crosses my mind is, "Did someone think we got a receipt when we gave Bush our votes?" In other words, are people irritated because Bush was "paid off" and didn't stay paid off? But that is probably just because I think differently than most.

Bush said, essentially from day one, that he would sign the AWB if it came to his desk. Yet gun owners voted for him because he was better (much better) than the viable alternatives. So what should we expect? He didn't say he was our lover, he just said he wasn't our enemy.

I'm not happy with the DOJ brief, but I can't say that I'm at all that surprised or even particularly unhappy with it. It's better than the alternative had Gore or Kerry been elected.

And via local (Troy, Idaho) IPSC/Steel shooter Mike Brown is a lawyer and offered these thoughts on the DOJ brief:

The Solicitor General here is defending the interests of his client (the US Government). While the brief explicitly reaffirms that the Justice Department's position is that the 2^nd amendment guarantees an individual right they are apparently concerned that the DC circuit opinion establishes a two pronged "categorical" test for whether a weapon is protected:

1. if it bears a "reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia," and
2. is "of the kind in common use at the time" the Second Amendment was adopted.

Their fear is that if the Supreme Court adopts this test then ALL federal gun control could be struck down especially where it concerns weapons that are especially suitable for militia service (i.e. full auto M4 carbine). The Solicitor General is arguing for a more wisy washy standard to be applied so that "reasonable" regulation of firearms are allowed.

As a sidebar on this topic: the Oregon Supreme Court adopted the same kind of standard for determining which weapons are protected under their state constitution- that is why switchblades are legal in OR: they are the "modern analogue" of swords which were in common use at the time of the adoption of the state constitution.

Don't let it happen here. It will kill people. Not just U.S. citizens but Canadians as well. It also violates my Jews in the Attic Test.

Via an email from Larry.

The ATF has released the latest version of their book on explosives law known as the "orange book". I haven't received my copy yet but it can be downloaded here.

I keep my copy in my laptop computer case for easy reference. Sometimes I know the rules and the law better than the ATF inspectors they send out. If you are going to play with Tannerite or Target-Master targets you should know both local and Federal law. Then don't do stupid stuff.

Via Uncle.

As I said the other day, I get requests from people wanting to blow stuff up but they aren't interested in cleaning up the mess. Some messes can't be cleaned up. This guy's mess may affect all gun owners:

It may have started as a goofy stunt, but tonight a 30 year old Red Wing area man is in hot water with authorities, after detonating a powerful bomb in back of his home yesterday afternoon. "When you can take a steel box, a dump truck box, turn it into scrap metal and send it 1/4 mile away... that's a bomb," reasoned Goodhue County Sheriff Dean Albers, whose detectives are investigating the case.

The suspect admits buying 100 pounds of an explosive material advertised as 'Tannerite' from an internet website. The compound is most commonly used by long range target shooters, who aim at 8 ounce cans and know they've hit their mark when they explode. The suspect's device was the equivalent of 200 of those cans. "He had placed it inside of a barell inside the bed of an old dump truck, and shot it it with a 50 caliber rifle from 300 yards away," explained Albers.

Via Dr. Laura Berman from Newsweek:

Sex is good for adults. Indulging on a regular basis—at least once a week—is even better. Research links sex (with all safer-sex precautions taken) to an astonishing array of physiological benefits, from longevity to pain relief. Many studies don't address whether the health bonus comes from the act itself or from the corresponding emotional intimacy, but the bottom line is that getting physical has some great side effects—especially for women. Here are six ways that sex boosts your health:

1. It Fights Colds and Flu. Sexual intercourse once or twice a week raises the body's level of the immune-boosting antibody immunoglobin A by a third, according to research at Wilkes University in Pennsylvania.

2. It's a Beauty Treatment. In a study at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital in Scotland, a panel of judges viewed participants through a one-way mirror and guessed their ages. Those who looked seven to 12 years younger than their age (labeled "superyoung") were also enjoying lots of sex—four times a week, on average. OK, maybe they were having so much fun because they looked young. But it's likely the sex was helping, researchers say. One reason is that it raises a woman's estrogen level, which helps make hair shiny and skin supple.

3. It Burns Calories. A little over four calories a minute, or the equivalent of four Hershey's kisses in a half hour of love. Think of it as part of your weekly exercise regime, and burn, baby, burn.

4. Yes, Honey, I Have a Headache. For a woman a migraine might actually be a reason for making love rather than avoiding intercourse: the increase in endorphins and corticosteroids during arousal and orgasm is analgesic.

5. It Promotes Regular Menstrual Cycles. A series of studies by behavioral endocrinologist Winnifred Cutler and colleagues at Columbia and Stanford universities found that women who have intercourse at least weekly (except during their period) cycle more regularly than abstainers or the sporadically active. (Related research found that lesbian lovemaking also smoothes out menstrual cycles.) Cutler argues that intimacy is essential, not orgasms: "Regular exposure to a loving partner has extraordinary effects on health and well-being."

6. It Can Prevent Accidents. Women use the muscles of the pelvic floor to stem the flow of urine. As they age, they need to keep these strong to avoid peeing accidentally. The same muscles are exercised during intercourse, and as with all muscle-building programs, the benefits require consistency.

Take note women, Dr. Joe makes house calls. Contact my wife Barb to make an appointment.

We are so concerned to flatter the majority that we lose sight of how very often it is necessary, in order to preserve freedom for the minority, let alone for the individual, to face that majority down.

William F. Buckley
[Sadly the majority doesn't want freedom for themselves let alone the minority.--Joe]

We just received an RFQ (Request For Quotation) from a jobber here in the U.S. who supplies products to the military, along with the original U.S. Army RFQ that was sent to them.  It is for one item.  One, very well-known, standard item that has been in manufacture by one company and sold by the thousands to the general public for many years.  We all know what it is, we all know how it works, we all know that it has a model number, and it is not terribly expensive

The Army RFQ is 38 pages long-- that's 38 full, 8.5" x 11" pages.

There's more.  The 38 page RFQ comes with side notes added on (and just so we're clear; if you were to print it out it would take more than 38 pages).  The RFQ does not give the manufacturer or the model number of the desired product-- just a small photo, a vague description and the overall length (which, by the way, does NOT match the length of the model in the supplied product photo).  They just couldn't pull that off with only 38 pages plus notes, but I (as anyone in the business would) know exactly what they want.

In the side notes, we learn that "Quotes shall be limited to 40 pages".  I'll keep that in mind and try to really restrain myself.

Just in case you're wondering; I am not kidding.

Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.

Alexis de Tocqueville
[Kevin's post reminded me of this. And how ironic that Kevin's inspiration for this post, Markadelphia, claims corporations oppress people. Governments have a near monopoly on force while corporations have can only use force, via the court system, to enforce contracts and monopolies (such as patents) granted to them by the government. The more power that is granted the government the more oppression that is possible and inevitably occurs. People that advocate more government control are, by their very nature, advocating oppression.--Joe]

The last line of Donald Munro's article brings up a good question, but the previous paragraphs have the answer. From Airport security is a theater:

But the effectiveness of the security isn't the only factor at work here. One of the reasons we're so willing to endure the elaborate rituals we enact at the airport is because it makes us feel as if we're doing something.

You might debate whether that something has a real impact, but the important thing is that when we act this way, it makes us feel safer.

That's what theater is all about: creating a different world and transporting the audience there, if only for a moment.

The question is why we've so passively agreed as a culture to the roles we play without questioning the need for rewriting the script.

As Munro already knows, we as a culture aren't rewriting the script because it makes some people feel safer. It's irrational to expect people to behave rationally.

In closely related news Kevin is now apparently a suspected terrorist.

Via Phil and Craig C.

 I enjoy playing miniature golf, but when playing indoor golf "miniature" is going to be frowned upon. Here are the rules for Indoor Golf:

The Rules of Indoor Golf:

1. Each player shall furnish his own equipment for play, normally one club and two balls.
2. Play on course must be approved by the owner of the hole.
3. Unlike outdoor golf, the object is to get the club in the hole and keep the balls out.
4. For most effective play, the club should have a firm shaft. Course owners are permitted to check shaft stiffness before play begins.
5. Course owners reserve the right to restrict club length to avoid damage to the hole.
6. Object of the game is to take as many strokes as necessary until the owner is satisfied play is complete. Failure to do so may result in being denied permission to play again.
7. It is considered bad form to begin playing the hole immediately upon arrival. Experienced players will normally take time to admire the entire course, paying special attention to well formed mounds and bunkers.
8. Players are cautioned not to mention other courses they have played or are currently playing to the owner of the course being played. Upset owners have been known to damage a players equipment for this reason.
9. Players are encouraged to have proper rain gear, just in case.
10. Players should not assume that the course is in shape to play at all times. Players may be embarrassed if they find the course temporarily under repair. Players are advised to be extremely tactful in this situation. More advanced players will find alternate means of play when this is the case.
11. Players should assume their match has been properly scheduled particularly when playing a new course for the 1st time. Previous players have been known to become irate if they discover someone else is playing what they considered a private course.
12. The owner of the course is responsible for the pruning of any bushes, which may reduce the visibility of the hole.
13. Players are strongly advised to get the owners permission before attempting to play the back nine.
14. Slow play is encouraged, however, players should be prepared to proceed at a quicker pace at the owners request.
15. It is considered an outstanding performance, time permitting, to play the same hole several times in one match.

Anytime someone says a government employee was, "Just doing their job" my head nearly explodes with instant anger. It doesn't apply in all cases but the first thought that comes to my mind is, "That defense wasn't allowed at the Nuremberg Trials." If their job is violation of constitutionally protected rights then they are criminals. One doesn't defend criminals with a defense of "They were just following orders." Or "They were just doing the job they were hired to do." There are very few crimes that I would be allowed to defend myself with the claim of "I didn't know it was a crime" or "I was just doing what my boss told me to do." The standard should be no different for government employees.

All this was brought up by reading some posts and watching a set of videos I came across via Sebastian. A Canadian publisher is being questioned by "The Human Rights Commission" over the publications of some cartoons (yes, those cartoons) that offended some Muslims. The relevant links are:

• My visit to a kangaroo court
• Kangaroo court
• Some press coverage
• Opening statement
• What was your intent?
• Violence in Alberta
• I don't answer to the state
• "You're entitled to your opinions"

Some might only see some middle-aged lady doing her job. What I see is that she is backed up by men with guns--as many as it takes to enforce her decisions. She may be a very nice person but when someone works for the government to enforce laws and regulations they are exercising force. Dozens or even hundreds of "rough men with guns" will enforce their will upon the violators of those laws and regulations. That a "Human Rights Commission" would give more than a few milliseconds of thought to an expression of speech that did not advocate illegal violence tells you all you need to know to conclude this isn't about human rights. It's about the repression of human rights.

If she were doing this in the U.S. I would be advocating for her prosecution under 18 USC 242.

Liberty is always unfinished business.

American Civil Liberties Union
[I have some "issues" with the ACLU, but not with this quote. This quote selection was to augment my next post.--Joe]

As I reported yesterday The American Jewish Committee says the government need to take our guns from us so it can protect us.

Here is an example of the government protecting us from a five year old child. I especially like the part about the mother not being allowed to hug him while he is being detained.

TSA -- A Security Theater.

Via Sebastian and Laurel (also from North Idaho).

Required viewing for those that think the police can protect you. Many minutes into the 911 call the police still haven't arrived. This is why I'm a NRA Personal Protection instructor.

Be sure and read the newspaper story too.

It is also significant that the Second Amendment refers, not to “a right of the people,” but to “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms.” The Framers’ use of the definite article indicates that the Amendment was intended to secure a pre-existing right rather than to create a new one.

[...]

The Court should affirm that the Second Amendment, no less than other provisions of the Bill of Rights, secures an individual right, and should clarify that the right is subject to the more flexible standard of review described above. If the Court takes those foundational steps, the better course would be to remand.

Stephen R. Rubenstein
January 2008
Chief Counsel Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Department of Justice
Washington, D.C. 20226-0001
Brief for the United States as Amicus Curiae
[This is from a brief filed in favor of D.C. in the Heller case. If I read it correctly they are concerned that the ATF could be put out of a job because they might no longer be able to regulated the manufacture and sale of firearms and maintain their registry of machineguns. Hence, they want to be left with some power to regulate firearms. I'm not a friend of the ATF (individuals at the ATF is something different) but D.C. surely cannot consider them much of a friend either.--Joe

I've read so many books and articles on the Holocaust that I'd have difficulty enumerating them. The thing that always amazed me was that the Jews didn't fight back. Sure, the German Jews had registered their guns years before the Weapons Control Act of 1938 and would have had difficulty holding on to many of them when the thugs had a list of the guns in that home. But theft and ambushes on the police or isolated soldiers with the goal of capturing firearms and ammunition could have helped put weapons back in the hands of the victims. But except for the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and a relatively small band in Russia there was virtually no resistance. With hindsight is seems so obvious that retention of firearms could have saved a lot of innocents lives. Israeli Jews seem to have the seen the light in regards to firearms in the hands of civilians so why don't most (yes, I know of JPFO) American Jews get it?

From the American Jewish Committee:

January 11, 2008 – New York – The American Jewish Committee filed an amicus brief with the United States Supreme Court today, asserting that the District of Columbia’s strict gun control laws do not offend the Constitution. The case, D.C. v. Heller, will be the first gun control case before the Supreme Court in sixty eight years.

“Gun control laws safeguard liberty, rather then restrict it,” said AJC General Counsel Jeffrey Sinensky. “Democracy can only flourish when the government is permitted to protect its citizens from harm.”

The amicus brief argues that the Second Amendment does not protect the right to possess firearms for personal use, but rather “was designed to enhance state and local authority to protect life and liberty through the maintenance of militias composed of the local populace.”

AJC filed the brief with a coalition that includes the Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish Congress, National Council of Jewish Women, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

AJC has a long history of supporting gun control laws, including the federal Gun Control Act of 1968, the federal Assault Weapon Control Act of 1989, and the Brady Handgun Prevention Act of 1993.

Just a little refresher from a previous post about how governments "protect their citizens from harm":

§ 1

Jews are prohibited from acquiring, possessing, and carrying firearms and ammunition, as well as truncheons or stabbing weapons. Those now possessing weapons and ammunition are at once to turn them over to the local police authority.

§ 2

Firearms and ammunition found in a Jew's possession will be forfeited to the government without compensation.

§ 3

The Minister of the Interior may make exceptions to the Prohibition in § 1 for Jews who are foreign nationals. He can entrust other authorities with this power.

§ 4

Whoever willfully or negligently violates the provisions of § 1 will be punished with imprisonment and a fine. In especially severe cases of deliberate violations, the punishment is imprisonment in a penitentiary for up to five years.

§ 5

For the implementation of this regulation, the Minister of the Interior waives the necessary legal and administrative provisions.

§ 6

This regulation is valid in the state of Austria and in the Sudeten-German districts.

Berlin, 11 November 1938

Minister of the Interior

Frick

One of the Burning Man organizers wrote me last week saying he wanted to participate in Boomershoot 2007. We got to chatting and he sent me at link to this video of the fireworks show they put on for Burning Man 2007. He also gave some technical details:

The fireball was about 600 feet high and probably 500 in diameter or more as it expanded. I think it had somewhere around 1200 gallons of fuel shot into the air from the four tanks. Then several thousand gallons of liquid propane were shot up the middle of the 99 foot tall derrick.

Boomershoot's biggest fireballs have used four gallons of gasoline. Of course most of our viewers were within 20 yards, but still...

It was quite a while back that I invited Lyle to blog here. Via many long conversations and numerous lengthy emails it was clear he had penetrating, even brutal, insight that others would benefit from. He told me (IIRC) for me to offer him this forum was like the P.J. O'Rourke line about giving power and money to the government. But that he would think about it. Within a day or two the temptation overcame him and he made his first post.

Lyle hasn't posted that often and I always thought he was holding back some. But then he would get links to his posts from certain bloggers I had never gotten links from and that made me a little bit envious. Still, the razor sharp penetration, straight to the bone, wasn't on display as much as I expected.

His most recent post--now that's what I'm talking about.

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.

P. J. O'Rourke
U.S. journalist. Parliament of Whores
Preface, "Why God is a Republican and Santa Claus Is a Democrat" (1991).

If you parse their sentences, the speech of the Left can be at times befuddling.  That is, unless you understand their unique usage of terms.  So that you may better understand Left-speak in the future, I offer the following glossary.  This is by no means an exhaustive list.  Here are some of the more common and/or more recent examples.  You might want to print this and keep it on-hand for those times when you are unable to avoid Left-speak:

Border Security:  Racism

Change:  Socialism.  Example:  "I am the candidate of 'Change'."

Children:  Government.  (Variations are, "The Children" and "Our Children")  Example:  "In our 'Compassion' 'We' are creating this new entitlement program for 'Our Children'." (see "Compassion" and "We" below)

Climate Change:  See "Global Warming" below.  Climate change is slightly more flexible in that no matter what happens, it is bad, Liberty is to blame, and socialism, as for all things, is the solution.

Common Good:  Socialism

Compassion:  Desire for government intervention.  Example:  "'We' must approach all issues with great 'Compassion'." (see "We" below)

Compromise:  Letting go of your silly, ignorant and outdated American ideals of Liberty, and moving always in the direction of pure socialism as a way of showing those who want to destroy you that you are not closed-minded, stubborn, silly, ignorant or outdated.  You are then closed-minded, stubborn, silly, ignorant and outdated again when the Left wants you to cave-in the next time they want something, which starts approximately three seconds after you last caved.

Criminal:  Victim-- especially a victim of the exploitative middle and upper classes.  (No one would ever do anything to hurt anyone else, except when goaded into it by the horrible conditions created by the adherents of capitalism)

Dissent:  Dissent is a good thing-- it is one of the things that makes America great (so long as we are talking about a leftist dissenting with anyone who favors Liberty.  In all other cases, see "Divisiveness" below).

Divisiveness:  Speaking ill of or disagreeing with socialists and socialism.  Divisiveness is one of the worst things in our society today and is largely perpetrated in talk radio, blogs, private conversations, etc., by members of the pig Bourgeoisie.  This can be cause for legal action, since it could in theory cause other people to question socialists and socialism, thereby "harming" them.  (You have no right to harm another person unless that person is being 'Divisive', in which case it is encouraged).

Economic Justice:  Socialism (see "Social Justice" below)

Education:  Socialist education.  Example:  "'We' must support 'Education' for the sake of 'Our Children's' future.

Fairness:  Socialism

Global Community:  Most of the population of the world lives under some form of socialist tyranny, often very brutal socialist tyranny.  Americans have historically lived much better lives due to our relatively higher levels of freedom and Liberty.  For this we are to hate America (if anyone is poor or unhappy, it can only be the willful doing of the more prosperous) and we are to strive to make America more like the rest of the world (poor and oppressed) as a show of solidarity, thus achieving the "Global Community". (See "Peace" below)

Global Warming:  (See "Global Community" above)

Illegal Immigration:  A thoroughly meaningless term invented by racists, purely as an epithet.  Attempting to use "Reason" to explain it will reinforce your status as a racist.

Judgmentalism:  Thinking for one’s self in one’s self-interest, i.e. making decisions or value judgments based on principles, evidence, and rational thought.  In the eyes of the Left, this is one of worst crimes that could be committed, especially if it results in your becoming a successful American pig.  (see "Reason" below)

Liberal: Socialist.  This is an impossible term to use correctly without adding qualifiers.  Most liberals hate being called liberals.  "Liberal" has become an epithet in the eyes of the socialist, either because it implies that one is an advocate of Liberty, which socialists aren't, or because it correctly describes them as socialists. No one knows for sure which.  (Archaic: One who advocates Liberty.  Thomas Jefferson would have considered himself a liberal.  Today's liberals would consider Thomas Jefferson a "Judgmental" and "Divisive" pig.  If he were president, they would engage in "Dissent" with a vengeance.

Need:  This wonderfully flexible term can mean anything the socialist wants it to mean and can change from one instant to another.  Example:  "You have far more than you 'Need' so 'We' are going to take it from you and use it for the 'Education' and 'Safety' of 'Our Children'."  (see "We" and "Safety" below)

Open Mind:  One that unquestioningly embraces socialism as the answer to all things.

Peace:  The lack of meaningful opposition to socialist, Marxist, Fascist, communist or jihadist military expansionism, as in, "It's time to stand up and fight for 'Peace'".

Progressive:  Socialist.  We once spoke of "progress" as that which improved our productivity, opportunity and standard of living.  Like many of the terms they use, the Left has turned this one around exactly 180 degrees.

Reason:  This word is not used by the Left except when describing it as a "weapon" used against the oppressed classes.  Instead they use the word "reasonable" as in "reasonable restrictions" (any restrictions) on your Liberties (see "Compromise" above and learn to be "Reasonable").

Safety:  Existence under strict government oversight.  Some examples are "Airline Safety", "School Safety", "Home Safety", "Gun Safety", "Workplace Safety", etc..  Example: "It is the job of our elected officials to ensure our continued 'Safety'".

Scientist:  Increasingly, this term is used to silence all discussion or debate.  In this sense, a "Scientist" is one who is enlisted by government interests to place a stamp of approval, under the guise of irrefutability, on socialist programs or laws.  Example:  "Any decent 'Scientist' will tell you that man-made 'Global Warming' is a real and present danger, and that our 'Safety' must be ensured through swift action."   Previously, the term "Clergyman" or "God" served a similar purpose, and does so to this day in certain Muslim circles.  (Archaic:  A person engaged in the scientific process, with full disclosure and peer review, as a means of testing theories and discovering knowledge)

Social Justice:  Socialism (see "Economic Justice" above)

Sustainabe:  Under never-ending, complete government control.  Example: "A market-based economy is not 'Sustainable'."

Tolerance:  Tolerance [of socialists and socialism].  Failure to tolerate socialists and socialism is something that should not, and will not, be tolerated.

Unity:  Similar to "Peace", unity describes a situation in which all opposition to socialists and socialism has been effectively silenced.

Universal Health Care:  Socialized medicine, i.e. socialism—specifically, a means by which you would be obliged to support or tolerate a certain political party or doctrine in order to save your very life.

We:  We socialists.  We the collective.  This is a subtle term, but it has a powerful meaning.  Saying "We" this and "We" that reinforces the collective thinking of the "Progressive" a bit like a mantra.  Example:  "'We' must ensure the 'Safety' of all through 'Education' for 'Our Children' and with 'Progressive' programs such as 'Universal Health Care', 'Social Justice', 'Tolerance', 'Peace', and by fostering the 'Unity' of the 'Global Community', through the advocacy of 'Change' while working with the 'Scientists'."

I'll be compiling more as I come up with them.  Reader submissions are welcome.

Sebastian tells us about a Random Conversation About Fingerprinting. A woman (who happens to be very anti-gun) doesn't want to get her fingerprints taken just so she can be a crossing guard near a school. Sebastian compares it to gun owners exercising constitutionally guaranteed rights having to submit fingerprints first. Which leads to his observation:

What goes around, comes around. You can’t expect to empower the state to take away liberty from people you find undesirable, and then expect the state to respect your liberty when you end up in the cross hairs. When you find yourself in that situation, the people who’s liberties have already been trampled on may not be sympathetic enough to help you.

Of course this reminded me of the famous Niemoller quote and I mentioned it in the comments and figured that will be the end of it. But then commenter ParatrooperJJ says the FBI just checks the fingerprints and discards them after they come back clean. That set off my alarms because just a few days ago this came out:

FBI effort will build biggest biometric database

The FBI is embarking on a $1 billion effort to build the world's largest computer database of peoples' physical characteristics, a project that would give the government unprecedented abilities to identify individuals in the United States and abroad.

Digital images of faces, fingerprints and palm patterns are flowing into FBI systems in a climate-controlled, secure basement here.

Next month, the FBI intends to award a 10-year contract that would significantly expand the amount and kinds of biometric information it receives.

And in the coming years, law enforcement authorities around the world will be able to rely on iris patterns, face-shape data, scars and perhaps even the unique ways people walk and talk to solve crimes and identify criminals and terrorists.

The FBI will also retain, upon request by employers, the fingerprints of employees who have undergone criminal background checks so the employers can be notified if employees have brushes with the law.

If the technology exists it will be used, data obtained will be kept, used, and abused. The features will creep into areas that were promised would never happen. Remember that NICS records were supposed to be destroyed and then Janet Reno kept them for "audit purposes". Then they used those "audit records" to see if suspected terrorists had purchased firearms. My SS card says "FOR SOCIAL SECURITY AND TAX PURPOSES--NOT FOR IDENTIFICATION". None of my childrens SS cards have any such markings. It used to be something like a $10K fine if anyone tried to use your SSN for anything other than tax purposes. No so anymore.

We are creating all the mechanisms necessary for an effective police state. Remember what Milton Friedman said.

This is in regard to the old blow up the dead whale on the beach video.

Phil asks some questions. My answer:

Pound for pound Boomerite is not much different from what they used. So about 1000 pounds (which is less than what we typically use at Boomershoot). A single rifle bullet would detonate it just fine. If you are using a high BC bullet in a .300 Win Mag (or "better") 1000 yards distant would be possible.

I get requests to blow up all kinds of things. I usually agree to help on one condition--they have to clean up the mess. I almost never hear from them again.

This would be no different. The common perception appears to be that when something is "blown up" it just disappears. Of course this isn't true. Explosives can rip things into very tiny pieces and scatter them but chemical explosives do not destroy matter.

I have an alibi and I have much better places to play with my chemistry set than next to a freeway and bicycle trail:

Authorities are searching for the person or people responsible for setting off an improvised explosive device (IED) on a bicycle path that runs parallel to I-205 last night.

The Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office said the device was ignited on a bike path that runs along the highway near Strawberry Lane on the west side of the highway. A sheriff’s deputy was driving southbound on the highway around 9:30 p.m. when he witness a flash and a plume of light that stretched across the highway.

It's crap like this that will get Tannerite and Target Master banned.

One would think that eventually they would figure it out when something isn't working they would stop doing it. Nope. This is the U.K. and guns. All rational thought must be resisted.

Banning real guns didn't solve their problem so now they are banning deactivated guns. What is a deactivated gun? From the BBC News:

Typically, a deactivated gun has its barrel sawn down the middle and a metal rod is then welded inside to make it incapable of discharging a bullet.

The breech block - which contains the mechanism to actually fire the bullet - is ground down so there is no firing pin.

Hmm... so these must be used in crime a lot in order to justify banning them. Wrong:

However, the most recent Home Office firearms figures from 2005/6 show that reactivated or deactivated firearms were used in just eight offences, out of a total of 11,084.

Reactivated handguns were used twice; deactivated firearms were used four times; and other reactivated firearms were used twice.

So what is going on here? As near as I can tell it's mass insanity. Other links:

• Deactivated firearms 'to be banned this year' (The Independent)
• Deactivated guns to be banned by end of 2008 (AFP)
• New gun control plans 'paper over cracks' (Guardian Unlimited)

And of course the anti-gun bigots are pleased:

Gill Marshall-Andrews of the Gun Control Network said: "We are delighted. This has been on our agenda for a long time. It is a big loophole in our firearms legislation."

When you hear the bigots in this country call the lack of a repressive gun law a "loophole" keep in mind there will always be a "loophole" for these people.

There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.

Alexis de Tocqueville
[Tocqueville died in 1859. Some things never change.--Joe]

And a party it should be!

The anti-gun bigots in San Francisco got their asses handed to them with Proposition H. Sebastian and Uncle have already posted on it. The NRA has their news release here and SAF has their's here.

The Brady Bunch, the VPC, and the "Gun Guys" are all strangely quiet. Maybe someone forgot to invite them to the celebration.

What I wonder is who it is that thinks they are the innocent party here:

WARSAW, Poland - A Polish man got the shock of his life when he visited a brothel and spotted his wife among the establishment's employees.

Polish tabloid Super Express said the woman had been making some extra money on the side while telling her husband she worked at a store in a nearby town.

"I was dumbfounded. I thought I was dreaming," the husband told the newspaper on Wednesday.

The couple, married for 14 years, are now divorcing, the newspaper reported.

[Mostly this is a rant because I'm pissed. I don't particularly blame the NRA-ILA or any other pro-gun group. Political reality is significantly different from gut response. The following is 95% emotion and its to just get it out of my system.]

The instant Bush signed the NICS Improvement Bill into law we get this crap:

President George W. Bush signed the nation's first new gun-control legislation in 14 years Tuesday to help keep guns out of the hands of the dangerously mentally ill, and Rep. Carolyn McCarthy immediately announced she would take her crusade to the next step.

This time, she and others want to close the so-called "gun show loophole" that allows some dealers to sell firearms without background checks.

[...]

Schumer agreed that the next item on the gun-control agenda would be to require background checks in every gun sale, but predicted that would be harder to get passed because of opposition by the National Rifle Association. The law signed Tuesday, in contrast, had NRA support.

And this from Paul Helmke:

Many of us in the gun violence prevention movement are excited about the year ahead.

America is turning a corner on the gun issue, because the people are finally being heard.

Today, President Bush signed into law the NICS Improvement Amendments Act of 2007 – what some have called “the first major new gun control bill in more than a decade.”

[...]

Brady background checks have stopped an estimated 1.4 million people from legally buying guns since 1994, but background checks are only as good as the records in the system.

[...]

Law-abiding Americans have nothing to fear from common-sense gun laws that will reduce the toll of 30,000 gun deaths every year in this country.

• Law-abiding Americans have nothing to fear from preventing suspected terrorists from walking out of a gun store or a gun show fully armed.

• Law-abiding Americans have nothing to fear from getting a background check for every single gun purchase they make, including at gun shows (this is closing the gun show loophole).

• Law-abiding Americans have nothing to fear from strengthening Brady background checks to make sure that “prohibited purchasers” like felons, the dangerously mentally ill, and domestic abusers are denied guns at the point of sale.

• Law-abiding Americans have nothing to fear from reporting lost or stolen guns to the police in a timely manner.

• Law-abiding Americans (who aren’t in the legal gun business) have nothing to fear from being prevented from buying guns in bulk purchases.

• Law-abiding Americans have nothing to fear from keeping military-style assault weapons out of most civilian hands, reserving them for military and law enforcement use only.

If you "compromise" with the Devil don't be surprised if you get burned.

Sean's words need to be repeated here:

What typically gets lost, and lost deliberately, is the meaning of the word 'compromise'. In a compromise, both sides gain or lose bargaining points in a mutually acceptable, if not optimal fashion.  In the gun control debate, the meaning of compromise is twisted to, "Okay, we'll only take half your guns, this time." The pro-RKBA folks are never even offered anything in return. This is a variation of the slippery slope that I call "Zeno's Paradox of Lost Rights". As with the paradox of motion, the remaining scope of the Second Amendment is progressively halved, and halved again. The illusion is that we never lose the right, because there is always the remaining half. The Theory of Limits suggests otherwise.

Sean Flynn
6/15/98

If McCarthy, Schumer, and their ilk were asking me to compromise my initial position would be that they get the death penalty under 18 USC 242. The only people that aren't allowed to own weapons are those that are locked up or are unable feed themselves. If they are safe enough to be allowed on the streets with a 2000 pound car, a full tank of gasoline and a book of matches then they are safe enough to be allowed a M60, a M60 Patton, or, with suitable storage facilities, TNWs. And finally the 2^nd Amendment guarantees the RKBA and since a right someone can't afford to exercise, just like a right to an attorney, isn't really worth anything the Federal Government should subsidize arms for those that want them but cannot afford them.

We start our negotiations there.

And now that I'm got that out of the way let's talk about those words from Helmke:

So, 1.4 million people were stopped from legally purchasing firearms. Since there are about 200 million adults in the country and only about 40% own firearms that must mean that about one out of every 60 people that tried to by a firearm were legally prohibited. And that's not good enough for him. When will it be good enough? One out of 20? One out of 10? No. We know what the real number he is looking for, one out one.

Those "30,000 gun deaths" include justified, even praiseworthy, shootings by police and private citizens. Either Helmke is deliberately misleading or he thinks the life of a thug who put an innocent life in immediate jeopardy of death or permanent injury is just as valuable as the innocent life. In either case he is not to be trusted.

If suspected terrorists are to be prevented from owning guns, the list of suspected terrorists is created without due process as currently is the case, then President Hillary could declare all NRA members, or all even private citizens, suspected terrorists and we all are screwed. Helmke is an enemy of the U.S. Constitution if he supports the disemboweling of both the 2^nd and the 4^th Amendments.

As for the other bullet items, except for the last item, those can only be implemented if you have a gun registration in place. And we all know that registration always leads to confiscation within at most a few decades.

As for the last bullet item, Helmke has demonstrated he can't be trusted, so Μολὼν λαβέ.

And because this is what I was listening to while writing this and I think it fits Schumer, McCarthy, and Helmke well; Runnin' With the Devil by Van Halen:

I live my life like there's no tomorrow
And all I've got I had to steal
Least I don't need to beg or borrow
Yes I'm living at a pace that kills
Runnin' with the devil
Runnin' with the devil
I found the simple life ain't so simple
When I jumped out on that road
I got no love, no love you'd call real
Ain't got nobody waiting at home
Runnin' with the devil
Runnin' with the devil

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Benjamin Franklin
[Yeah, I know. Everyone has heard this one before. That is most of the reason I have never used it directly before. Today is special however. Check out my next post, Runnin' With the Devil, people compromised with the Devil to gain temporary "safety" and the ink hasn't dried before they are pushing for the "next step".--Joe]

I was reminded of this by today's QOTD.

Banning light bulbs isn't enough, of course.  I heard mention of this today by Jason Lewis on the radio, and via crypton.  There is now talk of requiring remotely (web) controlled thermostats in private homes.  The idea is that a utility company be able to remotely alter your thermostat setting, overriding your selected setting, to save energy, you know, for your comrades.

It will happen.  Also get ready for total use restrictions-- a family of four, for example, will not be allowed to exceed a certain KW/h, or therms, etc., monthly usage without paying large fines.  When that fails to make us all happy, safe and comfortable, as it surely will, we can expect something more severe.

We asked for this the second we decided it was OK for government to involve itself in the energy (or any other) industry.  Anyone warning of this very thing would of course have been put down as an alarmist, and so here we are.

Once the principle (of private property in this case) has been violated, the only debate possible is over the degree of the violation.  There is no principled stand to be taken in favor of any particular degree of violation of a human right.  But this has all been said before.

Of course you knew PayPal won't handle transactions for "certain firearms, firearm parts or accessories, ammunition, weapons or knives", right?

You probably knew Google has issues with guns too.

Here is a story I don't think I have told here before:

Years ago, when I first created Modern Ballistics, I tried to get a merchant account for processing credit cards. I had one a few years earlier when was selling software to software developers instead of gun owners and I figured it wouldn't be a problem. I sent in my application and to my surprise they turned me down. At first they wouldn't tell me why. But after much calling and pestering them they finally told me it was because of my product. I carefully read through all their fine print and couldn't find where there was anything wrong with my product according to their published rules. I told them I didn't understand, what is wrong with my product? The most I could get out of them was that I could submit my application again if I wanted but it probably wouldn't make any difference.

Now via Sebastian and NSSF I find out:

Citi Merchant Services and First Data Corp. are refusing to process any credit card transactions between federally licensed firearms retailers, distributors and manufacturers -- a move which will severely limit available inventory of firearms and ammunition to military, law enforcement and law-abiding Americans.

The first company to be affected by this decision appears to be firearms distributor CDNN Sports Inc.

"We were contacted recently by First Data/Citi Merchant Services by a June Rivera-Mantilla stating that we were terminated and funds were being seized for selling firearms in a non-face-to-face transaction," said Charlie Crawford, president of CDNN Sports Inc. "Although perfectly legal, we were also informed that no transactions would be processed in the future, even for non-firearms. I find this very frightening."

To voice your concern to Citi Merchant Services and First Data Corp., please contact June Rivera-Mantilla at 631-683-7734 or her supervisor Robert Tenenbaum at 631-683-6570.

Read the letter, they claim a violation of the law but yet apparently don't bother to turn them into law enforcement. Just like some experiences I have had (above and with PNNL) if they want to get rid of you they will just make stuff up that is at best half true. They don't need or want to know the truth, they just want to get rid of you. It's very tough to win against people like that. Just like literacy tests for voting, when tested none of the blacks could read the daily newspaper, hence they failed the state approved test. Never mind the newspaper given to them was printed in Chinese. Technically they can get away with it but it's still not right.

If they were refusing to do business with people with a certain skin color, sexual orientation, or religion this would be on the front page of all the newspapers. But it isn't. And its because we are just "gun-ni**ers" and it is socially acceptable to the elites to treat us like this.

Many people want the government to protect the consumer. A much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government.

Milton Friedman
[The U.S. Constitution with its enumerated powers and the Bill of Rights was supposed to do the bulk of the protecting. But of course these days it's rare that any of the three branches of government even look at the Constitution as a mild suggestion of limits to its reach.--Joe]

The DOJ (the ATF is under the DOJ so it could be them) apparently is interested in what their subjects think about new regulations on AN. My blog posting is number six on Google for their query.

I should have mentioned in my previous post that I have several thousand pounds of ammonium nitrate that I plan to make into explosives. The people at the DOJ need something to get their blood pumping on a Monday, right? 

Domain Name		usdoj.gov ? (U.S. Government)
IP Address		149.101.1.# (US Dept of Justice)
ISP		US Dept of Justice
Location		Continent  :  North America Country  :  United States  (Facts) State  :  District of Columbia City  :  Washington Lat/Long  :  38.9097, -77.0231 (Map) Distance  :  2,071 miles
Language		English (U.S.) en-us
Operating System		Microsoft WinXP
Browser		Internet Explorer 6.0 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; DOJ3jx7bf; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; InfoPath.1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727)
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Time of Visit		Jan 7 2008 10:46:36 am
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Visit Length		10 seconds
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Referring URL		http://www.google.co...ing ammonium nitrate
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Every step we take towards making the State our Caretaker of our lives, by that much we move toward making the State our Master.

Dwight Eisenhower
[My guess is that this year there are only about two or maybe three presidential candidates, none of which are likely to win, that even have a glimmer of this fundamental truth.--Joe]

I just deleted another unpaid Boomershoot 2008 entry when they didn't answer his email or voice mail. I then sent out an email to the Boomershoot announcement list that a position was open.

It lasted 12 minutes again. It must the minimum time it takes the Yahoo groups email list server to deliver the open position notification, someone to enter in their data, and push the button.

I just finished some more tools for my web based management of Boomershoot. This time it was some statistics.

These number will probably change a little by the time of the actual 2008 event. But as it currently stands:

This is actually old news but I read it again here and it pissed me off again.

Fifteen states have closed what gun safety advocates call the "gun show loophole."

[...]

...gun safety advocates using federal statistics showing a significant portion of private gun show sales wind up in criminals' hands.

"Gun safety advocates"?

Since when are people advocating gun safety concerned with firearm sales at gun shows?

Of course they aren't "gun safety advocates" they are gun restriction advocates. They are just trying to redefine themselves, with the help of the media, to be something less offensive. Sort of like a KKK member turning in his white sheets and pillow cases for something with a floral pattern.

Maybe it's just me because I listen to words carefully and take them literally but I hear this sort of thing from salesmen sometimes. They say things that are almost half true and deliberately intended to be misleading. I immediately suspect everything they say and know they cannot be trusted with anything. I resist the urge to punch them out, glare at them, and walk away checking my wallet to make sure they haven't lifted it. Unfortunately with the anti-gun bigots they are selling their bigotry to lawmakers who will use violence against those of us who are the targets of their irrational hatred.

But these bigots have reached their zenith and we are now winning. We just need to keep them on the run and politically exterminate them. Don't let them redefine themselves. Just because their sheets are a floral design rather than white doesn't mean they won't lynch us if they get the chance.

Americans are so enamored of equality, they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.

Alexis de Tocqueville
[I find this very odd. It's certainly true today, but I would have thought it was different in his time (the mid 1800's).--Joe]

At 15:56 PST I sent out an email that a position had opened up for Boomershoot 2008. At 16:08 PST, just 12 minutes later, the position was filled.

There are two other positions that might be opening up soon. They haven't paid for them, they haven't been answering their email, and I just left voice mail that had better be answered soon.

Ignore for the moment that the Federal Government does not have Constitutional permission to engage in socialized medicine. Look only at results where it has been tried. Kevin tells us about how it's working out in the U.K.

There are lots of other examples but the first implementation appears to have come from Germany and was a failure as well.

One of the basic problems with socialized medicine is who is spending who's money. As pointed out by Milton and Rose Friedman in Free to Choose there are four different possibilities (from memory):

1. One spends ones own money on themselves.
2. One spends ones own money on someone else.
3. One spends someone else's money on themselves.
4. One spends someone else's money on someone else.

On average, the first case is going to result in the best return on any given dollar spent. The person will optimize the result for the available money.

On average, the last case is going to result in the worst return on any given dollar spent. The person has little incentive to limit the amount of money spent and to get a good result for the money spent.

Socialized medicine most closely matches the last case and results in the least efficient spending of money.

Tell all the Democrat candidates for President to shove their illegal plans where the sun doesn't shine then save on their own health care by getting their colonoscopy for removal of the reams of paper done without sedation.

The best defense against usurpatory government is an assertive citizenry.

William F. Buckley
[It's impossible to be truly assertive unless you have some means to back it. When the government usurps your ability to vote you have very few options in asserting yourself except by the force of arms. This is why respect of the 2^nd Amendment is essential for a free society and why any who attempt to infringe it must be vigorously opposed. This applies to all, except Richardson, of the current Democrat candidates for president and some of the Republicans.--Joe]

I just finished listening to Ayaan Hirsi Ali read her book Infidel. All 17 hours and 34 minutes of it. To be listening to her actual voice makes this book all the more powerful and meaningful to me.

The book starts with the following introduction:

One November morning in 2004, Theo van Gogh got up to go to his film production company in Amsterdam. He took out his old black bicycle and headed down a main road. Waiting in a doorway was a Moroccan man with a handgun and two butcher knives. As Theo cycled down the Linnaeusstraat Mohamad Boriar approached. He pulled out his gun and shot Theo several times. Theo fell off his bike and lurched across the road then collapsed. Boriar followed. Theo begged, "Can't we talk about this?" But Boriar shot him four more times. Then he took out one of his butcher knives and sawed into Theo's throat. With the other knife he stabbed a five page letter onto Theo's chest. The letter was addressed to me.

After that powerful opening paragraph she quickly goes back in time to when her grandma was young and works forward in great detail. At times I questioned the purpose of detailing her early and even pre-birth years. What does it matter that her father was imprisoned by a communist dictator in Somalia? Why the details of her mother working as a maid years before Ali was born? Why the stories her grandmother told her? Or the games she played with her sister? But by the time she described, in great detail, what she calls the excision of her sister and her I understood why. Although she doesn't explicitly say it she was "born of good stock". She was the least of her siblings academically. But her strength of will, ability to reason, and courage were of such a level that am in awe of her.

And after escaping to the Netherlands she struggled academically while attending University Leiden. But she obtained her political science degree, became an atheist, and a member of the Dutch Parliament. She worked to liberate Muslim women from the beatings and the domination by men.

How did this come about? How did she successfully escape and so many others, including her sister, fail? She is a very strong person but there other things too. Western culture planted the seeds in her mind, those seeds took root and through some good luck enabled her to cast off her destiny of submission and beatings.

The western culture had a profound influence on her included things such as Nancy Drew books and Harlequin romance novels. Through such simple ordinary things we take for granted she and her sister obtained a glimpse of what they thought was only a fantasy world. But when she saw the streets of a German city for the first time it crystallized into reality.

I want to believe there is way other than military domination to win the war against those in the Muslim world who seek our total destruction. Ayaan Hirsi Ali has given us a road map to do just that.

Here is Submission, the 10 minute movie written by Ali and produced by Theo van Gogh. It resulted in van Gogh's murder, Ali going into hiding for weeks, and the effect to Dutch politics was like a 130 dB klaxon going off next to your bed in the quiet of the night.

Submission Part 1

Submission Part 2

And this is what Fred Thompson has to say about Ali. Go Fred!

Ali is now a Resident Fellow at American Enterprise Institute in Washington D.C. Just today they posted a paper by her, Islam's Silent Moderates.

I will be reading and listening to all of her works from now on.

I would prefer to see a letter to the Attorney General saying, "Anyone involved in enforcement of laws restricting firearms should be prosecuted under 18 USC 242." But that is way, way too much to expect at this time. For the time being this is a decent enough start.

Of course I expect that the ATF response, internally at least, be something along the lines of "Who are you to tell us what to do? You are a mere subject. We are the King's men."

A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt...If the game runs sometime against us at home, we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake.

Thomas Jefferson
[The results in Iowa reminded me of this.--Joe]

Only those with a vested emotional interest in seeing through on the promise of total gun confiscation continue to hang onto the false hope of gun control. After years of being convinced of the righteousness of their cause they are blinded to reality and have begun to believe their own lies. That is the only way to explain how they can still be pushing their failed agenda.

If it wasn't such a serious issue the determination of anti-gun proponents would border on the laughable. Since their misguided ways have led to untold numbers of people being left at the mercy of armed thugs, it takes all the humor out of their laughable ways.

Still, their determination has brainwashed them to believe in their cause at all costs. I also proves that they are incapable of creating a conspiracy with the anti-gun establishment media. The sad sorry truth is they actually believe this crap.

Gerard Valentino
Buckeye Firearms Association Central Ohio Chair
January 3, 2008
There is No Leftist Anti-Gun Conspiracy - They Really Believe This Crap
[The conspiracy theory model explains a lot but ends up with more questions than answers. I'm with Valentino, as implausible and counter factual as their belief system is I think they actually believe it.--Joe]

Cool. Very cool.

Via Sebastian.

Jason sent me a picture of what his kids left out for Santa and his reindeer:

Yes, some people find it calming to go shooting but that isn't what this post is about. As Sebastian and Conservative Scalawag point out a replica of Malcolm Reynolds pistol from the movie Serenity is available for $150.

Son James and I are big fans of Serenity and the TV series FireFly which it was based on.

There are some very interesting questions brought up by David Levy's book, Love and Sex With Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships (see also Programmed for love). Suppose robots get so human like they are practically indistinguishable from humans in their interactions? What if they are anatomically correct enough to have sex with without you being able to easily detect they are not human?

That's thought provoking enough but the really interesting questions are what this means to the concept of marriage fidelity as the technology is taken to the limit:

• If you have sex with such a robot is it "cheating"?
• Does it depend on whether you knew it was a robot or not?
• If it is considered cheating whether you knew it was a robot or not, then is it "cheating" when a person has sex with an "adult toy" of today?
• If it is considered cheating to have sex with the human like robot, but it's not considered cheating to have sex with an adult toy of today's technology then at what point in the sophistication of the technology does it become cheating?
• If it is not considered cheating if it was a robot then what is the basis for making that distinction? Is it just because one comes with a warranty and has parts that are dishwasher safe?
• What if certain parts of the robot are actually from human donors? How many parts need to be human before it's not considered a robot? Or how many artificial replacement parts must a human have before they are considered a robot?
• If it is not considered cheating if it was a robot, you think it is a robot at the time, what happens if you find out later it was not a robot?
• If it is not considered cheating if it was a robot, you think it is a human at the time, what happens if you find out later it was a robot?

Of course all these questions will have to be answered on a case by case basis by the humans and robots involved but my interest is in the basis of how people will make these decisions. I find it all wonderfully entertaining.

Sometimes people call me an idealist.  Well, that is the way I know I am an American.  America is the only idealistic nation in the world.

Woodrow Wilson
[It's interesting to contrast the ideals of this Democrat to the Democrat, and most Republican, politicians of today.--Joe]

The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.

Benjamin Franklin
[I wish everyone could keep this thought close for the entirety of this year and all that follow. Especially when they vote this November.--Joe]