Author Archives: Joe

Quote of the day—Larry Correia

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The most (maliciously) creative guys I’ve ever worked with were Army Special Forces soldiers. Their imagination can come up with a million fantastic ways to ruin someone’s day. They make authors look like pikers.

Larry Correia
July 18, 2013
Ask Correia 14: How to be a Professional Author
[Good to know.

There are a few reasons for this.

One, it’s their job and they do this stuff a lot so they get more practice than you, I , or Larry.

Two, they have a different mindset. When I used to do computer security stuff I would spend a lot of time “thinking like a bad guy” and try to break things. You don’t normally think like that. It sort of rubbed off onto other things I did and thought about. I could walk through the grocery store, or drive through farm country and get distracted by all the things someone could do to contaminate the food supply from a terrorist point of view. Or I would walk through a hardware store and “see” things for improvised explosive devices in nearly every aisle.

Three, they have had a lot of training and knowledge that has been handed down through the generations. It may seem incredibly creative to you or I but it’s only a minor variation on something that has been repeatedly done for the last 100 years.

Try changing your mindset. You might be surprised what you come up with if you decide to go all Firefly and “be a bad guy”.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Rivrdog

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This Holder speech tells me that Holder, one of the main leaders of this Government, just advocated FOR the predation of his Government ON it’s own people, and he framed that advocacy in racial terms.

US Attorney General Eric Holder has just approved of violence by blacks on other races. President Obama now must decide to remove Eric Holder from leadership, or admit that he, too, supports race-based Government predation.

We may have just seen the line between simple bad leadership and outright Tyranny crossed here, with our Government having just clearly expressed tyrannical intentions.

Rivrdog
July 17, 2013
Comment to Quote of the day—Eric Holder
[While I agree there are tyrannical implications this is far from the first “line to be crossed”.

Examples:

  • Obamacare
  • Claiming authority to kill U.S. citizens on U.S. soil without due process (drone strikes)
  • Failure to prosecute those that break laws while supporting the current administration (blacks intimidating white voters at the polls, David Gregory’s possession of a standard capacity magazine in D.C.)

These are just a few examples of a large set of “lines of significance” which have been crossed.—Joe]

Update: There are so many that I forget them… Add the IRS scandal and giving guns to the drug cartels to justify gun bans in the U.S.

Quote of the day—Eric Holder

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Separate and apart from the case that has drawn the nation’s attention, it’s time to question laws that senselessly expand the concept of self-defense and sow dangerous conflict in our neighborhoods.

…

By allowing — and perhaps encouraging — violent situations to escalate in public, such laws undermine public safety.

Eric Holder
U.S. Attorney General
July 16, 2013
Holder wades deeper into Zimmerman battle, calls for review of ‘stand-your-ground’
[Does it “sow dangerous conflict in our neighborhoods” when the police stand their ground against a thug that threatens them or other innocent life? Or do they have a duty to retreat, as Holder thinks private citizens should, as well? If not then why the difference?

If this is “separate and apart from the case” then why bring it up now? I am suspicious that Holder is of the opinion that self-defense should be deprecated and the Zimmerman/Martin case is a convenient vehicle to further that agenda.

There are hints in Holders words above that indicate he believes all human lives are of equal value. This is not true (H/T to Robb’s Tweet). This is a collectivist mindset which, in essence, regards people as little more than cattle. The meat and milk from one cow is just as good as the meat and milk from another cow.

The thug threating to cause grievous bodily injury to an innocent life has reduced the value of their life to something less than their victim. When one or the other lives are certain to suffer severe harm the innocent victim is fully justified in using deadly force, risking the life of the aggressor, to defend themselves. This is a very individualist rights approach to the situation. The collectivist either does not understand the concepts or rejects them. In their mind damaged meat is damaged meat.

There is nothing wrong with “escalating” in self-defense when in a “violent situation” when an innocent life is put in jeopardy. I have seen what backing down to aggressive animals on the farm does. They get more aggressive because the behavior was successful in achieving their goals. If you can safely do so you must stand up to them, put them in their place, or get rid of them. If you don’t they will rule the barnyard. The same is true with aggressive animals on the street. Either Holder doesn’t understand this or his agenda includes violent thugs dominating innocent people in public.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Glenn Harlan Reynolds

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The result of overcriminalization is that prosecutors no longer need to wait for obvious signs of a crime. Instead of finding Professor Plum dead in the conservatory and launching an investigation, authorities can instead start an investigation of Colonel Mustard as soon as someone has suggested he is a shady character. And since … everyone is a criminal if prosecutors look hard enough, they are guaranteed to find something eventually.

Overcriminalization has thus left us in a peculiar place: Though people suspected of a crime have extensive due process rights in dealing with the police, and people charged with a crime have even more extensive due process rights in court, the actual decision of whether or not to charge a person with a crime is almost completely unconstrained.

Glenn Harlan Reynolds
July 2013
Columbia Law Review: Ham Sandwich Nation: Due Process When Everything Is a Crime
[This would appear to be the goal of those that wish to “prevent gun violence”. Government prevents there being a victim by prosecuting people for victimless crimes. An example is the prosecution of people for being in possession of gun in addition to prosecution of people who injure innocent people with a gun.

This makes a certain amount of sense but only if there is no value to the victimless act being prosecuted. The prosecution of severely drunk drivers has little downside because driving while drunk has a high risk of injuring innocent people with very rare benefits.

Even if firearm possession is legal the more laws there are regulating the possession of firearms all the better it is for government to “prevent gun violence”. When Huffman’s Rule of Firearms Law results in nearly every gun owner at risk for decades of prison time, without a single victim, we have serious potential for abuse and even a police state.

In order to claim prosecution of gun ownership is a net benefit one must demonstrate gun ownership has little value to society and/or a large societal cost. Small minds will present an argument of vigorous assertion that this is true. But a more compelling argument can be made that thoughts are more dangerous than guns. For example The Communist Manifesto and some religious books have been used as tools to kill and injure far more innocent people than firearms in the hands of private citizens.

The concept of “preventing crime” is a very risky and dangerous path to tread. We are already too far down this path and we should reverse course rather than continue to, what I fear is, a genocidal conclusion.—Joe]

Typo or Freudian slip?

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From the ATF website:

However, because of the potential misuse of explosive materials, ATF’s role plays a vital role in regulating and educating the explosives industry and in protecting the public from inadequate storage and security.

The ATF role plays a vital role?

I sometimes mock the ATF but my interaction with them, on the whole, has been pleasant enough. I do want the storage of Boomershoot reactive targets to be theft and bullet resistant and their contribution to making that a reality was significant. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it was “vital” but it certainly was more than role playing.

Quote of the day—TruthtoConservatives

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They need a 30 round clip to get an erection. @sampuzzo @2enchantu @abynorml @mahvros27

TruthtoConservatives (@ToConservatives)
Tweeted on February 4, 2013
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!

H/T to Janelle for the email.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Coalition to Stop Gun Violence

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There can be no doubt after the Not Guilty verdict in the trial of George Zimmerman that murder has now been legalized in half of the 50 states.

…

The acquittal of George Zimmerman is confirmation that the American promise of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” will continue to be squandered until the NRA’s pernicious stranglehold on our legislatures is broken. Lawmakers in states with “Stand Your Ground” laws should immediately repeal these cancerous blights on American values, law and tradition.

Coalition to Stop Gun Violence
July 14, 2014
CSGV STATEMENT ON VERDICT IN ZIMMERMAN TRIAL
[It’s no wonder CSGV is irrelevant and fading away.

A jury found Zimmerman not guilty of both murder and the lesser charge of manslaughter. Yet CSGV, without the benefit of seeing all the evidence and testimony seen by the jury, is convinced he committed murder. A jury that took only 16.5 hours of deliberation to reach that conclusion. It was no surprise to nearly all the trial observers. The evidence clearly supported the conclusion that the shooting was in self-defense.

The wild claim of murder is the same as that by other anti gun people who claimed the Boston Marathon terrorist shooting at the police, and shortly thereafter shot by the police, was a “gun violence victim.” Apparently these people live in a world where everyone shot and killed are murder victims. The only thing that could make it more clear is if they declared Gary Gilmore a “gun violence victim.”*

Their world and reality only intersect to the extent that we can sometimes understand the words, but not the substance, of what they are trying to say.—Joe]

*Someone should ask Joan Peterson about this.

Watching the stars

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I have just laid down in my sleeping bag near Boomershoot Mecca. No tent. Just the sleeping bag, pads, pillow, and a blanket.

I was going to fire up my computer and make a quote of the day post to go live at 6:00 AM but it is totally quiet except for an occasional dog barking a half mile or more away and the sky is moonless and clear. I can easily see the Milky Way. The QOTD blog post can wait. Tonight I’m going to watch the stars instead.

Posted from WordPress for Windows Phone

Quote of the day—mikee

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It isn’t eternal vigilance the residents of Illinois need, it is eternally outraged aggressiveness against their own government.

mikee
July 11, 2013
Comment to Three Yards And A Cloud Of Dust…
[It isn’t just in Illinois that this is needed. And there are lots of things to be outraged about.

The judge that forced Illinois to allow people the “bear” part of “keep and bear” arms didn’t prohibit the state from requiring someone to get a permit to exercise a specific enumerated right. Reading a book, even the most dangerous ones such as The Communist Manifesto, doesn’t require a permit. Worshiping the god(s) of your choice doesn’t require you to register with the state. And you don’t have to get the local sheriff to sign off on you exercising your right to have a lawyer present when you are being questioned by the police. The BATFB (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Books) can’t declare book as failing to meet a “religious purpose” test and forbid it being imported as they can with a gun that doesn’t meet its “sporting purpose” test.

Gun owners are like a child so badly abused that they are grateful just to be given a few scraps of bread in a bowl of water. The abuse has been going on for so long and so extensive that it is difficult for us to imagine what a “normal life” would be like.

Talk to someone that has lived in an abusive relationship for decades and then got out. Even after a year they will still marvel some little thing they are so grateful for but is really a normal human interaction. While in the relationship they didn’t, and probably couldn’t realize, that was another instance of abuse in their relationship. And probably just as, if not more, important is that the abuser absolutely does not see it as abuse. No matter how many times they are told, no matter how much data is supplied the abuser will insist the victim deserves it and no abuse is actually occurring.

It’s easy for someone from Idaho to see the abuse in New Jersey, New York, and Massachusetts. It’s much more difficult for the people being victimized to see it. And the legislators advocating even more abuse cannot imagine why the victims complain.

Just like an abusive parent or spouse whose actions result in the injury and death of those innocents under their control these abusive politicians, who infringe upon the right of the people to keep and bear arms which also results in the injury and death of the innocent, need to be arrested and given appropriate punishment.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Scott Adams

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If there are no stupid questions, then what kind of questions do stupid people ask? Do they get smart just in time to ask questions?

Scott Adams
[He has a very good point.

I think it is important to acknowledge there are stupid people and that even smart people sometimes say stupid things. One should not pretend that something stupid didn’t just occur but to handle it graciously when it does.—Joe]

Gun cartoon of the day

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3a8307e52ca620168967c71c07463fd7

I have no idea what the cartoonist was thinking. This makes absolutely no sense what so ever to me.

The right to keep and bear arms is an explicitly enumerated right in the Bill of Rights on equal ground with the rights listed on the sign. “Union rights” are not explicit in the Constitution or BOR but some aspect of a union have implicit protection such as freedom of association. But how do gun rights threaten any aspect of the other rights or of someone wishing to be a member of a union?

My best guess is the cartoonist has crap for brains. Does anyone have a better idea?

Quote of the day—Patrick J. LoPresti

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When I log into my Xenix system with my 110 baud teletype, both vi *and* Emacs are just too damn slow.  They print useless messages like, ‘C-h for help’ and ‘”foo” File is read only’.  So I use the editor that doesn’t waste my VALUABLE time.

Ed, man!  !man ed

ED(1)               UNIX Programmer’s Manual                ED(1)

NAME
ed – text editor

SYNOPSIS
ed [ – ] [ -x ] [ name ]
DESCRIPTION
Ed is the standard text editor.
—

Computer Scientists love ed, not just because it comes first alphabetically, but because it’s the standard.  Everyone else loves ed because it’s ED!

“Ed is the standard text editor.”

And ed doesn’t waste space on my Timex Sinclair.  Just look:

-rwxr-xr-x  1 root          24 Oct 29  1929 /bin/ed
-rwxr-xr-t  4 root     1310720 Jan  1  1970 /usr/ucb/vi
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root  5.89824e37 Oct 22  1990 /usr/bin/emacs

Of course, on the system *I* administrate, vi is symlinked to ed. Emacs has been replaced by a shell script which 1) Generates a syslog message at level LOG_EMERG; 2) reduces the user’s disk quota by 100K; and 3) RUNS ED!!!!!!

“Ed is the standard text editor.”

Let’s look at a typical novice’s session with the mighty ed:

golem> ed

?
help
?
?
?
quit
?
exit
?
bye
?
hello?
?
eat flaming death
?
^C
?
^C
?
^D
?

—
Note the consistent user interface and error reportage.  Ed is
generous enough to flag errors, yet prudent enough not to overwhelm
the novice with verbosity.

Patrick J. LoPresti
July 11, 1991
The True Path in alt.religion.emacs
[There is more but this should give you enough of a hint to get you to read the whole thing—assuming you GET OFF OF MY LAWN!

This remarkable piece of enlightenment is just as valid today as it was when it was originally posted 22 years ago today.

And as I was telling Ry the other day, not only would I rather not be running Windows 8, I still harbor some resentment DOS was replaced with Windows 95.—Joe]

Gun cartoon of the day

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69845_600

It’s not just the Chicago gun ban that was defeated by the Constitution. The ban on public carry was defeated as well.

Stuff it Handgun Control Inc. (now calling themselves The Brady Campaign in public while retaining HCI for more private discussions).

Quote of the day—Alan Gottlieb

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It is time for Illinois residents to join citizens in every other state. If Gov. Quinn and other gun prohibitionists need to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st Century, where all civil rights – including the right to bear arms – are recognized, that’s their fault. They tried to transpose the Second Amendment from a fundamental civil right to a heavily-regulated privilege, and that is not what the court ruling allowed him to do.

We welcome Illinois to the United States of America.

Alan Gottlieb
July 9, 2013
SAF APPLAUDS ILLINOIS LAWMAKERS FOR OVERRIDE VOTE, COURT COMPLIANCE
[I’m not sure it’s really valid to say they have entered the U.S. It’s more like they are in quarantine. They still need to rid themselves of their gun control infections but they are making progress and I do welcome that.—Joe]

Gun cartoon of the day

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Via Weerd.

c5e3f043acb326bca68159143af06112

As Weerd points out this is a straw man argument.

I also wonder if there is some “Freudian slip” in regards to almost all the triggers looking more like fishhooks than a real trigger. The overweight gun owners is an almost universal stereotype (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and of course the original classic first gun cartoon I clipped from a newspaper, and wrote the editor about, from the mid-1990’s).

It’s true that guns are successful conflict resolution tools. But the nature of the conflict for which they are appropriate and advertised for would be more along the lines of, “Home Invasion Deterrent”, “Personal Protection on the Street”, “Grizzly Bear Repellent”, and “Rodent Population Control”. Nothing on the entire set of NRA web sites or in any of their literature would even hint at any of the things this cartoons explicitly claims.

Our enemies cannot succeed on the basis of facts and things we claim. As one anti-gunner finally admitted, “You … are too strong for me. By that I mean a great compliment. Your knowledge of the subject is too great for me to compete with.” They must, by necessity, live in an alternate reality where they think we say things that we do not and then gleefully shoot down their imaginary foes.

Quote of the day—charles hugh smith

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Everything centralized, from the Federal Reserve to the Too Big To Fail Banks to Medicare to the National Security State depends on the Federal government being a Savior State that must ceaselessly expand its share of the national income and its raw power lest it implode. All Savior States have one, and only one trajectory– they must ceaselessly expand and concentrate wealth and power or they will fail.

They are like the shark, which dies once it stops moving forward: the Savior State must push forward on its trajectory of expansion or it expires.

Stasis is not possible, nor is contraction; the promises made to the citizenry cannot be withdrawn without political instability, but the promises cannot be kept without fatally disrupting the neofeudal financialized debtocracy.

charles hugh smith
July 4, 2013
The Next American Revolution (Emphasis in the original)
[His main point is that the next revolution will be much different than any in the past. It will be one where the existing bureaucracy is bypassed and ignored rather than being forcibly removed from power. It will be, he claims, a place where, “wages are no longer an adequate model for distributing the surplus generated by the economy.”

I agree with his characterization that the government is on a path where it must constantly expand or implode. I can believe his is right that the next revolution will be different than any ever seen before. But I am far from convinced that he has it right on the nature of the next revolution.

It seems to me that the nature of the majority of people is that they want/desire/require a central leader or authority. Either they either want to be ruled or they want to be a ruler. The concept of just leaving people alone to freely associate with others is inconceivable to most people. Even in a relatively free state they think in terms of freedom being forced upon them by some authority.

It is my expectation that from the ashes of our current government there will rise some new form of claimed authority to rule over the people and the vast majority of people will have not learned the lessons of history and will welcome it.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Background N015e

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@acallipo @barronbarnett @smrzle @toddkincannon “It looked so long and hard, but then he emptied his clip soooo fast…..*sigh*… oh well.

Background N015e (@backgroundN015e)
Tweeted February 6, 2013
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!

H/T to Barron.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Plato

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One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.

Plato
From here.
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Golem XIV

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There is a New Cold War but it is not like the old one. It is not country against country. It is the shadow state in every nation against its own people, with the collusion of an inner core within the regular State.

Golem XIV
July 3, 2013
NSA/GCHQ – The New Praetorians and the New Cold War
[He makes some good points.

I just wish someone had some solutions.—Joe]

Foolish liberals

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Inspired by:

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)

We can elaborate by saying:

  • The number of people murdered by those attempting to implement communism is sufficient justification to ignore the 1st Amendment guarantee of freedom of speech for books such as “The Communist Manifesto”.
  • The number of people murdered by attempting to force their religion on others is sufficient justification to ignore the 1st Amendment guarantee of freedom of religion.
  • The number of people killed and injured in riots is sufficient justification to ignore the 1st Amendment guarantee of freedom of assembly.
  • The number of people who get away with their crimes because the police did not have probable cause to search them or their property is sufficient justification to ignore the 4th Amendment guarantee from freedom of unreasonable search and seizure.
  • The number of people who get away with their crimes because the police were not allowed to question them without a lawyer present or force them to testify against themselves is sufficient justification to ignore the 5th Amendment guarantees.
  • The illiteracy and incarceration rates of people of color is sufficient justification to ignore the 13th Amendment and implement slavery.
  • The inefficiency of the legislative process in “making progress” is sufficient justification to ignore the constitutionally mandated separation of powers and allow the President to rule via Executive Order or delegate congressional powers to government agencies.

Foolish people who legislate, make a case in public opinion, or create case law for the restriction or extermination of any of specific enumerated right enable the extermination of not just the Bill of Rights but the entire constitutional principle of government.