I found your email when you were sticking up for that republican bitch michelle malkin. If you know whats good you will keep your fucking mouth shut about Obama or you will come up missing on the news.
Joseph C. jcXXXXX@yahoo.com
November 10, 2012 8:43 AM
Original email and header is here.
[I suspect he was referring to this web page. I haven’t checked my log files yet but I suspect he found it via this blog post.
Whtepages.com found one result (Chula Vista is a suburb of San Diego):
[redacted]
Chula Vista, CA 91913-2332
He is 28 years old.
Additional information forJoseph C.:
I value my privacy and take somewhat extreme measures to protect it.
On my desk in front of me is a business card of one of my previous jobs. My title was Senior Research Scientist II at a government laboratory where I worked on “Cyber Security” projects.
Any place that I frequent should be considered a known distance gun range.
We need gun control. Obama, if you’re reading, which I know you are of course, it’s time to tackle gun control now that your second term is in the bag. Be a badass. Do it.
I got carded at Dominick’s the other day for buying natural cough medicine. Ingredients? Honey and eucalyptus – a real meth lab waiting to happen. We live in a world where cough medicine is regulated, where you need a license to fish and in most states, women have to endure mandatory waiting periods for a certain medical procedure. Our cars have to pass emission inspections. Restaurants have to adhere to health codes. But guns? Oh, you just buy those and toss ’em in your closet for your kids to find, sell them on the black market or twirl them around your thumbs like Yosemite Sam. Root ’em toot ’em! Guns are dangerous and yet remain highly unregulated.
She recognizes being carded for honey and eucalyptus is silly but rather than call for an end to that she demands guns, a specific enumerated right, be more regulated than they already are.
From a legal standpoint governments have the power to, and do, regulate honey and eucalyptus. There is even a good chance they could ban both and no court would overturn it (the voters probably would be different story). A specific enumerated right such as your religion, speech, reading material, firearms, a speedy trial, right to legal counsel, and right to not incriminate yourself? Not so much.
But she is from Chicago, you shouldn’t expect her to understand freedom and rights.—Joe]
There are three possible parts to a date, of which at least two must be offered: entertainment, food, and affection. It is customary to begin a series of dates with a great deal of entertainment, a moderate amount of food, and the merest suggestion of affection. As the amount of affection increases, the entertainment can be reduced proportionately. When the affection IS the entertainment, we no longer call it dating.
Under no circumstances can the food be omitted.
Judith Martin AKA “Miss Manners” [I was reminded of this Saturday after making dinner for Barb L. A great number of our dates have not involved any food. It is clear that neither of us are “customary” and this is just one more data point.
For more background–her daughter insisted that Barb change her match.com description of herself to say “eclectic” rather than “eccentric”. I don’t think it would have mattered to me. If eccentric or even weird were to be an issue then the first ten minutes of the first date would have been the end of it.—Joe]
I was inspired by comments on a Facebook page (Annette Wachter’s) about considering moving to another state such as Idaho, Wyoming, or South Dakota and I added my random thought:
I’m thinking I would like to move a little further away. The moon sounds nice. Or maybe Mars. I wouldn’t need any wind doping skills on the moon but I think I want a little more gravity so my bones don’t weaken to the point I couldn’t return to earth if I really wanted to sort through the wreckage in a decade or so.
I had a rough day today. Not nearly enough sleep last night then some lawyer/divorce stuff to deal with on top of the election results. It’s time to go to bed and pull the covers over my head for a few hours. I’ll feel better in the morning.
Are you free sometime this weekend? I feel the need for a long, serious conversation.
My first thought was, “OH NO! What did I do this time?”
Then I realized there was the potential for another reason. I responded with:
Topic? Politics? Personal?
I guessed right. It was the election:
Politics/survival
We will have our conversation. We’ll increase our odds and probably do okay. The rest of the world? I’m skeptical. As Thomas Sowell has said via Twitter recently:
And as I have said many times, the looters are soon going to run out of places to loot. And I don’t plan on hanging around when that happens. I just hope I can get most of my possessions and all of those I care about out of harms way.
I agree with Ari in this video. The design of their “suppressor” eye protection is a great improvement in comfort and getting a good seal around your ears when wearing hearing protection. They gave me a pair and I am very pleased with them.
[H]ostility can only grow between liberals and conservatives, haves and have-nots, public and private workers, taxpayers and recipients. We wish Mr. Romney luck, but he’ll have his hands full merely trying to keep blood from running in the streets, never mind returning America to prosperity.
RickAckerman November 2, 2012 Liberal/Conservative Divide Only Grows Uglier [I think there is more than a little truth in this statement even if the assumption of a Romney victory was incorrect. With the Obama victory I don’t see prosperity being an option but blood running in the streets will probably be postponed for a few years. The thing is that I see the blood running deeper when it does start running as I suspect it must when the looters run out of places to loot.
Also mentioned in the post (in reference to this article):
It seems the matchmaking business has declined in recent years because clients seeking mates are increasingly putting political compatibility at the top of their lists. “In this neck-and-neck, ideologically fraught election season, politically active singles won’t cross party lines,” the Journal noted. “The result is a dating desert populated by reds and blues who refuse to make purple.” So much for romance these days.
I can’t say how things were 10 years ago or even 10 months ago but when I was doing the online dating thing a couple months ago I saw similar signs. There were many woman who explicated said they were conservative/liberal and wanted to find someone compatible.
Although I do hear talk these days of violence being a viable means of resolving the political differences the talk seems to be less serious than it did in the late 1990s. But it could be that it I was, and am, just more in touch with the gun rights community than with the liberals who seem to be doing most of the talking these days. In the late 1990s gun rights were under severe attack and there are now times it could be claimed that liberalism is being threatened.—Joe]
Josh Horwitz went on a rant about gun bloggers who might download and read a book on making explosives. He named a number of gun bloggers and there was no mention of me! And I probably have a dozen books on explosives on my shelf already.
What do I have to do to get some attention from him? I publish instructions, testresults, and teach others how to make explosives on a fairly regular basis. I even describe how to take down an airplane with explosives made from common household materials. What more do I have to do to make the cut?
I think there is some sort of discrimination going on here and there should be a law against that. He shouldn’t be allowed to exercise his First Amendment privileges unless he can pass a competency test. If he is going to rant about gun bloggers and explosives then it is clear I should be number one on anyone’s list. He should forfeit his license to write or speak in public. It’s only common sense. We can do better than to allow people that incompetent to spout their lies of omission in public.
Update: As pointed out in the comment by fast richard, Horwitz has corrected his error. But he did not apologize for or acknowledge his lie of omission. I have not yet forgiven him. I still have a lot of crying to do before I’m going to feel better about this. And there ought to be a law to help prevent others from ever going through what I have gone through.
As civilization breaks down and looters roam through New York, New Jersey, and other places devastated by hurricane Sandy and made defenseless by unconstitutional laws it is a good time to remember The Gun is Civilization.
There are lots of things that are true enough in general that one is tempted to claim more extensive application is valid. In general this is harmless and the exceptions to the general rule will be handled appropriately. But in the case of enabling government power to enforce what sounds like a good idea you can end up enabling poor law and even evil. Our “war on drugs” is but one example.
Joe Waldron from the WA-CCW email list and long time lobbyist for for CCRKBA gives us the following example and how it was defeated early and decisively:
Several years ago, a City Attorney from a small town north of Seattle tried to interest legislators in a bill that would make possession of a firearm in a public place, while under the influence of alcohol, an offense in itself. He asked the gun lobby for support. We agreed that alcohol and guns do not mix. So we offered to support the bill… provided that the day it took effect, he would accompany us to every cop bar in town and arrest those in violation.
I took a bunch of psychology classes in college. They were easy and fun for me. In one class I got extra credit for participating in grad student psych experiments. One such experiment required I take some sort of standard psychological test. I tested as pretty normal except for two characteristics. One was something like “logical versus emotional”. I was way out of the normal range in the direction of “logical”. The other characteristic was “psychological mindedness” or some such thing. On that “axis” I again scored way out of the normal range in direction of being very “psychologically minded”. The grad student that went over my test results with me said the logical was consistent with being an engineering major. But the level of psychological mindedness was usually only found in psych grad students or professional psychologists. I guess that explained why I enjoyed the classes and did well.
With that in mind I find some parts of political campaigns extremely interesting and at the same time disturbing.
The disturbing part has nothing to do with the actual policies of the candidates or that they are exploiting, probably intentionally, certain psychological characteristics that have nothing to do with sound policy. And in fact have been exploited by leaders throughout history to lead their people to disaster and massive genocide against innocent people. Of course those same psychological tools have been used for good as well as evil.
In the following two videos one of the more interesting irrational characteristics is being exploited:
That characteristics is that people tend to go along with the crowd. If large numbers of other people are doing something then there is a strong tendency for others to follow along. People attend political events, sporting events, rock concerts, and many religious events and talk about “the energy” of the crowd. Most people crave this mass excitement and want to be a part of it. In politics the words and the intonation of the speeches are specifically designed (intentionally or not) to stimulate this excitement, to encourage you to participate, and for you to “belong”.
If you remember the 2008 election the media made a big deal about the large number of Obama supporters at the Obama political events. I haven’t noticed that this year. And because I donated some money to the Romney campaign this year I get frequent emails from them. Many of them include pictures of large crowds in support of his campaign. The videos above were just a sample.
I find political events boring. I can sense the “energy” people talk about but the “bandwidth” of the communication is so low that I’m bored. I’d much rather read the politicians policy statements than hear vague words expressed with great excitement interrupted by yelling and applause every few seconds. The “energy” is a source of irritation to me. I get excited by seeing things that work rather than things that excite other people.
That doesn’t mean that I don’t “exploit” this psychological characteristic as well. Besides my personal love of explosives and long range shooting Boomershoot is a means of generating excitement to encourage gun ownership and long range rifle skills. When in front of the camera for Boomershoot I try to emote the enthusiasm that will encourage more participants. I’m not interested in the Boomershoot dinner with a crowd of people but I make it happen, attend, talk to people, and usually say a few things to the crowd because that socialization is extremely important to some people.
This psychological characteristic is just one more reason why we need strict limits on governmental powers. It is not the politician with the best policies that necessarily get chosen. There is some component of policy into the final vote tally but to a large extent it is the politician with the best team of psychologists (whether they realize they are psychologists or not) that can exploit weakness in the human mind for votes, money, and volunteers that will win. And there is a high correlation between those with natural ability in this area and the people who should be kept the greatest distance from political power. Limited government is a means of minimizing the damage done by these people. Both because it reduces the ability of them to do damage and because limited power is less attractive to them in the first place.
As I said in email to Kevin, “What isn’t said is that you can do the same thing to a room, building or airplane.” I know people who have taken down a house with a few cups of flour.
And how do you think it would work out if TSA were to test for flour, powdered sugar, and non-dairy creamer? Those powdered donuts you had for a quick snack before running to the security line would get you the full blue glove treatment. And as long as they don’t do those tests testing for conventional explosives and searching for knives, guns, and throwing away your shampoo is nothing but security theater.
As pointed out at the end of the video as soon as someone talks about “the gap” between the rich and the poor they have revealed themselves and their true nature.
It was over 20 years a friend of mine, Susan K., told me essentially the same thing as part of a pitch about her love of Ayn Rand’s work. I read Atlas Shrugged years earlier when I was in my late teens. I really liked it but I hadn’t really followed up with her other works. Susan got me started again. Susan’s explanation of the preference of the left for poorer people as long as the gap was less was effective on me but it wasn’t as simple and as forceful as the way Ms. Thatcher expressed it.
For a different and more rigorous approach read Thomas Sowell’s book Black Rednecks and White Liberals or one of his many of his other works. The gist is that a critical item overlooked by those that complain about “the gap” is that different people are in the category of “poor” and “rich” over time. Of course someone in their first job is going to be earning far less than someone who has been working and learning about their area of expertise for 40 years. And over larger time spans it is pointed out there used to be complaints about the “railroad barons” and the super rich oil tycoons and others in steel and automobile industries. Those have been replaced by people in new industries and many of those older industries are essentially dead in this country. And even within an industry those with a seemingly invincible grip in one decade can be struggling or gone the next.
Economics is about the optimal allocation of scarce recourses. Optimal allocation obviously increases the total wealth of society. But what the statists don’t realize, or perhaps don’t want you to know so they can obtain personal power or wealth, is that something much closer to optimal allocation occurs when markets and minds are free rather than when dictated by the central committee with their decisions backed up by guns.
Don’t ever be at a loss for words when someone whines about the rich getting richer. Don’t try to explain that it doesn’t or shouldn’t matter if some people get rich or that it means there is opportunity for others to get rich. Handle it as Ms. Thatcher did. Follow it up by forcefully making the case that if the gap between the rich and the poor is a valid cause for government and/or social action then they will never be satisfied until full equality is achieved. And there are those that admit what they demand is full equality in just those words. But what they cannot seem to comprehend is that full equality can only be approximated by everyone being in extreme poverty. Full equality comes with death. And it should come as no surprise the political left is well acquainted with death on a very large scale.—Joe]
What happened since the 1960s is that capitalism morphed towards socialism by accepting all those rules on enterprise which the gov’t wrote, and socialist governments got used to the capitalist bribes, and learned to relax the rules at the right times to promote “welfare capitalism”.
A third political force, libertarianism, sprang up to replace pure capitalism with it’s property rights-driven theory, and a fourth force, Marxism, arose to inject pure collectivism back into what used to be socialism.
The entire process is like watching clouds form and dissipate over the mountains.
Sarah and Jim Brady and the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence with its network of Million Mom March Chapters endorsed Senator Barack Obama for President and Senator Joseph Biden for Vice President today, and urged Americans to vote for them.
From looking at the chart and the date of the Brady Campaign endorsement announcement it’s clear the Brady Campaign causes gun sales.* Lots of gun sales.
*I’m just mocking them. Of course I know correlation does not necessarily mean causation.
NRA has now recovered fees in excess of 1.3 million dollars. So for losing the cases, Chicago and the other cities involved paid a total of over 1.7 million dollars to firearms civil rights groups. In September 2012, the NRA filed another Motion for Supplemental Attorneys’ Fees. By that motion, the NRA is now seeking attorneys’ fees and expenses incurred in litigating its original motion for attorneys’ fees. Because these fees and expenses were not included in the amount of the August fee award, Chicago and Oak Park will most likely be writing more checks to the NRA!
The wages of the sins of Chicago and other cities are to pay those that represent their victims. I would prefer the individuals that made the stupid decisions to use the power of government to infringe upon specific enumerated rights had to compensate the victims directly and then spend time in prison as per 18 USC 242. But it is a huge improvement over the situation of 15 years ago.
I’ve been getting a few quasi-random hits on my post “Why are liberals so violent?” It turns out that if you do a search for “why are liberals so violent” (without the quotes) Google gives my post the number two ranking. Bing gives it number four.
