Author Archives: Joe

Quote of the day–Sebastian

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You also have to figure it’s probably frustrating as hell for them to not have a single legislative achievement at the federal level in 14 years. They try to push a bill, after the worst mass shooting in our nation’s history, that makes so many concessions to gun owners that the NRA doesn’t have any problem with it, and they still can’t get it through Congress because the Brady name and cause have become so politically poisonous that even a whiff of their involvement is enough to send Congress running.

Sebastian
December 17, 2007
Can You Smell the Desperation?
[Regarding Brady Campaign President Paul Helmke’s blog post.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Gene Fowler

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An editor should have a pimp for a brother, so he’d have someone to look up to.

Gene Fowler
1992 Daily Curmudgeon Calendar
[Uncle’s example from the New York Times where they rant about the lack of gun control reminded me of this.–Joe]

A few teeth short of a full gear

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I find it difficult to model the mind of someone that says, all in the same article, the following things. The best I can come up with is some sort of machine with most of the gears missing teeth. It starts and stops and sort of seems to be working but the end results is totally different from what is expected for the given input.

In the circumstances in which we find ourselves, we have to ask the question whether anyone outside of the security forces must be allowed to carry a gun at all. Gun control is a controversial issue all over the world. Opponents of gun control argue that it takes away the rights of good people to protect themselves while criminals will always find a way to own or use guns.

[…]

I am aware that there is a body of evidence, especially in the US that shows that gun bans or even gun control does not substantially affect the crime rate.

[…]

Therefore the unpalatable conclusion must be that gun control has failed and has to be replaced by a complete gun ban at least for a period of time preceded by a campaign against gun use and ownership and an amnesty for the handing in of illegal guns.

Gun control has failed therefore we need more gun control? It’s typical, even though I don’t understand it except as a sort of psychological pathology.

Quote of the day–2008 Presidential Candidates

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As a private citizen, as a prosecutor, as a Mayoral candidate and as Mayor, I have advocated for more regulated and more uniform gun licensing regulations, similar to those for a drivers license.

Rudy Giuliani

We do have tough gun laws in Massachusetts. I support them. I won’t chip away at them. I believe they protect us and provide for our safety.

Mitt Romney

A few years ago, Congress passed a law to make sure people undergo a simple background check before buying a gun… Problem is, there’s a dangerous loophole because right now the law doesn’t cover most of America’s gun shows.

John McCain

The real effect of these gun-control measures is to place onerous restrictions on law-abiding citizens who use firearms for such legal activities as self-defense, sport-shooting, hunting, and collecting.

Fred Thompson

The Founding Fathers weren’t worried about our being able to bag a duck or a deer, they were worried about our keeping our fundamental freedoms.

Mike Huckabee

I share our Founders’ belief that in a free society each citizen must have the right to keep and bear arms. They ratified the Second Amendment knowing that this right is the guardian of every other right, and they all would be horrified by the proliferation of unconstitutional legislation that prevents law-abiding Americans from exercising this right.

Ron Paul

Via Jeff Knox Candidates on Rights
[There is a fair amount of further information in Knox’s post.–Joe]

Qutoe of the day–National Association for Gun Rights

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WHEREAS: The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which provides that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, must be protected by every Member of Congress.

WHEREAS: Sarah Brady and the Gun Control Lobby are already bragging how they are going to work with their allies in Congress to put the right to keep and bear arms on the congressional chopping block.

WHEREAS: Sarah Brady and the rabid gun-grabbers are planning to ban private gun sales, exterminate gun stores, renew the Clinton Gun Ban, enact gun rationing, ban other self-defense guns, expand no-safety zones, make concealed carry permits useless and otherwise infringe on the Gun Rights of Americans.

THEREFORE: Let every U.S. Senator know I’m opposed to such efforts to undermine my right to keep and bear arms and I demand Congress pass “NO MORE GUN CONTROL.”

National Association for Gun Rights
No More Gun Control Petition
[I got a call a few minutes ago asking me to listen to a message from Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave. I did listen and it asked me to sign the above petition and donate money. I signed the petition but haven’t donated any money. This week I put $1300 into car repairs and it’s not a good time of year for finding extra cash anyway.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Winston Churchill

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You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.

Winston Churchill
[Remember that when you consider “biting your tongue” rather than offend an anti-freedom bigot who deserves to be offended or worse. If you don’t speak up for the things you most strongly believe in then you should not be surprised when you lose the things you most cherish..–Joe]

Quote of the day–Mika Brzezinski

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You know, that is the most inane statement I have ever heard.

Mika Brzezinski
December 11, 2007
Video here: 2007-12-11MSNBCMJMika.wmv (2.17 MB)
In response to Joe Scarborough telling her, “One person with a gun in the right place can make a big difference.” in regards to Jeanne Assam stopping the murderer at the New Life Church in Colorado Springs.
Via Mark Finkelstein at NewsBusters and an email from Ashley Varner @ the NRA-ILA.
[No attempt at refuting the claim, just dismiss it. But of course what else could she do other than change her mind? The facts speak for themselves.–Joe]

Whining about legal sales of guns

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Just outside the city limits of Chicago there are gun shops selling guns to people that live in the city. That is an entirely legal transaction. They owners of the new guns are prohibited by Chicago law from bringing the guns into the city. Since some of them violate that law the politicians and media are whining and making plans to shut down the gun shops–who did not violate the law. Nothing to see here, just punishing the innocent, move along now.

Farscape season one

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James and I just finished up Stargate Atlantis season three and were going to start watching Farscape but the first season is very tough to find on DVD. Is there anyone near where I roam (Seattle to north central Idaho) willing to loan it to us for a few weeks?

Thanks.

Quote of the day–Jack Hunter

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According to both statistics and sheer logic, the very notion of gun control is so patently stupid, that only people with too much education could possibly believe it, and it is no accident that for self-described “progressives,” gun control is often at the top of their list. Call me old fashioned, but I much prefer English statesman Edmund Burke’s observation that “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” And when it comes to these random shootings, allowing as many good men possible the ability to shoot back is our only hope for less deadly results in the future.

Jack Hunter
Columnist
December 11, 2007
WTMA commentary broadcast
The Insane Logic of Gun Control
[And good women.–Joe]

The free market is a wonderful thing

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The little guys try harder:

In what’s likely to be seen as a privacy-friendly move, IAC Search & Media’s Ask.com search engine Tuesday announced a new feature called AskEraser that deletes a user’s search activity data from the company’s servers.

When enabled by the user, the feature will completely delete search queries and associated cookie information from Ask.com servers — including IP addresses, user IDs, session IDs and the text of queries made, according to the company. In most cases, the deletion will take place within a few hours of the time a search is completed, the company said.

What’s bizarre is that some people want government involvement in something where the big concern is government involvement to begin with:

Ask.com has also said that it will also retain user search data in cases where it is required by law to do so, according to Chester. Formal legal requests for search data will continue to be honored, even if AskEraser is enabled.

As a result, Chester argued that Ask.com still hasn’t fully addressed consumer privacy concerns.

“Some privacy advocates will suggest that this announcement shows the ‘market’ is working,” he said. “No doubt, that’s what Google and the other online advertisers opposed to a serious privacy policy will echo, whispering it to regulators, lawmakers and journalists. That’s why a national privacy policy is required.”

Running on empty makes the news

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I reported the other day that I was very, very busy at work and was putting in some very long hours on weekends and evenings/nights/early-mornings. They’ve been telling us it’s really important to get these changes done soon, we can’t miss this deadline, etc., etc. It’s not that I doubted that, but it’s interesting when aspects of the project my officemate and I have been spending unreal hours working on (she worked all day on her birthday this last Sunday) make the news.

To my Program Manager and Dev Lead who have been expressing concern; Yes, we will be code complete by Friday. There will probably still be bugs which won’t be fixed for week or two but the feature set will be there and working. Perhaps as early as tomorrow.

Quote of the day–E. B. White

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Genius is more often found in a cracked pot than in a whole one.

E. B. White
[While this may seem to be true I would have to see the actual numbers to believe it myself. I have known and worked with many people that qualify as genius in the I.Q. department. I suspect that the genius can see what others either cannot or do not want to see and ignores many societal conventions simply because they are superfluous. This gives the appearance of “cracked”. The non-genius wishes to either deny they are blind, and/or have their eyes closed, calls the genius “cracked” in an effort to bring the genius down to their level. Still, using the model as described above could be useful if for no other reason than you don’t reject the company or contribution of someone “a little strange”. Being in the company of genius can have it’s advantages and is perhaps worth putting up with a little strangeness.–Joe]

yo jo

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Sometimes you can’t make this stuff up. Now maybe someone did make this up and is just playing with me but I would expect a bimodal distribution across this particular dimension if that were the case. Instead I get a more normal distribution with this guy pushing the limits of the tail.

From: XXX@aol.com
Sent: Monday, December 10, 2007 3:46 PM
To: Joe
Subject: yo jo

yo want a bomd well do you want tio kill some one becouse you can use a fairly resonoble flash pree bomb that will make a lot of nois ans send shrapnal for several hundred feet take any house hold cleener that has hydreclorikacid in it and add mettle shavings to detinate if you want shrapnal to maximize damage atache it to the 12oz botle you mix the chemical and medil shavings in or put glass inside the botle etyher or your bomb will be loud and there will be no flas

________________________________________
See AOL’s top rated recipes and easy ways to stay in shape for winter.

Just as one would expect it is an AOL user. The IP address places the sender in New York City.

Quote of the day–Adam Smith

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It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages.

Adam Smith
The Wealth of Nations
[I just finished listening to Free to Choose and just started Freedomnomics. Both, and rightly so, reference Smith’s book and the quote above.–Joe]

Running on empty

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I’ve been working very long hours the last week or so–including this weekend. Barb came over to my Seattle area “bunker” to visit and it’s a good thing she had lots of scrap-booking supplies to work with while I was doing the “work from home” thing. I’m waiting for a build to complete now after making tons of changes.

Anyway, sorry for not making anything but the QOTD posts, not answering email, and almost not reading anyone else’s blog postings for days. I haven’t been doing much except work, a little food, watching a couple crappy movies on-line with Barb (Breasts, A Boy and His Dog, and Darwin Awards), and partaking in liberal amounts of Dr. Joe’s Cure for Everything as needed.

Things will probably still be pretty busy for the rest of the week before I get through this crunch period.

Thanks for your patience.

Quote of the day–“NW”

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Honestly, and as God as my witness, when I saw him shooting and as watched for a few seconds trying to figure out what he was going to do and what I should do, the thought that when through my mind was, “If I had a gun, I have a perfect shot.”

Yes, a perfect shot. I had a full side profile, I was close, and no one was visible behind him execept a wall. I had a clear shot during the second round of fire. I told this to every cop I came in contact with. The interviewer agreed.

When I realized that I had no gun, fear instantly struck me, along with anger, and severe panic.

[…]

I am very angry at the city of Omaha and the mall for their stupid laws that nearly cost me my life. The laws protected no one, and in my opinion, caused people to die.

“NW”
A witness to the Omaha Mall mass shooting
Via Joe’s Crabby Shack, thanks to an email from Rob.
[People died because some anti-gun bigots didn’t even try to answer Just One Question before they passed criminal rules prohibiting firearms in the mall.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Wayne LaPierre

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The days of political candidates being able to duck and run on the Second Amendment issue are over. It’s time to find out what their real positions are, and I challenge every reporter who has access to Hillary to pose these questions to her.

Wayne LaPierre
December 7, 2007
Some Questions for Clinton
A .MP3 version of the entire blog posting is here.
[The Internet and computers furthers the cause of freedom more than the cause of the oppressor.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Mark Twain

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It is by the fortune of God that, in this country, we have three benefits: freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and the wisdom never to use either.

Mark Twain
[Reading all the editorials about the Omaha mall shooting reminded me of this. They never bother to consider Just One Question.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Milton and Rose Friedman

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The government official is supposed to be our servant. When you are sitting across the desk from a representative of the Internal Revenue Service who is auditing your tax return, which one of you is the master and which the servant?

Milton and Rose Friedman
Copyright 1979
Page 298, Free to Choose–A Personal Statement
[This is an excellent book. However, you might want to have your blood pressure medication available.–Joe]