Quote of the day–SayUncle

Not only should the president order the execution of the turkeys, he should kill both gobblers himself. With his bare hands, while wearing a loin cloth. He should then rise, his body glistening with sweat and blood, and take a bite out of its head and display it proudly to the American people.

SayUncle
November 22, 2005
My Platform
[While I strongly agree with the sentiment, and wouldn’t even mind the loincloth angle, I would be disappointed if he broke up a sweat or got blood on himself killing a turkey with his bare hands. In fact because the whole point of this it so show how manly he is to our enemies I’m thinking it should be a hog instead of a turkey. In which case if it was only bare hands I’d betting on the hog. So, I’d let him wimp out and him use a knife and/or a club. Now let the sweat and the blood glisten and our enemies cower.–Joe]

How to “do it”

Probably not safe for work. Funny video of couple learning about an “alternate lifestyle”.

Posted in Sex

Quote of the day–Michael D. Barnes

Q: Mr. LaPierre claimed membership of the NRA was about 3.5 million. What is the combined membership of the Brady Center, particularly after joining forces with the Million Mom March?

A: We’re a lot smaller, unfortunately. We’re working to grow, we’re about a half million. We’ve started a new effort through the Internet to expand our outreach and we’re now up to over a quarter million new people, who are not members, but have logged on to sign, for example, our petition in support of renewing the federal ban on assault weapons. The NRA likes to brag about its millions of members and our information is that it has dwindled significantly. They were over four million about four, five years ago, they used the Clinton administration as a real boogeyman to build up their membership, but The New York Times and others have indicated that their finances have suffered significantly recently and their membership is probably more like 2.5 million, but that’s still a lot.

But there are 90 million gun owners in the United States. Only 3.5 million want the insurance and magazines and the various things you get for joining the NRA. When you look on our side and who supports us, for example, in the fight to renew the assault weapons ban, we’ve got over 300 organizations in the United States working with us: teachers, nurses, doctors, the American Academy of Pediatrics, religious organizations, the League of Women Voters, the NAACP. I’ll put our supporters in this cause up against the NRA any day of the week. We represent far, far more Americans, and the polling is very clear on that.

Michael D. Barnes
President, Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence
June 23, 2004
AN ASSAULT ON OUR SAFETY: GUN POLICY IN AMERICA
[It’s interesting to me that he quickly changes the subject when asked how many members they have. Did you notice that when he talks about NRA membership he jumps from four million to 2.5 million to 3.5 million. And if you want to talk finances the numbers I have show the NRA non-profit divisions solidly in the black and the Brady non-profit division running deficits. And the NRA Special Contribution Fund, Whittington Center alone has greater donations than the Brady non-profit (2005 numbers). If you look at the NRA Foundation numbers you will see their income is increasing and is nearly six times the Brady income which is falling. Add in all the donated money from other pro-gun organizations like The Second Amendment Foundation and you will find the Brady Bunch, by far the largest collection of anti-gun bigots, has income numbers on the order of one tenth that of the good guys. Barnes is just blowing smoke.

I bring this talk of membership numbers up because others have been talking about it.–Joe]

Anti-gun reactions

In response to the U.S. Supreme Court agreeing to hear D.C. v. Heller The Brady Bunch said:

The Supreme Court’s decision in this case will be extremely significant – the most important decision on guns in nearly 70 years and maybe the most important ever regarding the Second Amendment.

On that point I think they are right. If we win we will be on the offense in a much bigger way than ever before. If we lose we will be on the defense with a handicap we have never before experienced.

The Gun Guys said:

Clearly, if laser guns that could kill someone from a thousand yards away were to come on the market (and they will), it would not be in the interest of protecting our law enforcement officials and citizens to allow such firearms to be sold to civilians. So, there is no absolute right to manufacture, sell and own any type of gun that the NRA and the gun industry claims to be a firearm protected under the Second Amendment. That is a dangerous and legally unsound notion, given that the courts have allowed gun control in the United States for as long as the laws have been in existence.

Perhaps he isn’t aware of my Spud Gun which “could kill someone from a thousand yards away” and that it is nothing more than a finely tuned hunting rifle (Remington 700).

He goes on to say:

It should be noted that within the gun control movement there was vigorous debate about whether or not to appeal the D.C. ruling. This is because, as it stands now, the striking down of the D.C. law is only applicable within the D.C. circuit.

The decision that the Supreme Court will render will affect the entire country – and it may be that there is a desire to stir up a political hornet’s nest on the issue during an election year, hoping that it will favor the Republicans.

I said back in March that if they were smart they would not appeal. But the roller coaster has just left the loading area and we are all going on an exciting ride with a good probability that someone is going to get thrown out before it stops next spring. The election year angle just adds more twists and turns (opportunities and risks).

Then the VPC says the D.C. ban is saving lives because D.C. has fewer suicides. It could be the numbers are bogus. For example if someone wanted to commit suicide they might just find a drug dealer and try to take his product from him. It would be ruled a murder and not a suicide. Still, I find this amusing. The VPC wants to protect us from ourselves but we are not allowed to protect ourselves from others. The first thing that comes to mind is–I wonder if they practice what they preach. If someone were in the middle of trying to commit suicide would they insist they stop then offer to do it for them because that would be more consistent with their philosophy?

And second, does this relate in some way to the apparent celebration of victim-hood by many liberals? They would rather have victims who have no control over their lives than people that take (the ultimate) control over their lives?

Speaking of the DOJ

Rather than preparing to prosecute anti-gun politicians and organizations someone at the DOJ just visited my blog:

Domain Name   usdoj.gov ? (United States Government)
IP Address   149.101.1.# (US Dept of Justice)
ISP   US Dept of Justice
Location  
Continent  :  North America
Country  :  United States  (Facts)
State  :  Maryland
City  :  Potomac
Lat/Long  :  39.023, -77.1993 (Map)
Distance  :  2,059 miles
Language   English (United States)
en-us
Operating System   Microsoft WinXP
Browser   Internet Explorer 6.0
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; DI60SP1001; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; InfoPath.1)
Javascript   version 1.3
Monitor  

Resolution  :  1024 x 768
Color Depth  :  16 bits

Time of Visit   Nov 20 2007 9:47:26 am
Last Page View   Nov 20 2007 9:47:26 am
Visit Length   0 seconds
Page Views   1
Referring URL http://search.msn.co…ze%3Alarge&FORM=SZIR
Search Engine search.msn.com
Search Words cake imagesize:large
Visit Entry Page   http://blog.joehuffm…date,2006-06-25.aspx
Visit Exit Page   http://blog.joehuffm…date,2006-06-25.aspx
Out Click    
Time Zone   UTC-5:00
Visitor’s Time   Nov 20 2007 12:47:26 pm
Visit Number   212,525

I wonder if they were really looking for the vagina cake. The thumbnail they clicked on here should have made it clear what they were going to end up with when they came to visit.

NRA news release on D.C. v. Heller

Find it here. The email I received from Ashley Varner (NRA public affairs) seemed to be shouting (yes, this was the font size in the original email):

U.S. Supreme Court to Hear First

Second Amendment Case Since 1939

I interpret this to mean she was happy about it. 🙂

The right question

The U.S. Supreme Court just announced their decision to take the D.C. v. Heller case. The question they will be answering is:

Whether the following provisions — D.C. Code secs. 7-2502.02(a)(4), 22-4504(a), and 7-2507.02 — violate the Second Amendment rights of individuals who are not affiliated with any state-regulated militia, but who wish to keep handguns and other firearms for private use in their homes?

This is the most fundamental difference we have over the Second Amendment with the anti-gun bigots. They claim the Second Amendment guarantees state governments the “right” (governments don’t have rights, they have enumerated powers) to possess arms. Assuming any significant attention is given to original intent (this may be a big assumption) then it is difficult for me to imagine this will go against us.

This is good, this is very good. Now to answer Uncle and Pro-Gun Progress’s question. If we get the answer we want we start attacking the next most egregious laws such as those in Chicago, New York City, and New Jersey. We must be careful to attack them in the proper order to make sure we have a solid foundation to build upon as we get to questions like, “Does the individual have a right to carry a weapon on school grounds?” If we attack the “grey area” questions first they might be decided against us and the foundation gets built on the wrong side of freedom. Ultimately I want to see the DOJ prosecuting anti-gun politicians and organizations under 18 USC 241 and 18 USC 242. But that, if it ever happens, will be a long time from now. But still, it should be our goal.

Quote of the day–Kristopher Barrett

The NRA is the equivalent of the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Junior. If they don’t deal with the NRA, they will find out the hard way who the equivalents to Malcolm X are in the pro-rights movement.

Kristopher Barrett
November 19, 2007
[From the comments of this post. He was educating Michael D. Barnes, President of The Brady Bunch, who claimed the NRA was extreme.–Joe]

L.A. Times gets snarky

I sometimes wish I could output snark like this:

The report follows recent news that screeners at Los Angeles International Airport missed 75% of the fake bombs that investigators tried to smuggle onto planes during tests two years ago. The excuse from TSA officials: The tests were difficult and designed to trip up screeners. Whereas Al Qaeda will doubtless hide its bombs in brightly marked packages.

But then I would probably want to use it for occasions that would jeopardize my job and marriage.

Clever kids lacking judgment

Clever trick–hacking a soda machine. But they qualify for an Insufficiently Myelinated Award for posting their faces along with their criminal acts.

[Via Bruce.]

National Ammo Day in the news

Today is the day (happy birthday to Kim du Toit) to buy some ammo and I just heard it on the radio news because the Seattle PI mentioned it:

Seattle resident Chris Pierce had left Butch’s Gun Shop on Sunday and was heading for the countryside in North Bend to fire rounds when he heard about National Ammo Day.

“I think it’s a great idea. It sends the message that firearms aren’t going away,” he said. “You can’t take out one part of the Constitution without ruining all of it.”

The thought of Monday as National Ammo Day, a period dedicated to buying bullets to support the Second Amendment, might send shivers down the backs of some Seattle residents.

But they are careful to get other opinions on the topic:

While many gun owners are preparing to part with their cash, a Washington CeaseFire spokeswoman said the day should have a different emphasis.

“As we approach Thanksgiving, we would better benefit from responsible firearms owners reminding the public of the importance of safe firearm storage,” group executive director Kristen Comer said.

“The safest place for firearms … is locked and out of reach of children and others who might otherwise place themselves in danger.”

She said she believes responsible gun owners are not in jeopardy of losing access to firearms and bullets.

A spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Seattle said his agency has no position on National Ammo Day.

And you just know what question was asked and the mindset behind it that prompted this response:

To mark it, Taff plans to buy 100 rounds and fire them at a Bellevue range.

While Monday marks the sixth annual National Ammo Day, Taff heard about it only recently.

He was not concerned that criminals would use the day to clear ammunition shelves and then commit robberies.

Make what you want of this

Someone in Iran is looking for information on liquid explosives:

Domain Name   (Unknown) 
IP Address   80.191.3.# (Tarbiat Modares University)
ISP   Telecommunication Company of Iran (TCI)
Location  
Continent  :  Asia
Country  :  Iran, Islamic Republic of  (Facts)
State/Region  :  Tehran
City  :  Tehran
Lat/Long  :  35.6719, 51.4244 (Map)
Distance  :  6,695 miles
Language   English (United States)
en-us
Operating System   Microsoft WinXP
Browser   Firefox
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.9) Gecko/20071025 Firefox/2.0.0.9
Javascript   version 1.5
Monitor  

Resolution  :  1024 x 768
Color Depth  :  32 bits

Time of Visit   Nov 19 2007 5:23:46 am
Last Page View   Nov 19 2007 5:23:46 am
Visit Length   0 seconds
Page Views   1
Referring URL http://www.google.co…ikipedia&btnG=Search
Search Engine google.com
Search Words exclusion ability for liquid explosive matter wikipedia
Visit Entry Page   http://blog.joehuffm…t,month,2006-08.aspx
Visit Exit Page   http://blog.joehuffm…t,month,2006-08.aspx
Out Click    
Time Zone   UTC+4:00
Visitor’s Time   Nov 19 2007 4:53:46 pm
Visit Number   211,987

Kids and Santa

We were probably a little more honest with our kids about Santa than most parents. We had to explicitly tell them to “keep the secret” from some of their cousins. Thus we avoided little unplanned revelations like this (thanks to Rob for forwarding it to me).

But our girls did somehow manage to find the contents of the top shelf in the work room with both volumes of The Kinsey Report and other books that had more photos that words. Which reminds me. I think there is still room on that shelf for this book.

First snowfall

We had the first snow of fall in Moscow, Idaho yesterday. I left about 13:20 to try getting over the pass to my hardened, underground bunker near Seattle before dark. It snowed or rained on me the whole way. The road had a little slush on the pass but I never had any problems although I saw a couple accidents where people made unplanned excursions from I-90.

Xenia took some pictures near our Moscow home but only posted one so I stole this one from her computer because I like it better:

Quote of the day–Samantha Carter

You know, you blow up one sun and suddenly everyone expects you to walk on water.

Samantha Carter
A character in Stargate SG-1
Played by Amanda Tapping
[James and I just finished watching this series on DVD. It was good. Very good. We’re sorry it’s over. The ending could have been a little bit better. James was probably a little more disappointed than I. I thought it left things such that you could imagine how all the unresolved things would probably be figured out and that was okay. But James was a bit annoyed saying that it wasn’t that much different than the ending of any other episode. I figure it gives them possibilities for the movies.–Joe]

Not Missouri

In August of 2006 Barb and I spent a week in Missouri and Kansas. I’d spent a little time in that area of the country on business 20 years ago but Barb hadn’t been there before. In addition to taking in the local claims to fame we expected to do some of the usual things we do in the northwest–hike in the wood. We were disappointed in that regard.

The part of Kansas we were in, essentially, didn’t have any woods and we didn’t even look for a place to hike. Missouri was a little better but from our perspective it was very odd. There just weren’t any trails to speak of. And the ones we found were just “blah”. We did do a little bit of hiking and thought we understood part of the reason people didn’t do much hiking.

  1. The humidity made it uncomfortable.
  2. It just wasn’t that interesting compared to what we were used to.
  3. It’s flat. The highest altitude in Missiouri is 1772 ft and the lowest is 230 ft for a difference of only 1542 ft over the entire state.

On October 28th of this year we, after spending most of the day in bed, went for a hike toward Wallace Falls near Gold Bar Washington. We got off much too late and had to turn around before we reached the falls so we could get back to the car before dark. We were pleased with what we saw and decided to try it again and get an earlier start. On November 11th we started our hike a little after 10:00 AM and made it all the way to the upper falls.

We were leaning against the rail taking in the beauty of the upper falls and I said, “You know we aren’t in Missouri don’t you?” Barb laughed and knew exactly what I was talking about even though it had been over a year since we had been in Missouri.

A few days later I told our son James about it, including the background about our time in Kansas and Missouri. He responded with something his friend Tucker had said numerous times, “Kansas is flatter than a pancake–they’ve done tests.”

Here are a few pictures to show you what I’m talking about. It’s definitely not Missouri.

Quote of the day–Michael D. Barnes

The NRA is extreme. Their positions on gun policy are, as the police chief of Los Angeles William Bratton has said, “Sheer lunacy.” It is only a matter of time before the NRA either adjusts to the real world or loses its power. A modern democratic society has the right to self-defense and that’s exactly why the battle for sensible gun laws will ultimately be won by the reasonable voices in our society. We have the right to defend ourselves against madmen with assault weapons. We have the right to defend ourselves against unrestricted gun sales to criminals or terrorists. And we’re eventually going to win those rights.

Michael D. Barnes
June 23, 2004
President, Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence
AN ASSAULT ON OUR SAFETY: GUN POLICY IN AMERICA
 
[Interesting twist of the definition of ‘rights’. “And we’re going to obtain the ‘power'” would be the more appropriate words to use in this context. But that would bring about the defeat of his argument. And of course never once does he hint he has an appropriate answer to Just One Question.–Joe]

Another brick in the wall

Where else?

Boston police are launching a program that will call upon parents in high-crime neighborhoods to allow detectives into their homes, without a warrant, to search for guns in their children’s bedrooms.

First they get people used to the police searching around in their homes without a warrant. Then when they refuse it will be probable cause for a search warrant.

[Via an email from Jason.]

Quote of the day–Bruce Schneier

How many of us have paused during conversation in the past four-and-a-half years, suddenly aware that we might be eavesdropped on? Probably it was a phone conversation, although maybe it was an e-mail or instant-message exchange or a conversation in a public place. Maybe the topic was terrorism, or politics, or Islam. We stop suddenly, momentarily afraid that our words might be taken out of context, then we laugh at our paranoia and go on. But our demeanor has changed, and our words are subtly altered.

This is the loss of freedom we face when our privacy is taken from us. This is life in former East Germany, or life in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. And it’s our future as we allow an ever-intrusive eye into our personal, private lives.

Too many wrongly characterize the debate as “security versus privacy.” The real choice is liberty versus control. Tyranny, whether it arises under threat of foreign physical attack or under constant domestic authoritative scrutiny, is still tyranny. Liberty requires security without intrusion, security plus privacy. Widespread police surveillance is the very definition of a police state. And that’s why we should champion privacy even when we have nothing to hide.

Bruce Schneier
May 19, 2006
The Value of Privacy
[I don’t think very many people really get this. They make the trade of essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety and don’t realize they will end up with neither (yes, I’m corrupting Franklin’s quote a bit).–Joe]

J-cups

Breasts are getting larger in the U.K. Stores are introducing J-cup bras for the first time.

Not that I need a bra or anything.

And I prefer women to not wear bras, or even clothes for that matter. But I thought someone might find it interesting. Some guys are into the big breast thing. Even if I were I don’t think it is worth going to a repressive state like the U.K. for those sort of thrills.

Posted in Sex