Author Archives: Joe

Giving thanks

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I was chatting with my landlords about Thanksgiving plans this evening and remembered a Thanksgiving story I shared with them.  A friend of mine was at Thanksgiving dinner with parents, grandparents, etc and they went around the table sharing what they were thankful for.  My friend, in addition to being rebellious, was sexually active at a rather young age.  She, at the age of 15 or 16, told the entire family she was thankful for birth control.

I’ll bet that really changed the atmosphere of that particular family gathering.

Posted in Sex

Sex profits

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Innovation as well as expanding their market share of existing products brought greater profits to Durex recently:

The launch of sex toys and new types of condoms has lifted sales growth at Durex to a record 10 per cent. And SSL, which owns the Durex brand, promised further growth yesterday as it launched a new range of sex aids for men that will be available in Tesco and Boots.

A range of vibrators and lubricants sold under the Durex Play brand accounted for half of the sales growth reported yesterday. Durex revenues were £77.1m in the six months to 30 September.

The decision by Boots to stock a new £5.99 vibrating ring for men represents a significant U-turn for the high street chain. At the start of this year it backed out of talks to launch the Durex Play range of vibrators, for fear of a conservative backlash. The range was eventually launched by Superdrug.

…

Tesco insisted yesterday the disposable rings – which last 20 minutes and have a small vibrating pad to enhance the pleasure of women during sex – were not sex toys but part of the health and family planning range.

SSL claimed that Durex’s global market share had risen to 30 per cent after strong growth in the US and Eastern Europe, and thanks to the launch of innovative condoms, such as Pleasuremax, which is ribbed, and Tingle, which is coated with a lubricant that gives a tingling sensation.

SSL, which owns the Scholl footwear and footcare brands, reported interim profits of £17.3m, up from £10.5m in the half-year to 30 September 2004.

Quote of the day–Frank Rizzo

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The streets are safe in Philadelphia, it’s only the people who make them unsafe.

Philadelphia Mayor, Frank Rizzo
[My guess is that neither truer, nor more stupid, words have ever been spoken.  The solutions to the problem Rizzo outlines are many but only a few are acceptable.  Philadelphia has had a problem getting it right for many decades.–Joe]

The two Chinese business men

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Once upon a time there were two Chinese businessmen, No Cum and How Cum.  For reasons yet unknown, How Cum was unmarried.  But No Cum was married to a lovely little Chinese lady by the name of No Cum Too.  One night, while No Cum was away on business, No Cum Too invited How Cum to spend the evening with her.  That night How Cum had great pleasure as No Cum Too came and How Cum came too.  After a few months had past, No Cum found that he was to became a father and he did not know How Cum.  So, when the number one son was born, he named him How Cum You Cum.  And to this day, both No Cum Too and How Cum know how number one son How Cum You Cum came, but No Cum has never found out how number one son How Cum You Cum came.

Told by Gordon Lightfoot
October 1973 at his concert in Moscow Idaho as an introduction for his song, That’s What You Get For Loving Me

There must not have been any sheep available

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About eight or ten years ago when we were driving through South Dakota we read there were more sheep than people in the state.  So unless things have changed I’m not sure what this guy’s problem was:

“There was inappropriate activity between him and the mannequin,” a police spokesman told the newspaper. “That’s the only way I know how to put it.”

Posted in Sex

This will happen again about never

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From an email Ry sent me…

Well, I suppose they will catch a few crooks that were candidates for Darwin Awards anyway.  All the surveillance cameras in the UK and their automatic number recognition software came in handy the other day.  They used it to track down and arrest the people that killed a cop on Friday.  Great!  And they publicized it–bad.  One of the most critical things in intelligence gathering is protecting your sources from discovery.  Just how difficult will it be to defeat the system?  How much effort is it to stop and smear some mud on the plates?  Or put a piece of tape over some of the letters?  Or put a paper with a different number over the top of your plates?  Anyway, here is the story where they are crowing about how great and wonderful it is:

A pioneering number plate recognition system in Bradford played a vital role in the arrests of six suspects after the killing of Pc Sharon Beshenivsky.

A network of CCTV cameras linked to a database of registration numbers automatically alerts officers to a vehicle’s route across the city.

Within minutes of Friday’s shootings, police were using the system to track the suspected getaway car.

The first arrests were made in London early the following morning.

…

At its launch in May, Ch Supt Geoff Dodd of West Yorkshire Police, said: “I believe that this is the best investigative tool we have had since the introduction of DNA analysis.

“DNA broke new ground for the police service and this is another revolutionary tool in detecting crime.”

“”The importance of this system in the fight against crime cannot be underestimated.”

“Denying criminals use of the roads denies access to the primary means of transport for a whole raft of criminal activity.”

“It includes the transportation of drugs, stolen property and articles for use in crime, as well as transport for offenders to and from the scenes of crimes such as robberies and burglaries.”

“The bottom line is that if a stolen vehicle comes into or out of Bradford city centre we will know about it.”

A friend of mine once told me that the personalities of cops and crooks were very similar.  The biggest difference was their IQ.  The cops have the advantage at something like 105 to 95.  They may be smarter than the crooks on the average but crowing about their new toy neutralized the advantage.

On the flip side they can still use it to track innocent people and sell the information on the black market to stalkers, politicians wanting dirt on their opponents, and for industrial espionage.  And just think how useful it would have been to the East Germans 30 years ago.

Guns are the problem not the solution

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A couple of cops are shot, one killed, when responding to a call of an armed robbery in progress.  And they are “skeptical” that arming the cops would increase their safety.  A couple of hours of simulations with AirSoft guns would answer that question quite decisively but they are so paralyzed by their own hoplophobia they can’t consider the obvious:

Mr Davis accused the government of failing to tackle the source of gun crime and particularly the illegal holding of firearms.

He said gun crime had doubled to around 10-11,000 since 1996 when Thomas Hamilton killed 16 children and a teacher at Dunblane Primary School in Scotland. 

Home Secretary Charles Clarke said the government was keen to learn any lessons from the Bradford shootings.

“My main priority is to ensure that guns no longer have a place on our streets and that armed gangs who terrorise innocent people are brought to justice,” he said.

But he signalled his opposition to arming all police, citing evidence from other countries which suggested it encouraged criminals to carry guns.

“I remain sceptical that arming all police officers all of the time would make them safer,” he said, writing in The Sun.

“Indeed, all the experience from other countries where the police carry firearms demonstrates that this only encourages the criminals to arm themselves and potentially to turn law enforcers’ own weapons on to the police themselves.”

Quote of the day–Edward Rex

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Cause public proclamation to be made, that everyone strong in body at leisure time on holidays use in his recreation the bow and arrow and learn and exercise the art of shooting – forbidding all and singular on our behalf that they do not after any manner apply themselves to the throwing of stones, wood, iron, handball, football, bandyball, cambuck, or cock fighting; nor to other such like vain plays which have no profit in them, under pain of imprisonment.

Edward Rex
Westminster
12th day of June 1369
[From mandated use of arms as recreation to arms being banned for any private use.  I wonder when the average individual was safer in the U.K.–Joe]

Of men, brains, dogs, and women

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This is one of my favorite jokes:

Q: Why were men given larger brains than dogs?
A: So they wouldn’t hump women’s legs at cocktail parties.

Of course not all men use more of their brain than that used by a dog–particularly after they’ve had a few drinks.  Which explains the behavior of some men wherever women and alcohol are present.

Posted in Sex

ID cards in UK take some heat

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Bruce Schneier brought this to my attention.

Ex-MI5 chief says ID cards in the UK would be “useless” for fighting terrorism and “a waste of money”.  Which is what I have been saying for years.  She, of course, has a much more influential position than most.  And she does a good job of hammering the half-baked idea for fighting terrorists:

ID cards have possibly some purpose. 

But I don’t think that anybody in the intelligence services, particularly in my former service, would be pressing for ID cards.

My angle on ID cards is that they may be of some use but only if they can be made unforgeable – and all our other documentation is quite easy to forge.

If we have ID cards at vast expense and people can go into a back room and forge them they are going to be absolutely useless.

ID cards may be helpful in all kinds of things but I don’t think they are necessarily going to make us any safer.

And if it doesn’t help when fighting terrorists then it’s not going to be any good for fighting criminals.

Xenia is going to state drama competition

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We knew from the teacher’s reports, Xenia’s enthusiastic descriptions, and the effort she was putting into it that her entries in the District competition were going to be good.  Both of her entries won first place in District Drama.  It’s on to STATE!

Sunday afternoon accomplishments

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This afternoon was much more productive than my wallowing in self-pity this morning.  I accomplished a bunch of stuff and still have other things in the queue:

  1. I purchased 200 rounds of Winchester Ranger self-defense ammo in .40 S&W.
  2. I purchased 50 rounds of 52 grain moly coated Blackhills Match ammo in .223 for testing purposes.
  3. I implemented on-line entry for Boomershoot 2006.
  4. I posted Eugene Econ’s details on the Precision Rifle Clinic for Boomershoot.org.
  5. I fixed various errors on Boomershoot.org web pages.

Weekend activities

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Barb and her sister Nancy made it back from D.C. 20 minutes early last night and we went out to dinner at Outback (in part because of this).  Despite being tired from the travel and time difference they were very upbeat and talk about how wonderful the hospital (except for the food), volunteers, doctors, and therapists were.  They told me stories of Jason and others in the hospital how nearly everyone was so upbeat even though many of them had lost a great deal–arms, legs, eyes, brain injuries.  The helicopter pilot that lost her arm and both legs “tooling around in a wheelchair wearing a t-shirt that said, “It’s a good thing my husband is a butt man.”  Barb and Nancy were sorry for the losses but said they were being well taken care of and they all seemed proud of what they had contributed.  Barb said I really needed to go visit Jason and meet these heroes.  I want to but even as they were telling me of all our soldiers and how well they were doing the tears welled up.  It made me very sad.  I’m not sure I could do anything but cry if I went to visit.  I think we are doing the right thing in Iraq, but the losses make me very uncomfortable.  Although I sometimes say, “Too much sand, not enough glass”  I don’t mean it.  I know that of the available options to us we are almost for certain going down the correct path.

Barb, Nancy, and I went to the Uncle Bonsai concert last night and enjoyed it.  I wanted to hear more of their old songs but they had new material and I hadn’t really heard all of the stuff that has been out for a while.  I never listened to anything but a little bit of their “Doug” album.  After hearing a couple of the songs last night I listened to the entire album this morning.  Some of the songs were sad and it probably affected me more than usual because of the stories from Walter Reed.

When we got back from the concert I did a very quick check of my email and I found out Bob Coval died yesterday.  We knew it was coming (low bandwidth version here) but still a great sadness swept over me.  Since I’ve been over here this last week I had been thinking about Bob frequently.  I should visit him or at least find out when he died.  I didn’t really want to know though.  Now I know.

This morning Nancy announced it was 6:00 AM and they needed to leave right away.  One short night is all I got with Barb before she headed home again.  They need to leave early because I-90 is one lane in both directions in parts of Snoqualmie pass because of rock slide.  The state transportation department is saying there could be long delays over this holiday week.  Five hours was mentioned but that could be for next Sunday night when the really heavy traffic occurs.  I’m hoping to go home on Wednesday night.  I didn’t even try to get an airplane ticket because they sell out a couple months in advance over Thanksgiving.  That means I need to try and get over the pass at a high traffic time.  And over course coming back Sunday night will be hell.  It might be that the return trip will be best done via Portland.  It’s normally a nine hour drive but that will be better than 10 or 12 hour drive over the traffic clogged pass (which is normally a five hour drive).

I was at my first IDPA match Saturday until just before I went to the airport to pick up Barb and Nancy.  The match went pretty well.  Lots of rules to process on a continuous basis after the buzzer goes off.  It’s not like IPSC where you often get to “shoot them as you see them.”  Gaming is still present just less obvious.  Thanks to Wendell for arranging a group of us to attend together.  Robin, Sean, and I had dinner at his place with Hobbit Friday night.  Robin and I were in pain from laughing at the S&W (Sean and Wendell, not Smith and Wesson) rendition of Whale.avi (S&W were far better than the real thing).  Then we all were in the same squad for the match on Saturday.  It was most pleasant company for both Friday evening and Saturday.

So… I’m alone here in front of my computer thinking about Bob, Jason and our other heroes that have lost so much, Barb leaving after spending just a few hours, and I will have some long drives to visit home over Thanksgiving.  I think it will be best if I get out and do my National Ammo Day purchases.  I wanted to do it yesterday but the IDPA match and spending time with Barb were higher priorities.  Anything to get out and moving will be better than here.

I’ll be back with something more upbeat later.

Quote of the day–Ward Dorrity

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If you had to choose between saving The Lying Bastard of Pennsylvania Avenue from drowning in a vat of steaming bubbling pig shit and taking a Pulitzer Prize winning photograph…

 …what f-stop would you use?

Inquiring minds want to know

Ward Dorrity
Friday, December 04, 1998 2:49 PM
SOC Constitutional Infringement Issues
Microsoft Public Folder
[Check the date.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Greg Hamilton

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A attorney who in specializes in self-defense told me that of the 300 clients who said something to the police before talking to him, only two managed to NOT hurt their case.  Those two didn’t help their case, they just didn’t hurt it any.  If you are involved in a shooting, call the police, physically cooperate with them, but don’t say anything except you want to call your attorney.

Greg Hamilton
Self Defense Instructor
Nov. 19, 1995

Mathematically challenged?

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If the vote was 44,000 to 38,000 would you say the voters were “evenly divided” on the issue?  How about 44 to 38?  I haven’t done the statisical tests on the significance of a sample size of 82 but my gut feel is you can’t justifiably call that “evenly divided”.  Yet that is what this newspaper article does:

The issue of handgun control is a controversial one, with many people saying curbs on sales of handguns will reduce crime, while others feel it’s important to protect Americans’ constitutional right to own firearms.

Visitors to the Star Courier’s Web site were evenly divided on the question last week.

The online poll asked whether people favored tougher restrictions on buying handguns in Illinois.

Of the 82 who voted, 44, or 54 percent, said “no” and 38 said “yes.”

I think I see some spin being placed on the outcome.  Either that or the Star Couier Staff need to retake 1st and 2nd grade math.

The volcano in my brothers backyard

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I had the most vivid dream this morning.  It was the most detailed dream I can ever recall having.  The conversation with my dad as we walked alone the fence was detailed and I could “hear” the tone in my fathers voice and the heavier breathing as we walked through the deep snow.  The trail in the snow had footprints that were both fresh and old.  The sounds of our feet on the cold, dry snow was accurate.  The dog we found caught in the barbed wire gate that had fallen down was whimpering and scared.  It did a realistic “happy dance” running in circles and licking me after I freed it.  Then I noticed the reason the gate had fallen down.  The ground had bulged up and hot water was pouring out of the cracks in the earth.  The bulge had tipped the gate post over enough the gate fell to the ground.  A river of hot steaming water washed across the road north of the old blacksmith shop and down through woods toward the old well.  The little meadow in the woods that always had less snow that other areas now was green with growing grass even though it was the middle of winter and other areas had five to six feet of snow.  The smell was like that of the hot springs Barb and I visited at Yellowstone National Park this summer.  We had a geothermal vent a couple hundred feet from my brother’s back door.

I woke up as I realized the impact this could have on the farm.  Best case was my brothers and parents had a source of cheap heat for the shop and their homes.  But if this was a precursor to a Mt. St. Helen’s scale eruption the entire farm would be gone.  Orofino could be at the bottom of a lake formed by the backed up river just two miles from the farm.  Lewiston and Clarkston, 35 miles down river, could be scoured clean from the valley floor as the ash and earthen formed natural dam gave way and a wall of water rushed down the narrow valley.

I’ll be visiting my parents for Thanksgiving.  I’ll need to walk down through the pasture to dispel the images from my mind.

Quote of the day–George H. Smith

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… we may indicate three minimum requirements that must be fulfilled before any belief can claim the status of knowledge: (a) a belief must be based on evidence; (b) a belief must be internally consistent (i.e. not self-contradictory); (c) a belief cannot contradict previously validated knowledge with which it is to be integrated.  If a belief fails to meet any or all of these criteria, it cannot properly be designated as knowledge.

George H. Smith
From: Atheism: the Case Against God
[Gun control advocates, socialists, and other anti-freedom advocates would do well to understand the difference between belief and knowledge as outlined by Smith above.–Joe]

Bummer

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I wonder if Monica and Bill have heard the news:

US researchers studying the effects of human papilloma virus (HPV), a leading cause of cervical cancer in women, have found a connection between the virus and instances of mouth tumours.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University compared 1,670 patients who had oral cancers to 1,732 healthy people and HPV was found in a small number of the cancer patients. Those infected carried HPV16, the most common strain of the virus, which in Britain is estimated to infect one fifth of women between 18 and 25.

The study showed that people with mouth tumours containing the HPV16 strain were three times more likely to have had oral sex than those whose tumours did not contain the virus. 

Raphael Viscidi, a virologist at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine said that the study is very decisive. “This is a major study in terms of its size,” he says. “I think this will convince people.”

While the US researchers said there was no need for people to alter their behaviour, this was not the line taken by the head of a similar study in Sweden.

Dentist and researcher Kerstin Rosenquist headed a smaller study conducted at the Malmoe University Faculty of Odontology in southern Sweden that showed the same connection between HPV and oral sex. Rosenquist found that 36% of the cancer patients were carriers of HPV while only 1% of the control group had the virus.

She said, “You should avoid having oral sex.”

“In recent years (oral cancer) has been on the rise among young individuals and we don’t know why. But one could speculate that this virus (HPV) is one of the factors,” Rosenquist said.

There is a very promising vaccine that should soon reduce the risk some.

Posted in Sex

Explosive goodness

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Sean sent me this link early this morning.  We then chatted about where to find an old washing machine (he has an old one but isn’t ready for it to be deconstructed yet) and a place to try a similar experiment of our own.  I suggested a dump–we might find the desired object(s) and wouldn’t have to clean up afterward.  Sean said it was a good idea and maybe we would get lucky and ignite the methane escaping from the rotting organic matter in the dump.  That was when I realized it wasn’t such a good idea.  It would be impossible to determine the minimum safe distance from which to view the deconstruction of the home appliance(s).  If the entire landfill went up in one fireball…. well… it would be thrilling until it came back down on top of us.