And that’s the difference between Mr. B and myself. He shakes his head in bafflement, I resume sharpening the M4 bayonet while crooning “Soon, soon, my precioussss…”
Kim du Toit
January 24, 2006
[I can relate to that–in so many ways.–Joe]
Category Archives: Freedom
Airplane security may be unsolvable problem
I’ve been saying for a long time that airport screening for weapons on airplanes may be an insolvable problem and that we need to consider alternatives. Now research from the University at Buffalo and Georgia State University suggest we may now know why it is such a difficult problem:
Screeners at airport security checkpoints perform an important task in which they search for objects that belong to threat categories in complex X-ray images. New research by cognitive psychologists at UB and Georgia State University explores the cognitive processes that underlie screening, suggests limits on those processes and has implications for the training and evaluation of screeners in the field.
The findings were published in the article “Specific-Token Effects in Screening Tasks: Possible Implications for Aviation Security” in the November-December issue of the American Psychological Association’s Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition (Vol. 31, No. 6) and in the article “Visual Search and the Collapse of Categorization,” in the November-December issue of the APA’s Journal of Experimental Psychology: General (Vol. 134, No. 4).
…
The problem addressed by the research, Smith says, “is that screeners must be able to bring ‘category-level’ knowledge to their search for targets. That is, they must search for guns and knives generally, not for specific Beretta guns or Bowie knives they have been trained to recognize. Yet it has been unknown how the processes of categorization stand up to visual complexity or why they fail facing it. We filled this research gap by creating a visual-search and categorization paradigm in which participants searched for members of target categories in complex displays.”
…
The reliance on familiarity might also have implications for the training and evaluation of screeners in the field for the following reason: The “Threat Image Projection” (TIP) system provides an important potential means of assessing performance at security checkpoints. It includes a library of test images that can be digitally injected into the X-ray image of a bag as it is presented to the screener. This lets screeners’ ongoing target-detection performance be evaluated, provides ongoing training and maintains screener vigilance. Yet, a strategy of using a fixed library of test images risks the specific-token effects that Smith and his colleagues observed. Estimates of screener performance might be inflated by these familiarity effects, compared to the detection levels that would be observed for real threats that will be from outside the library and unfamiliar. A more conservative and truer estimate of screener performance would result if one arranged testing so that targets essentially never repeated, so that familiarity could never develop and so that screeners were forced to rely on category general knowledge and strategies.
Smith notes that it is to the Transportation Security Administration’s credit that it has actively responded to this specific-token effect by increasing the size of TIP libraries and by planning periodically to infuse new targets. These changes have the potential to keep TIP as a viable and accurate indicator of detection levels in the security system. These steps also show the promise of cognitive scientists and sponsoring agencies cooperating toward solving important problems.
Unfortunately, knowing why it is a difficult problem also means everyone knows how to make it difficult for the screeners. We need to consider the alternatives.
Quote of the day–Fayette County (Ga.) Board of Health
It is our duty to protect the citizens of Fayette County, even those that don’t want to be protected.
Comment by a member of the Fayette County (Ga.) Board of Health
During a meeting on a proposed smoking ban.
[The socialist mindset. Does their constitution even allow them to have a “Board of Health”? –Joe]
Quote of the day–Jeff Cooper
I have been criticized by referring to our federal masked men as “ninja,” when in the view of the critic the traditional role of the ninja in Japan was to fight against oppression and tyranny. Let us note that almost no one ever resorts to force and violence unless he is convinced that his cause is right, but without going into that let us reflect upon the fact that a man who covers his face shows reason to be ashamed of what he is doing. A man who takes it upon himself to shed blood while concealing his identity is a revolting perversion of the warrior ethic.
It has long been my conviction that a masked man with a gun is a target. I see no reason to change that view.
Jeff Cooper
From Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries
Vol. 2, No. 16
20 December 1994
Quote of the day–Alfred Korzybski
There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe everything or to doubt everything; both ways save us from thinking.
Alfred Korzybski
[I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately. It’s not been
pleasant. Details later when I get my mind around it all.–Joe]
Quote of the day–George H. Smith
It is my firm conviction that man has nothing to gain, emotionally or otherwise, by adhering to a falsehood, regardless of how comfortable or sacred that falsehood may appear. Anyone who claims, on the one hand, that he is concerned with human welfare, and who demands, on the other hand, that man must suspend or renounce the use of his reason, is contradicting himself. There can be no knowledge of what is good for man apart from knowledge of reality and human nature-and there is no manner in which this knowledge can be acquired except through reason. To advocate irrationality is to advocate that which is destructive to human life.
George H. Smith
From: Atheism: The Case Against God
[I regard gun control and socialism as religions. They are faith based and ignore factual data. Understanding the psychology of religiosity is useful in understanding the psychology of the anti-freedom crowd.–Joe]
Another example of socialist losers
Canadian liberals are about to get trounced in the upcoming election (recent polls are saying there is a 13 point margin). And what do you think the issues are that are getting them in so much trouble? Health care and gun control!
Among the main policy differences is health care reform. The Tories want to allow for public and private health care provision, and, along with the Liberals, have pledged to shorten waiting times. The Liberals and the NDP have vowed to stop any privatisation of the system.
On gun control, the Liberals have promised to move towards a ban on handguns, which are already tightly regulated, and consider tightening gun crime laws.
Handguns have been essentially banned in Canada for decades. And in the last few years spent nearly two billion dollars on registration of all guns. And what is the result? The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms has the scoop on that:
CANADA’S GUN REGISTRATION FAILURE: VIOLENT CRIME RATE DOUBLE THAT OF U.S.
For Immediate Release: January 17, 2006
BELLEVUE, WA – Canada’s billion-dollar boondoggle – the national gun registration scheme – has proven itself an abysmal failure, as that country’s violent crime rates are double those reported in the United States, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA) noted today.
“We looked at violent crime rates per 100,000 population in both countries, using the most recent available data,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, “and we were not surprised at what we found. Since Canada started this ridiculous and costly program, violent crime has gone up dramatically, at the same time that crime in the United States has declined. Yet, there are people in the states who think Canada’s gun legislation should be the model for America.
“By comparing the data,” he detailed, “we found that the violent crime rate in the United States was 475 per 100,000 population, while up north, there were 963 violent crimes per 100,000 population. The figure for sexual assault in Canada per 100,000 population is more than double that of the United States, 74 as opposed to 32.1, and the assault rate in Canada is also more than twice that of the states, 746 to our 295 for the population rate.”
Noted CCRKBA Executive Director Joe Waldron: “What happened in the states to actually contribute to a reduction in our overall crime rate is simple. We’ve got 38 states with shall-issue, right-to-carry concealed handgun laws. While Canada has clamped down on its citizens’ gun rights, our citizens have been empowered against criminals by passage of these laws. The disparity in crime rates between the two countries says it all about how well gun registration works to stop crime, as opposed to actually carrying guns to deter criminals, and fight back if necessary.”
A Jan. 3 story in Canada’s National Post by writer David Frum confirmed CCRKBA’s independent finding. Frum wrote, “Canada’s overall crime rate is now 50% higher than the crime rate in the United States.” Later, Frum added: “Gun registries and gun bans…do not work.”
“Instead of promising to ban legally-owned handguns in Canada,” Waldron observed, “Prime Minister Paul Martin should be urging citizens to arm themselves. He should encourage Parliament to scrap gun registration and replace it with a gun ownership and training program.”
“Since going on the warpath against guns, Canada’s Liberals have presided over the sharpest rise in violent crime in the nation’s history,” Gottlieb said. “There are more rapes, more robberies and more murders. If that tells Canadian citizens anything at all, it’s that Paul Martin and his Liberals have literally been ‘dead wrong’ on guns.”
What is it called when you keep trying the same thing over and over expecting a different result? Yeah, that’s right, it’s called insanity. Socialism and gun control have been shown again, and again, and again, to be the tools of tyrants and cost hundreds of millions of lives. Won’t people ever face reality?
Darwin is defeating socialism (again)
There should be some sort of Darwin like award for people that chose such loser economic systems. I’ve been blogging about this for some time and it just gets worse and worse. Here is the latest from the failing U.K. medical system:
Hospitals shut wards as cash crisis bites
By Sam Lister, David Charter and Nigel HawkesTHE spiralling cash crisis in the NHS has already forced two thirds of hospitals to close wards and will soon start directly affecting patient care, health chiefs give warning today.
A survey of 117 chief executives of NHS trusts reveals the depth of concern among healthcare professionals about the destabilising impact of wide-ranging government reforms. Three quarters of them say that growing financial pressures brought on by primary and acute care restructuring will affect patient treatment.
Almost half of hospital trust managers said that building and refurbishment projects were being delayed, while many trusts were also having to make staff redundant and to introduce recruitment freezes.
…
The poll of trust executives, conducted by Health Service Journal, comes as nursing leaders also give a bleak warning of massive NHS deficits. Their research suggests that health service debts in England will hit £1.2 billion this year, putting up to 4,000 jobs at risk.
The new minister, who will be charged with promoting the reform agenda in the media, is expected to be imposed on the Department of Health in a reshuffle due within days. The jobs of Jane Kennedy, the Minister for quality and patient safety, and Rosie Winterton, the Minister for health services, are both at risk.
The Times understands that a number of senior bureaucrats will also be moved in an attempt to speed up the pace of delivery.
Don’t you just get a thrill at the thought of “a number of senior bureaucrats” being moved in to speed things up? Are these people using the hospital pharmaceuticals recreationally?
And if this is bad, with recruitment freezes in the U.K., it must be really bad in Germany because the doctors there are threatening to go to work in the U.K.!
Striking doctors on the march
By Roger Boyes
50,000 surgeries closed as GPs threaten to desert Germany and head for Britain, reports our correspondentTHOUSANDS of German doctors threatened yesterday to desert Europe’s most modern health system and work in Britain, rather than put up with declining wages and longer hours.
The doctors, many wearing operating masks, marched through the centre of Berlin to besiege the Health Ministry in the first big demonstration against Angela Merkel’s coalition Government. Hospitals worked at half strength and about 50,000 doctors’ surgeries across the country were closed.
“It’s no longer bearable,” Andreas Dahmen, a 31-year-old orthopaedic surgeon, said. “I earn €2,800 [£1,920] a month here after taxes. I’m moving to England where I can earn double that amount for much less work.”
In Britain, he said, he could expect to earn £3,000 a month after tax, with the promise of bonuses bringing his earnings to £4,500. The hip specialist was speaking in a sea of placards held aloft by his colleagues, announcing: “England, we’re on our way!” and “If you want to see a German doctor, come to England!”.
Another good question
Bruce at mAss Backwards left a comment for my post Just One Question:
I’ve been contemplating the “just one question” approach for a while now. There’s a series of town meeting-style forums coming up in Boston with our Mayor Tom “Never Met a Gun Control Scheme I Didn’t Like” Menino.
I’m going to put my name in for one of the limited slots available. Shoudl I get the chance to address the Mayor, I’d ask:
“Mr. Mayor, as you know, the City of Boston over the last year has seen a marked increase in the rate of homicides and armed robberies. My question for you is a simple YES or NO question. Do the hard-working, law-abiding citizens of Boston have the right to defend themselves from violent criminals?”
A “yes” answer woudl be an outright lie.
A “no” answer, though truthful, would be cause for his immediate removal from office (not that that’s very likely, though).
That seems to be a very good question to ask as well. The only disadvantage I can see is that they can say, “Yes.”, “Yes, but not with a gun.”, or “Yes, but guns only make the situation worse.” And you are left with having to justify the use of a firearm for task of self-defense. My question forces them defend their desire to impose restrictions on firearms. In nearly all situations it’s better to make your opponent defend rather than for you to defend against them.
As I write this I see Bruce has posted on this “Just One Question” topic with the request “So…what would your “one question” be?” in the context of being able to ask some politician a question in a public forum.
The price of ignorance
The news of Jill Carroll about to be killed by her abductors if all Iraqi women in military custody are not freed is incredibly disturbing to me. But that does not mean I relieve her of the responsibility for her situation. She and many others like her who persist in maintaining their ignorance of the threat posed by the Islamic extremists will continue to pay a heavy price for their willful ignorance. These extremists literally say they have a religious duty to kill non-believers. Unless she has converted to Islam and advocates the world-wide replacement of democracy by the rule of sexist religious extremists her situation should not come as a surprise to anyone.
While I hope and wish for a successful rescue of Ms. Carroll I think the odds of this are very low. And certainly we should not release any prisoners, pay any ransom, or comply with any demands made by these criminals. To do so would only put others at risk of similar abduction and death. Her family and friends have my sympathy.
Quote of the day–Alexander Hamilton
The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed.
Alexander Hamilton
U.K. legalizes small brothels
One has to wonder after recent news on the peeping toms behind the surveillance cameras if the U.K. government will be installing cameras for the additional protection of the prostitutes they claim they are trying to protect:
Government gives green light to brothels
The law is to be changed to allow up to three prostitutes to work legally in brothels, the Government has confirmed.
Currently only one prostitute can offer paid sex without breaking the law.
Launching the Home Office’s new prostitution strategy, minister Fiona Mactaggart said the current position meant that women were forced to work in unsafe conditions.
…
Today’s strategy document, which applies to England and Wales, said: “At present only one person may work as a prostitute – more than that … and the premises are classed in case law as a brothel.
“This runs counter to advice that women should not work alone in the interest of safety.
“The Government will make proposals for an amendment to the definition of a brothel so that two or three individuals may work together.”
Perhaps they are having trouble hiring people to monitor the cameras and they plan to use this in recruiting.
Police state benefits
These guys got caught. The real question is, “How many don’t get caught?” Via Bruce Schneier we have this from the BBC News:
Peeping tom CCTV workers jailed
Two council CCTV camera operators have been jailed for spying on a naked woman in her own home.
Mark Summerton and Kevin Judge, from Sefton Council, Merseyside, trained a street camera into the woman’s flat.
…
The images from the camera, including the woman without her clothes on,
were shown on a large plasma screen in the council’s CCTV control room
in November 2004, Liverpool Crown Court heard.Over several hours, she was filmed cuddling her boyfriend before
undressing, using the toilet, having a bath and watching television
dressed only in a towel.
The problem is that watching the cameras is very boring work.
99+% of the time there is nothing worthy of their attention. It
has long been known that the camera operators start focusing on more
interesting subjects–in particular it is attractive people of the
appropriate gender. If there is a pretty woman within view with
few or no clothes on is going to get the majority of their
attention. There have even been cases of people being mugged
within the view of a camera while the operator was watching some
scantly clad women on a different camera.
The state can’t protect you all the time without watching and/or
listening to you all the time. The alternative is to provide for
your own protection and self-defense. The U.K. subjects have
chosen to, in essence, outlaw self-defense. That means they must,
if people are to have any security, rely on government. The
inevitable result is a panopticon society. Either get used to it or reject government as your primary security source.
Celebrate diversity
Father-Daughter style. Father is carrying an STI Eagle 5.1 in .40 S&W with an 18 round magazine using a Milt Sparks inside the waistband (IWB) holster and a spare 18 round magazine in an offside dual magazine Sure-Fire flashlight holster. Daughter is carrying a Star M43 FireStar in 9mm with a seven round magazine using a Kramer IWB holster with a Kramer spare magazine holster on the offside. This was the first gun daughter Xenia ever fired when she was five years old.
Quote of the day–Joe Huffman
Crime “prevention” is a very hot button for me. There is no limit to the evil that can be justified and/or enabled once you accept the premise that it is acceptable to prevent crime by restricting liberty.
Joe Huffman
December 3, 1998 6:53 PM
Microsoft Gun Club Public Folder
[In response to yesterdays Quote of the Day by the “Gun Guys.”–Joe]
Quote of the day–The Gun Guys
What we really need to pass are laws that act before the crime has taken place– stop dealers from selling weapons without consequence to criminals. Outlaw weapons that have no civilian needs, like assault weapons or the .50 caliber sniper rifle. Shut down the newspaper and gun show loopholes. Those laws are the ones that will prevent violence. You can lock up all the criminals you want, but that won’t stop crime, because everyone we know in jail committed their crime before they got there.
The Gun Guys
January 13, 2006
[Excellent thinking. We can also prevent drunk driving by banning alcohol, reckless driving by banning cars, rape by castrating all men, prostitution by…–Joe]
National ID–I told you so
Real ID Act (National ID cards with a different name) are a
waste of time and money as well as being a source of high risk to
liberty. A year ago I wrote about the flaws that would show up. Now the AP has an ‘exclusive’ on the story of the problems the states are having:
AP Exclusive: National ID, State Nightmare
By BRIAN BERGSTEIN AP Technology Writer
© 2006 The Associated PressAn anti-terrorism law creating a national standard for all driver’s
licenses by 2008 isn’t just upsetting civil libertarians and
immigration rights activists.State motor vehicle officials nationwide who will have to carry out the
Real ID Act say its authors grossly underestimated its logistical,
technological and financial demands.In a comprehensive survey obtained by The Associated Press and in
follow-up interviews, officials cast doubt on the states’ ability to
comply with the law on time and fretted that it will be a budget buster.“It
is just flat out impossible and unrealistic to meet the prescriptive
provisions of this law by 2008,” Betty Serian, a deputy secretary of
the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, said in an interview.…
In a comprehensive survey obtained by The Associated Press and in
follow-up interviews, officials cast doubt on the states’ ability to
comply with the law on time and fretted that it will be a budget buster.“It is just flat out impossible and unrealistic to meet the
prescriptive provisions of this law by 2008,” Betty Serian, a deputy
secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, said in an
interview.…
“If you take any one of these things individually, you see a
significant problem,” Steinhardt said. “There are literally hundreds of
these problems embedded in Real ID, and the statute doesn’t give you a
way out. It’s black and white. No exceptions, no reality check.“In many respects it’s a statute that ignores reality.”
Like I said in my post from last year. It’s as
if the congress critters had tried to legislate that PI equals
3.0. They are out of touch with reality.
Puffers in airplane security
The latest technology to be employed in the unconstitutional search of people attempting to board an aircraft while exercising their right to travel is puffers:
‘Puffers’ add to airport security
1/12/2006 1:29 PM
By: Lisa Reyes, News 14 CarolinaCHARLOTTE, N.C. – Travelers at Charlotte/Douglas International Airport
will soon see new security measures. High-tech machines to detect
explosives will be located at three checkpoints.The Transportation Security Administration says the imminent danger to
aviation these days is explosives. TSA officials demonstrated devices
called “explosive-detection trace portals” or “puffers” at the airport
on Thursday.The machines puff air on travelers to dislodge particles from their skin or clothing.
“It loosens particles that are attached to a person or his clothing,
and those particles are analyzed by the machine for the presence of
explosives,” said John Gartland of TSA.The devices take about 20-25 seconds to check each passenger.
The TSA purchased the three machines through federal funding. They cost
a little over $100,000, and about a 100 of them will be implemented in
airports nationwide.
I agree that explosives is the biggest threat to safe airplane travel. Other weapons such as guns and knives are of little use if someone wanted to bring the airplane down. And if the user of such a weapon were intent on attacking people in the cabin they wouldn’t make all that much progress before they were stopped by someone else in the cabin. But a pound of explosives, about the size and weight of a pint of milk, in a tightly closed area like the cabin of an aircraft can do a lot of damage. There is a Myth Busters episode on this very topic if you have any doubts.
In any case keeping explosives off of passenger airplanes is a good idea. They aren’t useful for self-defense in an air cabin environment, as the knives and handguns are, and they represent a significant hazard to the entire aircraft and people on the ground. The problem is–How do you do it? As I have explained before with the explosive sniffing wasps the problem is one of false positives if you try to detect improvised and/or “homemade” explosives. And if you don’t address those type of explosives you have a loophole any terrorist can waltz right through. And the current explosives detection technology fails even on people that inadvertently contaminate their luggage. If a skilled adversary were to be intent on bringing explosives on board a plane nothing short of a full search of everyone will be effective. So what’s the solution? Use our limited resources on other things such as better intelligence as to who is a threat and interviews of passengers. That will guard against both the known threats using existing weapons and the type of threats we haven’t thought of yet.
Quote of the day–Senator Soaper
Democracy is a form of government in which it is permitted to wonder aloud what the country could do under first-class management.
Senator Soaper
[Except under McCain-Feingold.–Joe]
Reno could be interesting
I like Reno for some reason. Las Vegas has it’s appeal but Reno isn’t bad. I shot in the USPSA Area 1 competition there once. It’s also fairly close to home as far as tourist cities go. Mr. Completely has put up a trial balloon for a Gunblogger Rendezvous in Reno the first part of November.
Read his proposal and send him an email if you are interested. That’s a long way into the future for me to be making plans for anything other than Boomershoot (which is more like year around planning), but I think I could do that.