Better numbers on how many Muslim warriors we face?

A few weeks ago I speculated on how many Islamic extremists had a desire to kill us. Now Newt Gingrich gives us his numbers:

According to the former speaker, between 39 million and 52 million young men — out of a total of 1.3 billion Muslims around the world — could become available to Islamist recruiters as the war on terror grinds on.

My numbers were much larger but included not just “young men” but everyone that had a desire to kill us.  Still, assuming Gingrich is right, even accounting for the differences in who is being counted I was way off.  I would love to know the method by which he arrived at those numbers.  But regardless, 40 to 50 million warriors are a lot.  I’m not sure that even with the kill ratios we have that our country will tolerate the military losses and the money spent to defeat that large of force until the Muslims attack us on our own soil again.  Will we be attacked again on our own soil?  I don’t know.  I suspect so.  The elections in Iraq have to be the first priority of the Muslims, then attacking us at home.  We could see an attack in this country by the end of this month.

But then I read some speculation that Osama bin Laden had been told we would nuke, literally use nuclear weapons on, Mecca if there was another attack of 9/11 proportions on U.S. soil.  Assuming that is true, would that be a deterrent?  Or would that be a price worth paying to recruit millions of Jihad warriors?

Driver’s license biometrics

As some of you know one of my professional area’s of expertise involves biometrics. I’m not at liberty to discuss some of the details but I can talk about things in general. The “Intelligence Reform Legislation” recently passed and signed into law by the Feds contains provisions regarding “Drivers Licenses and Personal Identification Cards.” One of the requirements will be that states issue drivers licenses with biometric identifiers. They are required to come up with some standard for this within 18 months. Some states already have biometric requirements but my understanding is that they are all failures for even their original intention and are easily defeated by someone with half a brain. Our congress critters may not realize it but they may have just mandated something that isn’t currently possible and potentially never practical. Sort of like legislating that PI equal three point zero or repealing the law of gravity.

About a year and a half ago at a biometric conference I heard someone tasked with the problem of solving this problem explain all the difficulties they were running into. My impression was they had insurmountable problems and were begging for help from the technical community. As I follow the field from the technical side pretty close I don’t believe we have made any significant technical progress in the areas that matter to them. What I expect they will end up with is nothing much more than a signature and a photograph–which is what we currently have and are easily defeated by the sort of people the legislation is claimed to aimed at.

Let me explain the meaning of ‘defeat’ and ‘success’ in the context of biometrics. There are more than one reason for identification efforts. In general those reasons are:

  • Identity validation. Is this the person who they claim they are? Your bank validates identities before withdrawals from your accounts.
  • Watch lists. Is the person in front of me wanted for a crime or deserving of special attention?
  • Uniqueness. Is the person in front of me “double dipping” into some sort of benefit or generating a duplicate ID to avoid a watch list?

These three different reasons for identification present drastically different technical problems. Identity validation is pretty easy. The PIN number for your ATM card does a pretty good job of accomplishing that task, but is worthless for watch lists. Signatures and photo generally work pretty good for validation too.

The watch list problem is a lot tougher and may be insolvable. Here you may have 100,000 people that you want to “watch” and who almost for certain are actively trying to defeat you. Another problem is that as you examine each unknown person, say at an airport check in line and compare each of them to “the list” you end up generating a lot of false positives. Particularly if you make the ‘threshold’ loose to catch people that might be trying to trying to not get caught. Those false positives end up being “unhappy customers” at the airport or at whatever “checkpoint” you are maintaining. There are only two technologies that have much hope of working here–fingerprints and irises (NOT retinal scans–no one does those anymore). Fingerprints are easily obscured by soaking them in bleach the night before and irises can be obscured by designer contacts or by the person faking being blind with no eyes. The rate of people having duplicate (close enough for the computer to confuse them) irises is about 1 in 200,000. The iris identification vendors have papers out there claiming duplicate error rates on the order of 1 in several billion but it’s pretty easy to demonstrate they have some bad assumptions and as the empirical data comes in it appears to be closer to one in 200,000. Therefore if you have a watch list of 100,000 and you are only looking at irises you generate a false positive with about every other person at your check point. And the other problem is how to “enroll” the people on the “watch list”.

The uniqueness problem is probably insolvable without DNA and even then you have identical twins to worry about. And contrary to what you see on TV and in the movies DNA takes a lot longer than a few seconds or even minutes to compare. And then think of the problem if you have say 300 million people in your database of valid drivers in north American and you need to compare the person in front of you to that entire list to see if they are trying to get a duplicate drivers license under another name. How many CPU cycles does it take to compare one fingerprint or iris scan to 300,000,000 others? Keep in mind you have retrieval time issues with those 300,000,000 existing identities as well. It’s a LOT of CPU time to do that and you have a LOT of people applying for new drivers licenses each day.

Those are just some of the technical issues involved. Other issues involve maintenance of the databases. If the prevention of terrorism is the objective for more secure “driver’s licenses” our congress critters are deluding themselves about the efficacy of this. Thousands of people will have “write access” to the database and are subject to “conversion”, bribery, extortion, blackmail, and simple greed. A determined adversary will not have a problem getting a valid ID.

The bottom line is that the cost will be enormous the gains almost non-existent.

Here are more thoughts on the whole national ID idea and why it won’t work and may actually make us less safe.

Fred of Fred’s M14 Stocks on being on a list

The following was sent to me with the request that I post it.  I tend to agree with the substance so I agreed.  I don’t think the topic is quite as clear cut as Fred makes it out to be.  I can see the other side of the coin too.  And just because you are “out of the closet“ as I like to say about being a gun owner doesn’t mean that you have to be so open as to give the government all the serial numbers of your guns.  That’s just plain “asking for it“.  After debating the issue with myself some I decided I could be more effective in the fight for our freedom by being in the open.  I have twice been a speaker at the Gun Rights Policy Conference.  I run the boomershoot.  I’m a firearms instructor.  I am the webmaster for numerous progun websites.  I have concealed carry licenses for several states.  I wear pro-gun clothing.  I am very, very, “out of the closet“ about being a gun owner and an advocate for freedom.  On the other hand I pay cash for all my guns, training, and a fair amount of my ammo.  I have never had a NICS check on any of my firearms purchases.  And I can see how some other people might be better able to serve the cause for freedom by staying in the closet.  I think that at this particular point on the “repression curve“ nearly all people will better serve freedom by being out of the closet.  You have to decide that for yourself.

I hope Fred gives you something more to think about as you engage in that decision making process.


Dear Fred:

Those of us who choose not to join the NRA using the “excuse” of not wishing to be on a list, do so because many of us believe the first ones to have their weaponry confiscated will be the ones who are members of the NRA and other organizations like it. I belong to no organization, I’m purposely off their “Radar Screen” so I can have the weapon(s) to help free people like you who will be the first to lose everything when the big day comes. We’re not dolts who don’t CARE, we’re just CAREFUL.

Regards,
JM, email

JM, how many of those guys who showed up on April 19, 1775 were being careful?

“Careful” and “fighting” are, for most people, the opposite ends of the risk spectrum. Not for the Rifleman, though, because he fights carefully, generally staying 300 to 500 yards out, beyond the foreign invader’s effective small arms fire.

Sometimes, you can get lost, if you don’t keep certain basics in front of you.

First: your belief that fundamental to your life is not the location of the nearest Walmart or the latest music video, but your freedom, and the fact that it is under attack by the liberals and – sometimes – the law and order country-club Republicans.

Add to that the notion that freedom is something worth fighting for, even dying for.

If it’s not, there’s gonna be a lot of disappointed people amongst those who came before us. Like the guys of ’75, the ones who showed up on Battle Day – the first WTSHTF Day.

In fighting, the only way defense leads to victory is by outlasting your opponent, maybe even outliving him. Hiding is strictly defensive – and it’s not even fighting. So you’ll never win.

The whole idea behind fighting is to make one side give up to the other. The idea that one side, fighting, will give up to the other side, hiding – not fighting – is illogical, and frankly, stupid.

Why should he give up? He may not even know you exist, which is your whole point in hiding, right?. If he knows you exist, he may not even care, as you are no threat to him with your strategy.

Think how silly the notion is by putting it into historical context. On April 19, 1775, when the alarm bells rang, did the Minutemen come pouring out of their houses, and go hide?

And I know you’re going to say, “Fred, I’m only going to hide a while, then at the right time, I’m gonna come out fighting.” Right?

But, my friend, when will that day ever come? What is the magic about that day – the day you come out fighting – that The Day The UN Convoys Roll doesn’t have? If the UN convoys don’t bring you out, whatever will? And how will your fellow hiders – of whom you know few, if any – know to pick that same magical day to emerge from their cocoons? And if they don’t come out, what kind of impact will you – one person – make, all by yourself?

No, sir, if you’re not going to fight now, when the fighting is easy, if you are already hiding, in the soft crisis, you’re not going to fight later, when it’s gonna be hard.

Who is going to pass on the tradition, the skills of marksmanship, the love of freedom, if you don’t? How are we going to build our strength, if the smart thing is to hide? The most important thing right now is to get more people into shooting, to recruit more people to our side, to strengthen the tradition, to keep it alive, to pass it on so we can train our politicians and keep the UN convoys from rolling in the first place. So we can win the fight – before it starts.

And whatever happened to free America, where you live without fear, associate without fear, and are free, not a fearful loner afraid of contact with fellow humans? Sure, I know that our freedoms have and are being severely eroded, and that there not a liberal out there whose head wouldn’t bob up and down like a yo-yo at the idea of confiscation of your firearms.

But I am not going to hide from that scrawny, stuttering, worthless, UN-worshipping, third-world-kissing idiot.

And neither should you.

Hiding only makes them stronger. Failure to resist only gives them victory.

You need to get out, you need to be ringing the alarm bell, winning hearts and minds to the cause of freedom, waking your fellow sleeping Americans to the threat and to the solution.

Where are your friends, your brothers and sisters, your neighbors on that list?

That “government list” is a roll of honor:

We, the undersigned, are free Americans…and we are not afraid.

Half past Claire Wolfe

In the comments to my most recently posted “Quote of the day” it was pointed out to me (thank you Greg) that Claire Wolfe has modified her position on it being “too early to shoot the bastards”.  She, as of August 9, 2004, says,

I can no longer think of any moral reason not to “shoot the bastards.”

Putting aside for a moment that I do not regard Ms. Wolfe as my “moral compass“, this change in position brings up some very interesting questions for people wishing to start hunting bastards:

  1. What calibers are most effective and practical for hunting bastards?
  2. Is there a special season for bow hunters?
  3. Are there any restrictions on weights, genders, or ages?
  4. How does one positively identify bastards?
  5. Are nets, barbed hooks, traps and/or poisons allowed?
  6. Are explosives allowed?  If so, are their restrictions on the size and type of explosives?  How about on the size, composition, and weight of shrapnel?
  7. Is baiting allowed?
  8. If baits are allowed are there any effective baits other than the obvious young women, money, and alcohol?
  9. I realize clubbing baby seals is frowned upon, but what about clubbing bastards?
  10. Are there any hunting guides that specialize in hunting bastards?
  11. Can habitat destruction be utilized to reduce the number of bastards?
  12. Where does one buy their hunting license for bastard shooting?
  13. Are tags required?
  14. What is the bag limit?
  15. Are out of state hunters charged more for their license and tags?
  16. Is there a particular season for shooting bastards?
  17. Are there particular habitats where bastards flourish?
  18. Are there restrictions on shooting them during certain parts of the day?
  19. Is bastard meat safe for consumption by domestic animals?  Or must it be used for compost only?
  20. Are the hunting zones broken down by precinct, county, congressional district, or state boundaries?
  21. What hunting zones have the highest concentration of bastards?
  22. Are there any bastard reserves where bastard hunting is prohibited?
  23. May bastards be shot in their nests with their young?
  24. Can bastards be made into trophies?
  25. Are there taxidermists that specialize in bastards?
  26. Are there any Boone and Crockett type scoring systems for determining if you have bagged a record setting bastard?
  27. Does PETA or any other “animal rights” group protest the hunting of bastards?  Is there an season and/or bag limits for them?
  28. What if bastard hunting becomes extremely popular and bastards become an endangered species?  Will there be conservation groups similar to Ducks Unlimited and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation?
  29. Any idea who might want to be founding members of Bastards Unlimited?  Is there an season and/or bag limits for them?
  30. Are there NRA hunter education classes available for hunting bastards?

You know… with all these questions I don’t think I’m quite ready for bastard hunting yet.  I’ll keep you posted though.  And it’s not like I haven’t given this some thought before.

I didn’t know how, but I did know it would happen

As I have been saying, the Republicans in Washington State have an insufficient lack of ethics to win a close election.  Now it looks like we know how the Democrats did it.  From Sound Politics:

It was last reported that there were 3,539 more ballots counted in King County than voters who cast them. The discrepancy is actually much larger.

The 3,539 is only the net. This comes from having roughly 1,500 more voters than counted ballots in some precincts, and about 5,000 more ballots than known voters in other precincts.

For some reason I find this incredibly funny.  I’m not sure why.   Gregoire is very anti-gun, I work in the state and probably will be living in the state in a few years.  Her election is very bad news for me.  Yet I find myself laughing.  Very odd…

The only thing that I can think of to explain my mirth is this is further evidence of the death throes of the evil party.  They are so desperate to maintain power they are willing to resort to blatant cheating.  And their getting caught at cheating, even if they get away with it this time, will further their well deserved trip into political extinction.

Could U.S. aid to survivors alter anti-Americanism among Muslims?

That’s the headline of a USA Today article.  There is a lot of hope along those lines from a number of high ranking politicians.  I think they believe that because they want to believe that.  I don’t think there is empirical evidence or a logical basis to support the conclusion that this will have any more than a very short term benefit.

I think giving aid to those victims is the right thing to do but I’m nearly certain the net results is that we will still have just as many enemies in the Islamic world as before we gave aid.  Sure, we will get some “moderates” to be more friendly to us.  But those that believe we must convert or be killed, and are our real enemies, are driven by a mindset that no amount of aid will change.  Their mindset is driven by religious conviction.  How does giving them aid change that in the slightest?  They may be extremely grateful for our aid, but that doesn’t change the fact that “god” has given them orders to convert or kill us.  The extremists among them will eat our food, drink our water, accept our medicine, then laugh at us for the folly of giving them the strength to kill us.

This is a war for the hearts and minds of an entire culture and I suspect the only way we can win this war is to destroy their culture as it presently exists.  Giving them aid doesn’t help accomplish that task but we should do it anyway.

Another new Boomershooter is buying a rifle

As some of you might have guessed I watch the log file on boomershoot.org pretty close.  This afternoon saw a few hits coming in from a forum I had never heard of:

http://www.falfiles.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=129715

I went to check it out and found that someone is planning to attend Boomershoot 2005 but doesn’t have the right rifle for it yet.  That deficiency is in the process of being remedied:

Okay, heres the deal. I have been invited to the Boomer Shoot in Idaho this April. The big problem is that I do not have a 30 cal. heavy barrel rifle. My brother has offered to loan me his for my turn at the shoot but that is not going to fly for me.
My research has told me that for new rifles Remington costs the most ($932)followed by in order of price:
Winchester – $734
Savage – $675
Charles Daily barreled action – $409 + about $80 for a stock

I have not been to the local GS looking for a nice used rifle. My goal here is to avoid paying for the rifle by selling one that I already have.
Anybody have any ideas or opinions?

This so cool!  All these people from all over the country (this guy lists his location as PRK, which I presume is California) are buying rifles specifically designed to hit small objects many hundreds of yards away and I gave them the incentive to do that.  And Ry has enticed 127 hits on Boomershoot.org from the forums on ar15.com so far this month (just four days).

I feel tingly all over and it’s not just from the unhappiness I know it would cause the Senators from NY and CA if they knew what we are doing.  Molon Labe you jerks!

Advertisements on blogs

I was reading this article and it reminded me to go check out my earning from Google AdSense (on the left side of my blog).  Since I only get about 50 vists a day I didn’t expect much and I was actually pleasantly surprised to find that on the average I have been earning $0.05/day with my blog.  Sometime today I expect I will break the $1.00 total earnings mark since I begain AdSense in the middle of December.  [sarcasm alert]I can’t wait to tell Barb that I’m ready to quit my day job and just stay home, write on my blog, and go for walks and cuddle with her rather than drive 150 away to earn money and only come home on weekends.[end sarcasm]  And probably it’s not anything that is going to change right away.  According the article:

Industry-wide, ad executives offered plenty of reasons for avoiding the blogosphere. “We’re very interested in the medium and would love to explore it, but our clients are particularly cautious,” explained John Montgomery, CEO of WPP Group’s mOne North America. “Lifestyle blogs could work very well–fishing, or tennis, or something–but who’s interested in that? The problem is that the blogs generating all the buzz are those that our clients think too risky to associate with.”

And since in a large part I’m about guns and explosives I suspect I will not be a darling of the advertisers anytime soon.  Especially with Google since guns are against their policy.  And if the ratio holds ($0.001 per vist) even bloggers like Kim du Toit with about 10K visits per day will only get about $10.00/day in income.  I’m not sure, but that might actually pay for his bandwidth.  Neither of us are going to be quiting our day jobs anytime soon.

Austin Police read my email

I put a webbug in my email about the kid in Austin wanting to build a pipe bomb.  I finally got a hit on it that traced back to the city of Austin:

162.89.0.60 – – [03/Jan/2005:21:31:09 +0000] “GET /austin.gif HTTP/1.0” 200 807 “-” “Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0; .NET CLR 1.0.3705; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)”

No formal response back yet.  But it was only 11 hours ago they read it too.  And of course I might never hear back from them.

I had someone at work today say I was too tough on the kid.  Maybe.  If he hadn’t lied to me and especially if he hadn’t said something about “taking down a small town” I would been more charitable.  And if he had just had his mom call me the police wouldn’t have had to get involved.  I’d rather be safe than sorry and this kid was over the line in my book.

Oh, another hit on a webbug of interest… at [03/Jan/2005:16:20:08 +0000] the kid or someone at his IP address read my email (for at least the second time) about giving him another chance to have his mother call me.  For the entire email exchange, minus a few identifying details, see my web page Bomb Help 2004.

Update: At [04/Jan/2005:12:48:31 +0000] someone at Austin International Airport read my email.  I presume the Austin police forwarded it on to them.

More Boomershoot blogging

Analog Kid at Random Nuclear Strike posts about  “Senor Mollbot” at What Hath I Wrought picking up his new rifle to be used at Boomershoot 2005.  They are shooting partners for the event and sent in their entry for the May 2005 event in late July of 2004–the very first entry I received.  I won’t go into the details on all mishaps that happened with their check (some my fault, some Analog Kid’s).  And also note there is a Boomershoot 2005 banner up over there.

Then Kirk over at Limpidity.org says his entry is “in the mail”, he has his hotel reserved, and is in the process of getting his airplane tickets.  There is also a Boomershoot banner and link up on his site for which I am very grateful.

I also would like to note that all three of these guys are buying/building new rifles for Boomershoot 2005.  It looks like my secret plan is working…

It’s the time of year for entering Boomershoot

Last week I received entries from five people for Boomershoot 2005. Heather and Ed are coming down from Alaska again–following a great circle route that is a 2040 mile journey!  And in the last three days I got email representing at least another four people saying they were or had sent in their entries.  Just counting the actual entries in hand I’m running ahead of any other Boomershoot ever at this time of year.  It’s a good thing we have added more shooting positions or we would be full by the end January or the first of February.  As it is my guess is that we will just have enough positions to accomodate people.

Speaking of travel distances to Boomershoot 2005.  Kim du Toit is planning on driving with Son&Heir the 1950 road miles (1400 great circle mile).  Stephanie Sailor came over 2100 great circle miles last year and I expect will be here again this year, although it’s possible she will have moved somewhat closer by then.  And I believe one of the people that says he is coming lives in central Florida which is about 2250 great circle miles. I don’t want to hear people whining about “It’s too far away.“ when they tell me they won’t be attending. Especially with the great airfares available now.

And as these pictures demonstrate, without Mrs. du Toit around this year I’ll probably have to have one of my range officiers watching Kim extra close this year.  Not for safety violations but with a camera so I can subsidize the payback of all the personal loans I made last year for the new explosives magazine with blackmail income.

Second place in IPSC this month

Coming in second overall to Adam, who was shooting an open gun, was quite pleasing.  It was stage 3, which we shot last, where I lost the most points.  But even if I had shot it more in line with my potential I wouldn’t have caught up to Adam.  If Adam doesn’t make any mistakes, as he is often prone to, I can’t touch him in speed although I usually do better in accuracy than he does.  This time he was shooting an open gun which gives him about a 10 or 15% advantage right off the top and although there were lots of no-shoot targets available he didn’t hit any which is rather uncommon for him on stages like these.  He did make a couple mistakes however.  On stage 1 his time would have been at least one and a half seconds, if not two seconds faster had he not managed to insert an extra reload into it.  Notice that he already has the fastest time for that stage, 9.81 seconds.  He would have shot those 12 rounds, including one mandatory reload in right at eight seconds.  On stage 2 he forgot to “turn his television on” (his battery powered red-dot scope) which cost him probably two seconds but he still ended up with the best time.

Explosives tests were disappointing

Ry and I, with the help of a few spectators, tested four different mixes this afternoon.  One was a control, the same stuff we used at Boomershoot 2004.  We could only get one of six targets with the mix with the new fuel to go off with the .22 LR.  None of the old fuel without or without grit would detonate with the .22 LR.  However with the silica grit we did get smoke from all of them.  The coarse iron grit didn’t do anything interesting at all.  I still have a free source of very fine iron grit that I plan to test out sometime.  Everything detonated just fine, assuming I got a solid hit, with the .223.  Of course I was only about 10 to 15 yards away so the .223 was just a means of “disposal“.

As always, “More tests are needed.”

I think I did fairly well on the IPSC match. I did poorly on the last stage but it wasn’t exactly a catastrophe either. I expect I’ll be #2 or #3. There is a small chance of coming in #1.

More tests for Joe’s special recipe

Tomorrow after the IPSC match Ry and I are going to be testing a modification for the recipe used at Boomershoot 2005.  I sort of stumbled upon an ingredient to use for the fuel in our explosives that at first glance looked to be cheap and easily available at the local hardware store.  In addition it has a lower auto ignition temperature and a higher heat of combustion.  Good things for making the explosive a little more sensitive and more powerful.  But looking closer it appears what we can get at the local store is mixed with water.  Water will be a problem for us.  I distalled out a few ounces for test purposes but unless it does surprisingly well it won’t be used.  Ignoring the cost of the distallation the price for the end product will be the same as what we are currently paying.  And buying the pure product isn’t any cheaper–at least from a quick survey of some chemical supply web sites.

Oh, well.  We have another thing to test as well.  We are going to add some iron “filings” (actually from a bandsaw) to see if it will make things easier to detonate and/or give us some cool sparks.

Anyone in the neighborhood (Moscow/Lewiston Idaho) is welcome to stop by and watch.  I expect we will start on the reactive target stuff about 13:00 or so.

My Austin pipe bomb ‘friend’

Despite several emails to the teenager wanting information on building a pipe bomb for his mom to call me I have not received any phone calls.  So… it was time to contact the police and the ATFE.

—–Original Message—–
From: Joe Huffman
Sent: Friday, December 31, 2004 9:22 AM
To: ‘apd3@ci.austin.tx.us’
Cc: ATF Intelligence Division
Subject: Some kid is looking for information on building a pipe bomb.

I am the web master for this web site: http://www.boomershoot.org

Recently I received some email from a teenager:

[snip–lots of details on the message and information I have on him]

No response yet. If anything interesting happens I’ll let you know.

Kim is home sick

Kim (our oldest daughter, age 18) came home a few hours ago. I didn’t even know she was home until Barb came and got me. I went upstairs to see her and talk to her. She was very sick. She was having trouble breathing. Her asthma was acting up and her inhaler wasn’t helping. Barb wanted to take her to the hospital but Kim was refusing and getting more upset by the minute. I talked to her for a bit (Kim and Barb sometimes have ‘difficulities’ with each other when one or both are under stress) and convinced her it was time to see a doctor. It was after hours for everyone except the emergency room so we visited there. Tests, meds, more tests, more meds, more tests, and they sent her home with still more meds. She is breathing so much better. Barb and I are “breathing easier” too. The doctor really got on her case about smoking. Something Barb and I can’t even hint at without her storming out of the house. On the way home from the hospital, when she couldn’t bail out, I brought it up as gently as I could. She actually talked to me about it. She said that since Karen died (same age as Barb and I and a heavy smoker) she has cut way back. She said she wouldn’t have a problem stopping completely until she had recovered from this episode. I didn’t push it to make it permanent. This was a huge improvement from earlier attempts to encourage her to stop. One step at a time.

Fish Or Man pulls the plug

As reported by The Smallest Minority and by visiting FishOrMan’s blog it’s apparent that he has gutted his posts regarding his ‘adventures’ open carry in Washington State.  I’m not surprised.  If I were his lawyer I would have him keep things much “closer to his chest”.  The less your opponent knows about you the better.  The exception would be if, in general the prosecuting attorney isn’t really your opponent.  Such as in the case of an affirmative defense of some sort like “Yes, I threw a brick into the neighbor’s window then fired my gun through the broken window killing eight occupants–who just happened to be gang raping the neighbor’s 12-year old girl and their cat.”  In that case your winning trophies at “combat shooting“ at the local IPSC matches, collection of full-capacity magazines, and your books on the “stopping power” of various bullet types is just fine for the prosecuting attorney to read up on.

So… It appears to me that we won’t have much more news from FishOrMan on what is going on.  If I can manage it I’ll show up in court to take notes and report back.

Here are direct links to track his cases in Spokane:
http://lnk.nu/courts.wa.gov/pq.cfm
http://lnk.nu/courts.wa.gov/pr.cfm

He supposedly has a court date in Ellensburg on January 3rd (IIRC).  But that is a bit farther than I want to drive and besides I can’t find it on the court system web site.

Take down my small city (but don’t worry)

I get ‘interesting’ email sometimes.  I’ve posted about it before but this one is a bit more amusing (to me anyway) than most.  As usual I put the entire thread (minus a few details that make it impractical anyone to track this guy down) on the Bomb Help webpage on boomershoot.org but I’m duplicating it here too:

Take Down My Small City (but don’t worry)

From: Graham
Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 2004 3:22 PM
To: Joe Huffman
Subject: guess

Hey im 15, texas. Im not going to make any bombs but knowing how to take down my small city isn’t bad. When u take apart a shotgun shell. could u fix it to explode on impact of whatever target. Dont worry i wont go blow my self and gun up really. but just wondering.

I just ‘love’ it when people tell me “don’t worry”.  I put extra work into my efforts when someone tells me that.  This guy not only does that but he writes about taking down “my small city”. 

From: Joe Huffman
Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 2004 4:03 PM
To: Graham
Subject: Re: guess

1) You say you are 15 yet your Yahoo profile (http://profiles.yahoo.com/ [snip]) says you are 17 as of 02/24/2004.

‘Wrong answer’ but you are still ‘in the game’ for now.

2) The number of instances where a small city is taken down and it’s not bad are practically nonexistent. And Austin (according to your profile) is not small. I’ll give you a provisional ‘pass’ on that blunder because you didn’t say you wanted to ‘take down’ the city, only know how to do it.

3) Because the primer in a shotgun shell is impact sensitive I’m sure it could be made to detonate some higher order explosive on impact.

Relatively benign question. You either didn’t want to know HOW to do this or were too stupid to ask the right question. ‘Pass’.

4) The way you found my website was via a google search for “building a pipe bomb”. In addition to looking at the first page you found, “BombHelp”, you looked at “BombHelp2002” and “chemistry” as well. The web page viewing by itself would warrant watching you closer and would give you a provisional ‘pass’. But your google search text was a really, really ‘wrong answer’. Your provisional ‘pass’ results are now ‘wrong’ and you fail the test.

Would you like to turn yourself in to your parents? Or should I just send the ATF SWAT team to your house at 3:00 AM some morning? I’m sure your ISP (Road Runner) knows where you live.

-joe-
—-
http://www.boomershoot.org

 As usual, I sent the email exchange to my Bomb Help Fan Club.  I got the following responses:

From: Lyle Keeney
Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 2004 6:05 PM
To: Joe Huffman
Subject: RE: guess

Yikes. Kids do bear watching, don’t they?

“Hey im 15, texas.”
I wonder why he thought your name was “texas”.

Lyle Keeney
UltiMAK
http://www.ultimak.com

From: Stephanie
Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 2004 6:07 PM
To: Joe Huffman
Subject: RE: guess

LOL – I am always entertained by these.

I like your response…

From: Barbara
Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 2004 7:35 PM
To: Joe Huffman
Subject: RE: guess

LOL. SWAT Team at 3:00 AM.

What is even better is the response I got back from the kid.

From: Graham
Sent: Wednesday, December 29, 2004 10:26 AM
To: Joe Huffman
Subject: Re: guess

man u sure did shoot that down. Ok dumb question

From: Graham
Sent: Wednesday, December 29, 2004 10:38 AM
To: Joe Huffman
Subject: Re: guess

You scare me with how you do that. Im sorry for my dumb question. please dont look up my adress or anything. I wont bother again. ps. ur a pretty smart fellow.

I’m not particularly charitable with people wanting to build pipe bombs these days.  Especially someone stupid enough to write me about “taking down a small city”.

From: Joe Huffman
Sent: Wednesday, December 29, 2004 11:01 AM
To: Graham
Subject: RE: guess

I’ve got it narrowed down to two:

[snip],
Austin, TX 78741-2603
(512) 444-[snip]

[snip]
Austin, TX 78702-2610
(512) 469-[snip]

Have your mom call me in the next 24 hours and I won’t send the information to the ATFE (http://www.atf.gov) and the local police.

208-301-4254

-joe-
—-
http://www.boomershoot.org

From: Joe Huffman
Sent: Wednesday, December 29, 2004 11:12 AM
To: Graham
Subject: RE: guess

Also of potential interest to you is this:

http://www.boomershoot.org/general/BombHelp.htm#City

-joe-
—-
http://www.boomershoot.org

Blogs mentioning Boomershoot

Recently there have been numerous bloggers making some mention of the Boomershoot I put on each year.  Here is a list of all of them I have noticed in the last month and could still find, in reverse chronological order:

Hell In A Handbasket
reasonablenut
Random Nuclear Strikes
Kim du Toit (nearly 4800 hits on boomershoot.org this year from Kim!)
Johnny Knuckles
Mrs. du Toit

And of course Mindless Bit Spew who has a link, banner, and just in general talks up Boomershoot whereever he is–like AR15.com which gave boomershoot.org over 2100 hits so far this year.

And despite Boomershoot being called “Wacko” in one case all the postings were either neutral (in two cases) or favorable (in all others).  Thanks everyone.  And to show I really mean it I’m extending the offer I made to James at Hell In A Handbasket to everyone.  If I get 100 or more hits (from different IP addresses) on boomershoot.org from your blog I’ll give you free entry into Boomershoot 2005.  If you think maybe you qualify and I haven’t noticed you send me an email. I’ll check it out and get back to you.

bin Laden calls it WW III

And I thought I was the only one opening calling this World War III.  The recently released audio tape of Osama bin Laden has him calling it that also:

The statement, peppered with Islamic verses and poems as is customary of bin Laden messages, urged Muslims around the world to take note that the most “pressing issue” of the day is the “third world war” waged by the “Crusader Zionist alliance” against Muslims.

Emphasis added.