Last Saturday, the 25th, we went to the Boomershoot range to make some improvements before it got too wet.  It had been raining off and on for weeks and I was concerned I wasn’t going to get the things done that I wanted too.

Ry took his camera and took lots of pictures.  And he wrote about it in his blog and put up his favorite pictures of the days events.  It was a rare treat for Barb to go out there when I was working on the Boomershoot.  She spent a fair amount of time on the cat with me.

Which was very nice.  She didn’t pay much attention to the work I was doing however and that make it difficult for me to maintain concentration at times too.

We had lunch at my parents place and then dinner in Kendrick.  Except for the fire that almost got a tree it was a very pleasant and productive day.

It has been in the public news for a while then I heard other “whispers” and saw some photographs about it via other channels just recently.  Very cool stuff.  Set your phasors to stun…

… Xtreme Alternative Defense Systems (XADS), based in Anderson, Indiana, will be one of the first companies to market another type of wireless weapon. Instead of using fibres, the $9000 Close Quarters Shock Rifle projects an ionised gas, or plasma, towards the target, producing a conducting channel. It will also interfere with electronic ignition systems and stop vehicles.

“We will be able to fire a stream of electricity like water out of a hose at one or many targets in a single sweep,” claims XADS president Peter Bitar.

…

The gun has been designed for the US Marine Corps to use for crowd control and security purposes and is due out in 2005. It is based on early, unwieldy technology and has a range of only three metres, but an operator can debilitate multiple targets by sweeping it across them for “as long as there is an input power source,” says Bitar.

XADS is also planning a more advanced weapon which it hopes will have a range of 100 metres or more. Instead of firing ionised gas, it will probably use a powerful laser to ionise the air itself. The idea has been around for decades, says LaVerne Schlie, a laser expert at the US Air Force Research Lab in Kirtland, New Mexico. It has only become practical with advances in high-power solid-state lasers.

“Before, it took a laser about the size of two trucks,” says Schlie. “Now we can do it with something that fits on a tabletop.”

Apparently the South Koreans “can’t stand” Bush and want Kerry elected.  They gave money to the Kerry campaign and when it became public Kerry gave it back.

The AP first reported this spring that Yi and other Kerry fund-raisers and donors had met with Chung, but at the time Chung was identified only as a diplomat. Yi resigned from Kerry’s campaign after the story, and Kerry returned $4,000 in donations he had solicited because of concerns about their origins.

…

The U.S. officials said Chung had registered with the Justice Department as a friendly foreign intelligence agent on U.S. soil, and that his activities had raised concern he or his government had tried to influence the fall presidential election through “extracurricular activities.”

I’m wondering who North Korea and China are donating money to.  Kerry already has the endorsement of communist and socialist organizations so one would think he would have the advantage over Bush for these two countries.

I used to have a Cat Stevens tape and really liked his music.  Kind of a shock to find out he converted to Islam.

Here’s the story from the NY Times:

WASHINGTON, Sept. 21 – The Department of Homeland Security ordered a United Airlines jet flying from London to Washington rerouted to Bangor, Me., on Tuesday afternoon so it could intercept a passenger, Yusuf Islam, the musician formerly known as Cat Stevens, two government officials said.

Mr. Islam was “denied entry into the United States,” said an official, and was in the custody of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. The plan on Tuesday evening was to deport Mr. Islam, who is a British subject, the officials said.

The officials, both of whom said they could not be named because this was a security issue, said Mr. Islam was a financial supporter of groups believed to be linked to terrorism. Mr. Islam’s Web site lists him as a supporter of many charities.

…

After the interception of Mr. Islam on Tuesday, one of the government officials said, “He is not on a watch list for making verbal threats.”

Mr. Islam was deported from Israel in July 2000 because he was believed to be a supporter of Hamas, the terrorist group.

What is probably most interesting to me is the different coverage given this story by different news outlets.  Compare the above to this one from ABC and The Associated Press:

WASHINGTON Sept. 21, 2004 — A London-to-Washington flight was diverted to Maine on Tuesday when it was discovered passenger Yusuf Islam formerly known as singer Cat Stevens was on a government watch list and barred from entering the country, two federal officials said.

…

The two federal officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, identified the passenger as Islam. They said Islam was denied entry on national security grounds, but had no details about why the peace activist might be considered a risk to the United States.

…

Islam, who was born Stephen Georgiou, took Cat Stevens as a stage name and had a string of hits in the 1960s and ’70s, including “Wild World” and “Morning Has Broken.” Last year he released two songs, including a re-recording of his ’70s hit “Peace Train,” to express his opposition to the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

He abandoned his music career in the late 1970s and changed his name after being persuaded by orthodox Muslim teachers that his lifestyle was forbidden by Islamic law. He later became a teacher and an advocate for his religion, founding a Muslim school in London in 1983.

He has criticized terrorist acts by Muslims, including the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the school seizure in Beslan, Russia, earlier this month that left more than 300 dead, nearly half of them children.

In a statement on his Web site, he wrote, “Crimes against innocent bystanders taken hostage in any circumstance have no foundation whatsoever in the life of Islam and the model example of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.”

After the Sept. 11 attacks, Islam issued a statement saying: “No right thinking follower of Islam could possibly condone such an action: The Quran equates the murder of one innocent person with the murder of the whole of humanity.”

We always called her ‘CC’, but in the news they call her Celia.

A boy who said on the Internet that he planned to bomb his high school was turned in by the 16-year-old daughter of a university police officer who heads a cyber crimes unit, authorities said.

Authorities credited Celia McGinty of Moscow, Idaho, with foiling a plot to bomb Chippewa Valley High School outside Detroit.

Police said a search of 17-year-old Andrew Osantowski’s home last week turned up instructions for making a bomb and videotapes of him with assault weapons.
…
She said Monday on ABC’s “Good Morning America” that the boy — who started at Chippewa Valley High School on August 31 — was very specific about how he would take revenge on teachers and schoolmates.

She is sixteen now, and was only about five or six at the time, but it was after she got into some things that we thought were hidden fairly well in our bedroom that I had sufficient motivation to buy a gun safe.

Good job CC.

A very busy day for me.  I picked up Ry shortly after 0800 and went to the Taj Mahal to clean up the mess after the last Boomershoot, do inventory, and prepare for the next one.  Mice had destroyed a few minor things and made a mess.  I killed four of the eight we saw with my (gloved) hands by throwing them against the ground then stomping on them.  Ry was concerned I would injury my knee or something because of the vigor with which I stomped on them.  I also ended up killing a dozen or so yellowjackets that swarmed around us.  Very annoying.

We at lunch at Mom and Dad’s and said hi to Doug.  Mom gave me some cucumbers and a couple cards for Xenia (who turns 16 tomorrow).  We borrowed a few things and went back to work.  We make a few targets for a Boomershoot Adventure for some friends at work who will be driving over next weekend.  We fixed up the geocache, It’s a Blast, that was falling apart, took things back to Dad and zoomed home just in time for Xenia’s birthday party.

A month or so ago I got some mail from the ATFE.  I am always apprehensive when I get something from them but that is based on zero real life experience with them.  The worst I can say about the material I receive from them was that it didn’t apply to me.  Most of the time it is, “Hmmm… okay.  That makes sense.“  This time I was actually impressed.  I had decided to not say anything about it in public but then I found it on their web site so I decided to go ahead and talk about it.  They sent me some material put out by “The Fertilizer Institute” in cooperation with the ATFE.  It was about how to make our country safer.  How to prevent explosive materials from getting into the hands of the wrong people.  Hundreds of millions of tons of ammonium nitrate (AN) are used annually on our farms.  AN is the primary component of the “reactive targets” I build for the boomershoot as well as being used in the Oklahoma City bombing and numerous other international terrorist bombings.  With all that AN being used each year in 100’s of thousands of locations how can you secure it such that a few hundred pounds (500 pounds could make a very serious bomb) doesn’t get out?  Well… when I read the material presented it really clicked.  It reminded me of when I worked on a political campaign to oppose a anti-gun initiative (I-676) a few years ago.  The people on the phone lines would tell stories about the anti-gun people that would call and try to get information about our plans.  You only had to ask one or two questions and the anti-gun people would, figuratively, fall in heap on the floor.  If the lines weren’t very busy then they would play with them for a few minutes and have more material for the story telling later that evening.  They would just ask something like, “What type of gun do you have?“  “What caliber is it?“  They would get answers like “Glock“ and “.357 Magnum“ (only revolvers shoot .357 Magnum and Glock doesn’t make any revolvers).  Or “Shotgun, I’m not sure who makes it, but it’s a 9mm.”  With a little bit of suggestive questioning you could get them to agree to the most incredibly outrageous things.  It was great sport making fun of the people that were trying to do us harm and now I realize that it can be more than just sport.  It can be a deadly serious means to save lives.  This is the brochure I received.  Growing up on a farm the questions and idle chatter that happens with other farmers and our suppliers which seem perfectly reasonable would throw my wife or kids for a total loop and would be a HUGE warning flag.  And that is just for someone with a fair amount of contact with a working farm and someone who grew up on a farm.  Here are the items from the brochure:

Stranger
Unfamiliar to area or to you.

Doesn’t know much about farming/fertilizer
Doesn’t answer questions about acreage, crops, soil composition, etc. in a specific, knowledgeable way.

Insistent about ammonium nitrate
Will not consider other products you recommend. Is only interested in ammonium nitrate.

Doesn’t want product delivered
Insists on taking product now. Asks for it in bags, not bulk.

Hesitates/hedges when asked for information
Name, address, signature, photo ID, etc.

Acts nervous
Avoids eye contact. Seems jittery, uneasy, vague.

Pays in cash
Won’t write a check or use credit. Has no credit account with your or other ag businesses in the area.

After reading this I also remembered a story about someone that flew from Israel back to the U.S. after delivering a paper at a conference.  The security people did a one-on-one interview with every single passenger.  It took about 10 minutes for each passenger and went something like this for this guy,

I see that you visited here for a week.  Please tell me the purpose of your visit.  Describe the topic of your paper please.  Give me the lecture you gave the conference on this paper. <listens for about two minutes>  Please explain to me what ““ means.

In short, they can ask very innocent questions and unless you actually were there for the purposes you claim you will quickly get into trouble.  In this case it’s actually sort of a reverse vocabulary test.  The security agent will most likely not have the vocabulary of the paper presenter and expects to find words and phrases that are unknown to the average person.  The presenter, if they are the expert they claim to be, should be able to define the words and phrases in a manner that is consistent and sensical even to someone not skilled in that particular field.

Every group has their own language and culture.  You couldn’t fake being in the military with another military person for more than about 30 seconds before they would find you out if they wanted to test you.  A chess player, a quilter, or football fan–if you don’t belong to the group your vocabulary will expose you as a phony.

It turns out the reverse is also true.  If you speak the vocabulary you can gain the almost immediate trust of people that shouldn’t trust you.  It’s called “social engineering” in the security field and those are some of the most difficult attacks to defend against.

As Ry already reported, the October issue of Outside Magazine with the article on Boomershooting is out.  It is a nice article.  Lisa Anne Auerbach did a good job on it — considering the premise she had to work with.  The issue was “The Sex & Sin Issue” and Lisa had to spice it up a little with lines like:

It sounds so wrong on so many levels–the guns, the noise, the NRA–but what can I say?  Sometimes a girl just has to get the kinks out, and firing guns is a great way to do it.

It was a positive article and I’m pleased to get the attention.  My disappointment is that Ry was not mentioned.  Tim, Lisa, and their kids were there too and were not mentioned either, but I could see dropping them in an article tight for space.  But Ry was such a major part of the entire experience that it wasn’t really right to not mention him.  There wasn’t a link to either of the boomershoot web sites either (boomershoot.org and boomershoot.com).  And there were no pictures published.  There were lots of pictures taken, but nothing made it into the magazine.

Oh well.  I’m happy about it.  I was a bit apprehensive that some of Ms. Auerbach’s anti-gun feelings would come through but they did not.   Thank you Lisa.

I had never really followed the EU much.  It was sort of, okay, whatever.  Others complain about them being a bunch of wimps and various other derogatory things.  I didn’t really have an opinion — then I read the following:

The European Union, already at odds with the Bush administration over pre-emptive military strikes, reacted warily to a warning from Moscow that it too reserved the right to neutralize terror threats anywhere in the world.

Col. Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, the chief of the general staff of Russia’s armed forces, said Wednesday that “we will take all measures to liquidate terrorist bases in any region of the world.”
.
.
.
The European Union argues that a policy of pre-emptive strikes is too risky. A security strategy paper approved by EU governments last year said emphasis should be placed on diplomatic and political solutions.

“Diplomatic and political solutions” often work if you are dealing with a nation state.  I think it was 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11/2001 were from Saudi Arabia.  Should we have started negotiations with Saudi Arabia to find out why they attacked us?  No?  Why is that?  Oh, because it was Osma bin Laden that was the top leader of that attack not the Saudi government.  So perhaps we should negotiate with him.  He sent us an open letter after the attack, clearly spelling out the conditions required before the attacks would stop.  I commented on this letter before so I don’t need to do that in depth here, but the bottom line is that we need to convert to Islam and stop the immorality and debauchery including fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling, and trading with interest.  We need to rule ourselves under the laws of Shariah of Allah rather than invent our own laws.  If we fail to respond to all (emphasis added) these conditions then we will need to fight the Islamic Nation. 

Okay, so tell me how we can find a diplomatic solution to this position of our adversary?  Who wants to give up the U.S. Constitution and turn our justice system over to Islamic Clerics?  Maybe we could just reinstate prohibition and execute homosexuals.  Does anyone think that perhaps this would be sufficient to satisfy them? Does anyone think that is an acceptable compromise?  I don’t, and I’m not a homosexual and only very rarely drink any alcohol.  If those laws were passed it would only have the most minor of immediate effects on me and my lifestyle.  But it still is totally and completely unacceptable to me.  I would rather imprison and/or kill a hundred thousand Islamic extremists and loose another thousand U.S. lives than agree to that one point.  And what cost do you think we should be willing to pay to avoid the rule of “Shariah of Allah”?  I’d rather start up special pig (and web) farms for the Islamic terrorists we need to “process”.  As sad and as distasteful as it may be it would be better to run a million Islamic extremists through the pig farms than for the world to live under an Islamic theocratic rule.

So, IMHO, the EU is a bunch of totally clueless wimps.  If they want to “place emphasis on diplomatic and political solutions” then I would like to suggest they pursue that path with the Russians.  I think perhaps the Russians would agree to let the EU leaders shovel their pig manual.

I got the results last night.  I came in second.  A close second.  I’ll post the results on the web site soon.

Towards the end of last week I was getting better and better.  Saturday was the last day I felt any dizziness.  I appear to be all better now.

I was listening to a “book on CD” on the way to work this morning — Every Man a Tiger.  It’s about the Air Force general who directed the air war in the first US/Iraq war.  Very interesting stuff.  I really like it.  James and Barb tried listening to it when they went to Sacramento a few weeks ago and didn’t care for it.  Barb gave it to me saying that they thought I would like it.  I didn’t even know what it was about other than it was Tom Clancy book.  I expected fiction instead of something more like a biography.  Then not long after I got to work some strange guy shows up in my office and starts talking to me.  It turns out he is a Air Force Reserve Major.  I don’t recall the last time I talked to someone in the Air Force but it has been years. 

Anyway we talked about the meeting with the Air Force he is arranging/hosting which I’m presenting at tomorrow.  We also talked about Boomershoot stuff for a while.  He plans to attend the next one if he is back from Iraq in time.  He shoots thousands and thousands of rounds a year – certainly a lot more than I have recently.

If any Islamic extremists are considering doing a repeat of the little number they did in Russia last week with us in the U.S. they should do it in major city many, many  miles from the nearest farms.  If you do it near a farming community your bodies (living or dead) will likely be fed to the pigs.  If your family wants to bury your remains they will have to pick the bone fragments out of the pig manure.

A few days ago I got on the case of the California lawmakers who were afraid of toy guns.  In the U.K. the repression is so extreme they used the force of law to stop a paid advertisement that displayed the use of a starting pistol.  Apparently they are afraid that people might actually think it is ‘normal’ that some people would own a starting pistol.  They banned the advertisment:

In this advertisement, the starter pistol was used in both an apparent casual manner and just for fun, to signal the start of the man’s journey. The domestic setting, together with the gun simply lying in a drawer, normalised the ownership of guns.

So not only is it against the law to own a firearm but it is against the law to express a viewpoint that it might be normal for people to own a firearm.  Why are those politicians still allowed to breath?  How are they any different than some theocratic country where women aren’t allowed to show their skin and everyone is required to adhere to the same religious tenets?  They are a bunch of repressive tyrants and should be dealt with as such.  I’m increasingly lead to believe we should start pushing the human rights issue with some of our “allies”.

The Islamic extremists are expanding on the activities of earlier this week and last:

Heavily armed insurgents, some with explosives strapped to their bodies, seized a school in southern Russia today and herded scores of schoolchildren and others into its gymnasium.

More than a dozen guerrillas, including men and women, stormed Middle School No. 1 in the town of Beslan in the republic of North Ossetia, not far from Chechnya on Russia’s southern border with Georgia, just moments after the opening of the new school year, according to officials there and news reports.

According to one report:

…the hostage-takers threatened to kill 50 children for each of their number killed and 20 for each wounded.

This reminds me some of the Modoc Indian War.  Barb and have visited Lava Beds National Monument where the war took place several times and each time is just as interesting as the last.  The bit of history that is relevant here is that at one point the Modoc Indians entered into peace negotiations.  They didn’t really understanding how the U.S. Army worked believed that if they killed the “big chief”, the general, the army would just go away.  And so it must be with the Chechnya Islamic extremists.  They apparently just don’t understand what their actions mean to us. 

Probably just as important is that we might really understand them.  As one person in the CIA who worked with psychologists there told me, “Most people don’t realize just how different these people think than we do.”  It wasn’t an appropriate time to follow up on his statement but I would love to do that some time.  Just what can we do to “motivate them” in a manner consistent with our goals?  High velocity lead poisoning works but what other things could we be doing?  One thing is certain, they don’t know how to motivate us in a manner consistent with their goals.  My response would be somewhat along the lines of  “we are going to read up on the methods used on Dresden and it will be one city block containing a mosque for each child injured, one small town and all mosques for each child killed”.

Last week I missed a couple days of work because I was really dizzy.  No fever or anything, the world just seemed to be rotating in weird directions and angles.  I went to the doctor on Saturday who did a few tests and said it probably was an inner ear problem rather than some of the more serious things that were possible like a brain injury.  It comes and goes, sometimes I feel fine and other times I feel it’s nearly time to sit or lay down before I fall down.  Aerobics went fairly well last night.  My endurance seemed okay.  Balance wasn’t great but good enough to not be particularily embarrassing.

Probably the most interesting aspect to this is that Gina (at work) stopped me in the hallway a this morning and asked some questions about where I drank my water here at work.  It turns out several other people here have been having problems with dizziness in the last month or so.  They are trying to figure out a common cause.  Nothing yet.

The instructor found some additional people to attend so starting Monday I’m back to dripping sweat onto the floor of a small room with others twice a week.  I just got the following email:

—–Original Message—–
From: KANDACE
Sent: Friday, August 27, 2004 9:14 AM
To: Huffman, Joseph K
Subject: Re: RE:

Very cute!!! I will count you in!! And it is a go!!! Kandace

 

—– Original Message —–

From: Huffman, Joseph K

To: KANDACE

Sent: Thursday, August 26, 2004 9:58 AM

Subject: RE:

Count me as one of the people disappointed (see also: https://blog.joehuffman.org/2004/08/18/ ).

 

Starting next weeks sounds good.  I’m a bit ill this week anyway.

 

-joe-
—-
https://www.joehuffman.org
http://www.boomershoot.org

—–Original Message—–
From: KANDACE
Sent: Tuesday, August 24, 2004 4:08 PM
To: Downs, Janelle L; Simmons, Mary Ann; Peurrung, Loni M; Huffman, Joseph K; Sharma, Seema
Cc: Fowler, Kimberly M; Icayan, Sheri L; Chien, Yi-Ju; Pospical, Jill
Subject:

I have had feedback that there is a lot of dissapointment regarding cancellation of the 5:10pm cardio crosstrain class due to lack of participation. There are few from the 4:05 class that are willing to move to the 5:10 class to get the numbers up to the 7 needed for class due to the fact that I am offering some bosu during that classtime as well. If you are still interested, let me know, and we will resume class next week if there are enough participants. Cost will be reduced to $60 for the remainder of the session!! Let me know ASAP!!!I will let you all know as soon as possible regarding class next week!!! Kandace

The MD5 hash is used for “digitally signing” data.  It is very popular and it performs an exceedingly important function in computer security.  There are alternatives to it so long term it isn’t a big issue assuming the current or related flaw isn’t found in them too.  But short term it’s still a big deal.

http://www.arnnet.com.au/index.php/id;1503863220;fp;16;fpid;0

Researchers have discovered a flaw in the MD5 algorithm that is used to provide a unique signature for data.

Xiaoyun Wang, a Chinese expert, and three colleagues have discovered the flaw in the hash function algorithm, which is used in applications, such as EMC’s Centera content-addressable file store. The flaw was revealed at the Crypto 2004 conference.

A duplicated hash value is called a collision. Such a hash function is not un-crackable. It relies for its effectiveness on the great amount of time required to break it. Until the Chinese team’s work, several million hours of compute time would have been needed. They showed that it could be done within a few hours on a standard PC.

Rob Schrimshaw from Indiana Partnership to Prevent Firearm Violence (which as near as I can tell doesn’t have a website) is clueless about firearms.  He claims

“I think the effectiveness was questionable when the ban was originated in 1994. It was intended to ban all different types of assault weapons. The manufacturers kind of circumvented those regulations with design modifications so these weapons that are still on the market today still have the ability to fire rapidly, still highly accurate, still can shoot over a tremendous distance and actually can carry a higher, more powerful caliber of bullet as well,” said Rob Schrimshaw, Indiana Partnership to Prevent Firearm Violence.

What “assault weapon” is he talking about?  If you know much of anything about firearms the answer will floor you.  This is the lead up to that paragraph:

The groups are holding a news conference Tuesday. They will focus on high-powered rifles like the SKS assault rifle used by Kenneth Anderson in last Wednesday’s deadly gun battle.

The SKS???  First off the SKS is not an assault rifle (fully automatic).  But that was the reporter saying that.  I tend to give them some slack on that somewhat fine point.  Every statement Mr. Schrimshaw made about this rifle is false.  If he is to be taken seriously by anyone he should know something about what he is talking about.  He doesn’t appear to know anything.

1. It was not modified to avoid the “assault weapon ban”.  It was never covered by the Clinton Gun Ban.  It was not specifically mentioned and it does not have the “ugly features” required by the ban to qualify.
2. It cannot be fired any more rapidly than any other semi-automatic firearm.  In fact, it has such a long, hard trigger pull that it can’t be fired as rapidly as most.
3. It is not “highly accurate“.  It is the most inaccurate rifle I know.
4. It cannot shoot over tremendous distance.  It shoots a light weight (123 to 125 grain) .30 caliber bullet at a velocity that is on the low end of normal for a rifle (about 2300 fps).  The light weight bullet, for that caliber, combined with a low velocity means the range is far below normal.  And because it is so inaccurate as the range increases the usefulness of the rifle goes to zero.
5. It does not “carry a higher, more powerful caliber of bullet”.  .30 caliber bullets are very ordinary.
6. The cartridge used by the SKS, 7.62×39, is considered medium-powered at best.

But what do you expect?  The truth?  If they were to tell the truth then no one be interested in their agenda.  Only by telling falsehoods (I hesitate to say lie because he may simply be grossly ignorant) can they gain any traction.

Talking about banning guns the news, not just commentary, describes anti-freedom lawmakers as “moderate”.  I’m reading Weapons of Mass Distortation by L. Brent Bozell II and reading the news now takes on a new light.  What he describes enabled me to see this stuff.  It just jumps off the page at me:

If there’s one issue on which Republicans usually agree, it’s their strong defense of the Second Amendment. But less than two weeks before the GOP convention, moderates and conservatives find themselves at odds over the soon-to-expire semi-automatic gun ban.

The news doesn’t talk about the Democrats being “divided“ or the Democrats opposed to gun control as being moderate or the gun banners as being extremists.

As I have been saying for years in general people want to be near “the center” in their beliefs.  If the perception is that banning guns is “moderate” then more people will adapt that position.  The news, not just the commentary, is incredibly biased to give an anti-freedom slant on nearly every issue.