This is how to do it. My hat’s off to him, and his “Citizens for a really safe Ashland.”
NY SAFE-legal AR
One ugly gun. But legal and effective enough.I guess that what freedom and market demands will do, though, when confronted by stupid laws.
Idiots… There are nothing but complete idiots in office in that state. The mind boggles.
Law for thee, not for me
I’m sure we are all shocked when a gun-control activist is caught with a gun. Oh, the horror, how could it happen? But when he’s caught carrying in an elementary school? That’s just another day in Buffalo, NY. He committed what was a simple misdemeanor, that was turned into a felony by a law he helped pass. The SWAT was a total over-reaction, but I hope they make him rot in jail for a LOOOOONG time. Not because I think what he did was wrong, but because it’s a law he supported and help pass to punish people exercising an enumerated right.
Schadenfreude at it’s most ironic.
Quote of the day—Nonsensic-Al
Clearly a solid case of LPB (little penis behavior) compounded with a few dashes of stupidity and a soupcon of entitlement.
Nonsensic-Al
July 24, 2013
Comment to “Fuck All You Libtards,” Pennsylvania Police Chief Announces
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!—Joe]
What we all knew- safety is job #3
From the Department of “Duh” comes this little Kiwi gem. Seems a researcher ran an experiment on playground rules and child development. Making things too safe, having too many rules, was bad all the way around. Safe=boring and they didn’t learn about natural consequences of acting like idiots.
As a father of two kids, one girl and one barbarian, I see them do things that make me cringe, but I also know they have fun, play hard, and learn fast when you give them a fair bit of rope. Bones heal, bruises are great for showing off to friends. I’m sure I’ve watched them do things that would make the Risk Management head of any school district stroke out. But the kids are the better and healthier for it, and their mom gets a break because she can’t bear to watch.
Quote of the day—Anonymous Conservative
As the amygdala enters high gear, its flagging and weighing functions will deteriorate, and details and complex thoughts will become much less noticed than grossly perceived, broad-stroke emotional stimuli. This is why decisions to make Civil War, or just go wantonly killing every Liberal you can find in a bloody orgy of violence, will not be made rationally, whenever they get made.
…
This all relates to politics, in that Liberals try to quiet their own amygdalae by getting government to stimulate Conservative amygdalae in some way. They want to make Conservatives pay for their birth control, to tax them, to disarm them so they can’t defend their families, to regulate their businesses into oblivion, to force them to confront sexual themes and activities which disgust and repel them, to prevent them from enjoying something under the guise of environmentalism, or prevent them from forming free associations to get healthcare or economic advantage. I mean, Leftists try to make parts of US parks off limits to humans who just want to peacefully enjoy them. They even insist Conservatives stop publicly acknowledging realities that bother the Liberal, from the failure of the multi-cult, to the bad effects from destroying the family unit, all so the Liberal can more easily retreat into a bubble of fantasy and false reality that will help the Leftist avoid all amygdala stimulation. That leftist behavior is all amygdala-stimulating to a freedom-loving K-psychology, and Liberals know this. Liberals are the people who feel good when others are irritated. That is not as uncommon a psychology as people think.
The thing is, when Conservatives reach sufficient levels of amygdala stimulation, they will let the pressure out, and it will likely be in the form of violence. We haven’t evolved that much in the last 500 years. The same humans who gladly hunted Comanche nearly to extinction, fought the revolutionary war, angrily killed their own brothers in the Civil War, happily flame-thrower’d Japanese in the Pacific, dragged Mussolini’s dead body through the streets, ruthlessly wanted blood after 9/11, and murdered Khadafi after torturing him on the spot, are all still around today. Push the right buttons, and all of that can happen again.
The danger for us K-strategists is, we tend to fight without thinking clearly, when we approach Meat’s level of amygdala stimulation – and that level of amygdala stimulation is almost the only time we will actually fight. This can lead us to be easily manipulated by r-strategists into fighting other K-strategists. Few Conservatives, pissed that the Federal government is seizing their guns, will hunt down the nearest unarmed Liberal rabbit hiding in their bedroom, and kill them in cold blood in their own house, as the rabbit pleads their helplessness and innocence. Rather, K-strategists will tend to fight anybody but the Liberal, from heavily armed government agents who come to take guns, to radical Muslims trying to implement Sharia on the streets of America, to K-strategists of another race who have been goaded into wanting to fight us by the Left. Even though the Liberal is a vile creature, and the source of all our problems, we are almost programmed to fight anyone but them.
Anonymous Conservative
February 7, 2014
The Amygdala Hijack In Action – A Video Example
[I can’t begin to explain how strongly this resonates with me. I could give many personal examples in my childhood and countless examples from both personal and political experience from the last 20 years.
We must learn how to use this power against them.—Joe]
Quote of the day—alcibiades_mystery
It will be a multigenerational fight, but we will prevail.
We need to make the gunners irrelevant. Long view, long fight. Challenge everything in the long view. Harass them mercilessly in the short term. We need an ACT UP, sitting in at the gun manufacturers, shaming their spokespeople in public. And absolute frontal attack on all of gun culture beginning now and not ending until their paltry and pathetic arguments have been obliterated.
alcibiades_mystery
December 16, 2012
Comment to Obama is not going to take your guns away. We are.
[I also take a long view on this. Someday I hope this will be used as evidence in his trial.—Joe]
Mugme Street news
Via an email from Barron we have this news item:
A 13-year-old boy was sentenced to four months in juvenile detention after he pleaded guilty in King County Juvenile Court on Wednesday to the attempted robbery of a concierge and an attack on two skateboarders in two separate incidents last summer in Westlake Park.
Technically this is one block away from Mugme Street. But it’s close enough and it is a place I walk through nearly every day I go to work.
Then this arrest happened on Mugme street last night:
A 16-year-old girl, suspected in several robberies that have occurred in the past couple of months, was arrested last night by officers downtown.
…
A warrant for her arrest was obtained, and a bulletin was distributed to officers. Last night, just before 10:00 pm, officers located the suspect near Third and Pike and took her into custody.
It’s not safe here. I want to move back to Idaho and play with my guns and explosives.
Not so random thought of the day
The quote of the day by Lyle this morning caused me to do some more thinking.
I’m certain most of my readers already get this at some level but for me putting it in different words made it more clear.
Libertarians will sometimes point out that government and all laws are declaration of intent to use force. From the law that says pay a sales tax on your purchase of a pair of shoes to the law that says do not murder. In the final analysis they all mean that if you don’t do as the laws says people with guns will hunt you down and either force you to do as the laws says or punish you for your failure to do so. And if you resist they will use the guns against you.
This is true. And it is a necessary part of government and probably is a societal requirement in population groups larger than a few hundred. But what I just realized is the same observation could be used in “the other direction”. Government must be controlled so that it does not become a outlaw. This means men with guns must be willing and able to hunt down the agents of government and force them to comply with the law and/or punish them.
The Constitution is the law authorizing and governing our government and the Second Amendment is the ultimate enforcement authorization for the people to keep government within the bounds of that law.
Those that would demand we give up our specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms are demanding there be no effective enforcement of the limits to government. This is no different than there being laws and courts but without a police force to enforce the laws and court decisions. And that is another example of crazy talk by those that want to infringe upon our right to keep and bear arms.
Quote of the day—Lyle
We already have “limits” on paper and those aren’t being observed. I don’t see how anyone can believe that some new and shiny set of “limits” will fare any better. The only true limit is death or the threat of it.
How many times have we scoffed at the notion of a “gun free zone” sign deterring a criminal? A constitutional limit is exactly the same as a “gun free zone” sign – that piece of paper or parchment isn’t going to magically stop anyone, and most especially it won’t stop anyone when there are trillions of dollars and near absolute power on the other side of that piece of paper.
Lyle
Comment to Quote of the day—M.E. Thomas
[Shorter version: “A constitution without the right of the people to keep and bear arms is like a ‘gun free zone’ without metal detectors and armed guards.”—Joe]
Be prepared
I spent some time going through the anti-gun talking points document published by the “Progressive Majority Action Fund”.
For a moment I was concerned they might have used my video in this paragraph:
In the hands of someone with practice, an assault weapon can fire almost as fast as a machinegun. You can see this on videos all over YouTube, here for example. But even without much practice, any fool can fire two rounds per second, emptying a 30 round magazine in 15 seconds or less.
But the link comes up as “This video is unavailable. Sorry about that.”
Good.
The document is filled with half-truths and outright lies “errors”. They claim suppressors (they call them silencers, which is the same term the ATF uses) and machine guns are illegal. You can buy suppressors at many gun stories in the Seattle area as well as in most other states. It requires filling out a form and the paying of a $200 tax to the ATF but they aren’t illegal.
They claim the blocking of sales via background checks is proof the background check system “works”. Well, yes. For certain definitions of “works”. Such as casting a chilling effect on the exercise of a specific enumerated right.
But to believe the background checks make people safer is crazy talk. Even the INSTITUTE OF MEDICINE AND NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES says the issue is far from settled:
Controlling access to guns through background checks or restrictions on particular types of firearms remains controversial, and the effectiveness of various types of control is inadequately researched.
Read the anti-gun document and the National Academies document and be prepared.
What was the objective?
April 16, 2013 there was an attack on communications in the area near San Jose California. Minutes later there was an attack on a electrical power substation.
Stories on the events are here:
- Bullet holes riddle key California power substation causing heavy damage — 10,000 gallon oil spill — Statewide Emergency Alert to conserve energy — 911 calls not working nearby (April 16, 2013)
- Sabotage: High-powered rifle used in attack on California power substation — Same perpetrators blamed for cutting AT&T fiber optic cables — Objective was “shutting down the system” — FBI now leading investigation (April 16, 2013)
- ‘Military-Style’ Raid on California Power Station Spooks U.S. (December 27, 2013)
- Assault on California Power Station Raises Alarm on Potential for Terrorism (February 4, 2014)
- Sniper Attack On Calif. Power Station Raises Terrorism Fears (February 5, 2014)
The WSJ February 5 version is the most complete. But it requires a subscription. Some of the most insightful information comes from this article, such as:
“This wasn’t an incident where Billy-Bob and Joe decided, after a few brewskis, to come in and shoot up a substation,” Mark Johnson, retired vice president of transmission for PG&E, told the utility security conference, according to a video of his presentation. “This was an event that was well thought out, well planned and they targeted certain components.”
…
Mr. Wellinghoff, then chairman of FERC, said that after he heard about the scope of the attack, he flew to California, bringing with him experts from the U.S. Navy’s Dahlgren Surface Warfare Center in Virginia, which trains Navy SEALs. After walking the site with PG&E officials and FBI agents, Mr. Wellinghoff said, the military experts told him it looked like a professional job.
In addition to fingerprint-free shell casings, they pointed out small piles of rocks, which they said could have been left by an advance scout to tell the attackers where to get the best shots.
“They said it was a targeting package just like they would put together for an attack,” Mr. Wellinghoff said.
Ry stopped by my office today to discuss something else and we talked about it some. Ry has friends “everywhere”. One of his friends works for one of the companies that owned some of the fiber optic cables which were cut. Indications are the perpetrators had inside knowledge about the communication system.
There have been no arrests to date. The entire operation shows good planning, execution, and post operation discipline at keeping their mouths shut.
But, as Ry repeatedly asked me this morning, what was the end goal? They didn’t really accomplish anything. Power was rerouted and there wasn’t a significant power outage. They knocked out the substation for a month but “so what?”
To me, this sounds more like one of these Patriot militias trying to start something than it does anything else. So where are the rest of the people just itching for a civil war?
Yeah. Right. And how would attacking infrastructure used by everyone help their cause? These weren’t stupid people. Next?
Mark Johnson, quoted above in the WSJ is also quoted in Foreign Policy as saying:
My personal view is that this was a dress rehearsal.
I’m skeptical. If it was a dress rehearsal then why wait so long for the main event? And it wasn’t exactly a ‘dry’ run. A successful dry run would have been undetected. This was not intended to be undetected.
The dominate speculation on the gun email list at work is foreign terrorists.
Maybe. But why not follow it up with similar attacks? It’s been nearly a year now. Does it take that long to train and coordinate a dozen teams to take down a multi-state region?
An additional reason I’m skeptical of any hypothesis of it being a dress rehearsal is that I would think they would have “burned the bridge” to their inside knowledge of the security communications with that attack. They would assume that coupon would expire within a month or two after they used it. The hardening of the electrical power substations to attacks is much more difficult than hardening the communications vaults and plugging information leaks. They would have to do the “live show” within a week or two to use the same methods as in this attack.
I proposed the following two hypothesizes to Ry which he didn’t immediately shoot down:
- They had something additional planned but the power didn’t go out in the target area like they figured it would so the end goal was not attempted.
- Proof of capability for an extortion demand but they very nearly got caught, were spooked, and chickened out on following through.
It is interesting stuff regardless of the objective.
Update: See also the Infogalactic entry.
Mugme Street news
From KOMO News:
According to the Seattle Police Department, two men were arguing at the Glen Hotel, a Low Income Housing Institute building, at 1413 Third Avenue around 10 a.m. when one shot the other.
Via an IM from Ry who noted that this is just a half block south from where we work.
See also the Seattle Police blog post.
Quote of the day—Leslie
You definitely have the most interesting hobby of anyone I have ever talked to.
Leslie
Dental hygienist
February 5, 2014
[She was referring to Boomershoot.
It started out with her asking if I was going to the Seahawks parade in downtown Seattle yesterday. “Involuntarily. I work in the building next to the parade route”, I responded, “I’m not participating. They are a football team, right? Do they use the round balls or the funny oblong ones?”
She then ask what my hobbies were since I don’t have an interest in football. “Guns and explosives.”, I replied. I expected her to speech center to freeze up and then get to work on cleaning my teeth but instead she wanted to know my favorite handgun. Okay. We are going to talk instead of getting my teeth cleaned. At least it is something I like to talk about. So I told her, “STI Eagle. I use it in competition.”
She is looking to buy a gun for carry. And another hygienist in the office is a firearms instructor. She thought Boomershoot sounded really cool and suggested she and her husband should come over to watch. I encouraged it and gave her links to Kathy Jackson’s blog, my blog, and Boomershoot.
And I did get my teeth cleaned.—Joe]
TSCB short
Posting a couple of The Stars Came Back short stories / installments over at www.TheStarsCameBack.com over the next couple of days.
Wander over there occasionally if you want to follow things.
Only white men get asked…
Ergo it is a disingenuous question, and/or the person asking it is a blithering fool. QED.
Bill Cosby, for example, never gets asked why white people are under-represented in his show, nor should he ever be asked. What a stupid question.
BTW; I had watched Cosby’s shows (including live action – the cartoon came later) on TV since I was a little kid, and I never knew he was black until I heard someone say so. It surprised me, in a way. That happened when I was entering adulthood, so my “ignorance” lasted through quite a few years of watching him. He never made an issue out of it, so I never noticed. The Cosby Kids cartoon showed kids just like us and our friends, doing crazy stuff just like we did. Same with Sanford and Son for the most part. They were a fairly typical father and son, much like the first-generation European immigrants and their kids that I grew up with in my home town.
Now you get crap if you don’t tow someone else’s agenda line or something. So ignore the crap and mind your business– It’s not that difficult, as Seinfeld points out..
Quote of the day—M.E. Thomas
I understand why sociopaths can be scary — we don’t have any of the emotional barriers. But empaths can be scary too, especially when their emotional sense of right and wrong overwhelms rational barriers.
M.E. Thomas
February 4, 2014
J’Accuse: Twitter justice
[I found this incredibly insightful. She is right. “FOR THE CHILDREN!!!”, is just one example. Gun control is an example. The facts don’t matter. The constitutional limits don’t matter. Natural law and the right to self-defense don’t matter. All that matters is “gun violence.”
Their emotional sense of right and wrong has overwhelmed all rational barriers and they are willing send innocent people to concentration camps because GUNS (H/T to David Hardy):
One could make the argument that a society would be better off with sociopathic public servants who are subject to complete transparency and strictly enforced rules than empathic ones and little accountability.—Joe]
Quote of the day—Matthew
Always will there be the cry for gun control, the weeping and gnashing of teeth to reduce the capacity of bullets capable of being fired from a gun, yet some of us seem to forget that people murdered each other long before someone thought up the rifle barrel and gun powder.
There is this resounding remark after every atrocity that invariably makes the rounds of “I don’t want to live in a world where principals and teachers have to….”
You already do.
Matthew
January 22, 2014
Securing Your Six: Teacher’s Edition
[I’ve encountered this same sort of response to gun control debates, “I don’t what to live in a world where…”.
My response was, “Utopia isn’t an option. You can either ‘check out’ or you can deal with reality.”
I just don’t get why they cannot comprehend this. Evil people exist. These evil people must be defended against. The police cannot be everywhere at all times. And even the police must, in rare occasions, be defended against. It is up to individuals to defend themselves and other innocent lives. That is a self-evident, fundamental law of human existence. These people who would have us disarmed in the absurd hope of making society safer appear to be delusional. I have no other explanation for it*.—Joe]
* Yes, there exist people who want us disarmed for evil reasons as well as those with the absurd hope of creating a safer society. I’m only referring to those who really believe disarming the potential victims is a viable solution to stopping evil people as apparently delusional.
Diminishing goals
Two months ago CSGV had a fundraising goal of $10,000.
Last month they had another fundraiser with a goal of $5000:
From: Chelsea White
Sent: Monday, January 27, 2014 12:10 PM
Subject: FW: Visa is Funding the Gun LobbyI wanted to make sure you saw Josh’s email from Friday and give you a first look at one of the satirical ads we will be running to educate Visa employees about their company’s affiliate (credit) card program with the NRA, which is funding lobbying detrimental to the safety of our communities.
Here’s the first ad:
Thanks to supporters like you, we have already raised over $1,200 dollars, which is a great start toward our goal of $5,000! Can you make a contribution to help us out?
Click here to donate $20 or whatever you can give right now.
Thank you for backing this important campaign,
Chelsea White
Director of Development
Coalition to Stop Gun Violence———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Josh Horwitz
Date: Fri, Jan 24, 2013 at 3:35PM
Subject: Visa is Funding the Gun Lobby
To: Chelsea WhiteDear Chelsea,
4,780 petition signatures and 275 calls to the head of Government Relations later, and VISA is definitely starting to feel the heat.
Everyday people like you have been clear that VISA’s support of NRA lobbying activity through their affiliate card program is irresponsible and offensive.
But while we know they’ve received our message, the people responsible for this decision at VISA are still refusing to budge. That’s why the next step in our campaign is to go bigger and make sure everyone at VISA knows about the embarrassment this program is bringing their company.
We want to launch a Facebook ad campaign targeting VISA employees that will educate everyone in the company about the tremendous harm being done by the NRA VISA card.
Will you make a contribution today to help us fund Facebook ads exposing Visa’s toxic relationship with the NRA?
Our ads will target all VISA employees across the country—from the administrative assistants all the way to the CEO. You can imagine the water cooler talk that will result when the ads start showing up on their computer screens:
“Can you believe we are funding NRA lobbying against background checks?!”“Who’s in charge of this program anyway?”
Visa won’t be able to hide its dirty little secret anymore.We want to raise $5,000 for this campaign. Can you pitch in $20 today?
A Fortune 500 company should not be promoting and paying for an extreme, pro-gun agenda that is causing untold suffering in neighborhoods across America. Thank you for working with us to put an end to the NRA VISA card.Sincerely,
Josh Horwitz
Executive Director
Coalition to Stop Gun Violence
I already addressed their pathetic VISA campaign here. But the bigger point is that they are hoping to collect just $5000 compared to $10000 in the previous fundraiser. That’s like the equivalent of 20 entries to Boomershoot or a very poor outcome for a Friends of the NRA event. Boomershoot usually gets 65 to 70 entries. And furthermore, assuming they continue decreasing their goal by a factor of two every month, they should be down to collecting money for a dinner for two by the end of this summer.
Hydraulic ram pump
A friend tried to describe it to me a year or so back, but his description didn’t make sense to me. When I saw the “hydraulic ram pump” for sale in the Lehman’s catalog it got my attention.
I’d call it a “reverberatory ram pump” but regardless; it is fascinating. You can google it yourself, or look it up on youtube. In short; it uses a larger flow volume by setting up a resonance to create pressure spikes that lift a smaller flow volume– No power input required beyond that of the kinetic & potential energy in flowing/falling water.
The design and construction is so simple that it could have been done in ancient Roman times. Though I have yet to look up its history, I’m guessing it’s development is much more recent than that.
There are other ways to skin that particular cat depending on the circumstances, but this one wins in the cool factor. What I also find interesting is the small scale on which some of these run. One of them on youtube shows a system running on little more than a trickle.