Steve Marmel
July 25, 2013
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!
H/T to Weer’d Beard for the email pointer.—Joe]
A learning experience
Barb L. was spending the day with her kids doing a bunch of fun stuff so I could have just stayed in the clock tower and cleaned my guns or washed laundry. But no. I convinced Ry we should get up way too early on a Sunday morning and do something more interesting. We went to a part of town that I had only been to a couple of times. I’m not sure Ry had ever been there. And every time I had been there I heard gunfire. Are you getting the picture?
The morning was interesting but uneventful. Then late in the afternoon things got cranked up several notches as the gunfire became more frequent.
I was rather busy when things got exciting and didn’t have time to take any pictures until afterward. Still, they should give you a clue:
One of the more interesting things to me is that all that color is in the contact lens, not my eye. Here is what the contact lens looked like after I put them in the cleaning case:
My eyes look entirely normal after taking out the lens. I guess that is a good thing. Except those were brand new contacts this morning. They were supposed to last for a month and it looks like even after an hour in a hydrogen peroxide solution the color is staying.
I don’t remember how many tourniquets were applied to my arm but I do know that when Laurie put hers on the bleeding didn’t stop and she kept tightening it. I think the buckle tipped over and as she was cranking on it my skin got pinched. I now have a several bruises that are going to last for a week or more.
Another thing that was rather interesting to me is that out of 13 students in the class there were three women. The prettiest one chose me as her partner* to do “blood sweeps” on each other of the entire extremities.
We started at 8:00 AM and except for lunch I didn’t leave the West Coast Armory property until about 6:00 PM. Then as soon as I got back to the clock tower had lots of clothes to wash and I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to wash all the fake blood off of my skin. I still have lot of red on my left arm and I suspect my face still has a red tinge to it.
I’m sure I didn’t have as much fun as Barb and the kids did but I think it was worth it. I just hope I never have to put my new skills to a real live test.
*This seems to be a pattern in my life ever since Terri R. (a cheerleader in high school who I had never talked to) chose me as her lab partner in chemistry. I don’t think there were any other girls in that chemistry class and of all the guys in class she chose me. I’m not complaining, but I do think it is odd.
The Birth of Ideology
August 4th, 2013. The Non Sequitur cartoon strip has “the birth of ideology.” Fundamental denial of reality, then parsing words in really silly ways to “prove” you are right. Yup. Pretty much. Comments are interesting, too. Shows some serious ideology.
http://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2013/08/04
Delightful Rhubarb Cobbler
Of all of the things in Mom’s little box of recipes the only one I wanted was the one for rhubarb cobbler. The oatmeal cookies might have been nice and to know how she made pancake syrup might come in handy someday but I don’t think she had that one written down anyway. But the rhubarb cobbler is in a class of it’s own and I had to have it.
I’m pretty sure I got it shortly after Barb S. and I were married but I don’t recall ever making it. Rhubarb is not something you see very often in the grocery store and even though I think there was some rhubarb somewhere on the property of our house in Moscow I never bothered to actually pick it.
Last summer Dad gave me a bunch of rhubarb and the recipe but, again, I never got around to actually making it into cobbler. The rhubarb spoiled and I lost the recipe.
When Mom died I got the recipe again and this time I put it in OneNote on my phone. Barb L. called around to various grocery stores and found just one that had three packages of frozen rhubarb in stock. I drove over and bought them all. They sat in my freezer for months until I finally made it into cobbler a week ago today.
I shared it with Barb L. and her family when I went over for dinner. I warned Barb’s daughter that not everyone likes it. I told her my son likes the topping but the body of the cobbler isn’t something he would go out of his way to have. She tasted it and proclaimed it, “Delightful!” Since she is not the least bit shy about telling me she doesn’t want to eat the food I cook this was not her just being polite. It really is delightful.
Yesterday I bought another Pyrex 9”x13” pan when I saw it at a Goodwill store. I wanted it specifically for making the cobbler. I then went to three different stores before I found one that had rhubarb. I bought four pounds so I could make two batches.
Delightful Rhubarb Cobbler
9”x13” pan
Body
2 pounds rhubarb
2C sugar
2T instant (preferred, but regular can also be used) tapioca
2t vanilla
Topping
1.5 brown sugar
1.5 C Quick oats
1C melted butter
1C flour
Preheat the oven to 350F.
Put the sugar, tapioca, and vanilla in the pan, mix, and spread evenly. Wash and then cut the rhubarb into sections about one inch long and spread evenly on the sugar mix in the pan.
Combine the topping ingredients in a mixing bowl and mix until uniform (about 30 seconds in my Kitchen Aid mixer). Spread evenly over the body of the cobbler.
Bake for 40 minutes at 350F. The top should be slight browned and crispy.
Let it cool before serving or serve hot in a bowl with a scoop of ice cream on top.
Quote of the day—Francisco d’Anconia
So you think that money is the root of all evil?
Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can’t exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?
When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others. It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money. Not an ocean of tears not all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor–your claim upon the energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money, Is this what you consider evil?
Francisco d’Anconia
From Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
[I have a silver round on my desk that was a gift from son James a few years back that sums it up far more succinctly than Rand’s character did:
Get your round here.—Joe]
More on national gun registration
We already have national gun registration. Without even having to connect any dots, we have what I’ll call the direct markers– anyone who has filled out a 4473 or had an instant background check, has a carry permit, has purchased a hunting license, etc., i.e. any government record.
Next are what we might call the second tier direct markers. Those are things like range membership, ammo or accessory purchases using a bank card, organization membership or donations, magazine subscriptions, et al.
Last is the “indirect marker” or any sort of metadata that would point to you being “one of those people” indirectly, or in the presence of other data. Web browsing and site visitation history, location/time data, security camera recordings, personal associations, et al. That list is a big one.
No matter whether it’s official or not, we have full national gun registration right now.
Just the things, the abuses, we already know about say it’s true. Then there are the abuses we don’t know about, which we can add to the already stinking pile.
The preliminary trial records of a local missing person case this week brought this to my attention. In it they used cell tower ping data (general locations and times) asserting that holes in the data indicated toward guilt. In other words, it wasn’t so much what was there, but what wasn’t there (L.O.S.) that we are to take, overlaid with verbal testimony and other clues, as damning evidence.
You may not be forced to wear an armband right now, indicating your tribal affiliation, but there is no need for such anachronisms anymore. Effectively you ARE wearing an armband and much more.
This is not to get you irritated or angry. There’s far too much of that already and none of that is helpful Just understand where we are in the process.
What isn’t being discussed much is that identification, ideology and affiliation data can be used by multiple parties. Spooks with spooking rings may be spooking in ways that would spook the spooks, and iron doors on grass huts can fool those inside as well as those outside.
Ooga booga!
Random thought of the day
Since I have nothing to hide the government has no reason to search or spy on me without a warrant.
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Quote of the day—Thomas Sowell
Separating words from realities is one of the most important steps toward evaluating government policies, whether domestically or internationally. Since rhetorical skills are the most highly developed skills among politicians, any serious attempt to see government policies for what they are means keeping our eyes fixed on facts despite the distractions of rhetoric.
Thomas Sowell
2010
Dismantling America: and other controversial essays
[Separating words from realities is one of the most important steps in human interaction, not just in evaluating government policy.
I’ve dealt with many well spoken but irrational people and I know that identification of and dealing with them early is far better than later. It’s too bad we don’t have a quick and easy test for this. It would make life in general, not just politics, far better.—Joe]
Gun Song – 32/20 by Gov’t Mule
GAK! Been fighting a sinus infection, and forgot my Friday Gun Song! Better late than never, I guess.
A song from a long time ago, found a recording of it with a classic blues guy from the 1930’s playing it (Robert Johnson). Like many gun songs, it’s not all fluffy and light. Gov’t Mule is a pretty rock’n blues band by the sound of this recording.
For those not familiar with it, a 32-20 Winchester is like a scaled down .30-30, with the same sort of nomenclature, i.e., 32 caliber, 20 grains of black powder.
Quote of the day—Sheryl Nuxoll
The insurance companies are creating their own tombs. Much like the Jews boarding the trains to concentration camps, private insurers are used by the feds to put the system in place because the federal government has no way to set up the exchange. Several years from now, the federal government will want nothing to do with private insurance companies. The feds will have a national system of health insurance and they will pull the trigger on the insurance companies.
Sheryl Nuxoll
Idaho state Senator
January 23, 2012
Idaho senator compares health exchange to Holocaust
[My resident medical insurance expert says, “Time will tell.”
The problem is similar to the Jews boarding the trains. Once you enter the camp it’s too late to change your mind about getting on the train. I wonder how many of them said, “Time will tell.”—Joe]
Anti-gunner’s playbook
Via a Tweet from SAF I found Dave Workman’s article on the Gun Control Playbook.
Looking at the actual playbook there are some interesting things. This is particularly intriguing:
Advocates for gun violence prevention win the logical debate, but lose on more emotional terms.
This is followed by these “Key Messaging Principles”:
#1: ALWAYS FOCUS ON EMOTIONAL AND VALUE-DRIVEN
ARGUMENTS ABOUT GUN VIOLENCE, NOT THE POLITICAL
FOOD FIGHT IN WASHINGTON OR WONKY STATISTICS.#2: TELL STORIES WITH IMAGES AND FEELINGS.
#3: CLAIM MORAL AUTHORITY AND THE MANTLE OF FREEDOM.
If they “win the logical debate” then why not play on that turf rather than engaging on the emotional battlefield?
Read the playbook. It’s conformation of the things we have been saying for years. They don’t have facts they have emotions. They literally believe that being a victim grants them moral authority:
Many of the most active advocates and voices in the gun violence prevention movement are people who have personally lived through a life-changing gun violence experience. That painful reality gives such spokespeople special moral authority.
If you or a loved one were raped does that give you the moral authority to demand all men be put in jail or neutered? If you or a loved one were destitute does that give you the moral authority to demand others give you their property? If you or a loved one were slandered or libeled does that give you the moral authority the demand “sensible laws to prevent slander and libel” which infringe upon the right to freedom of speech?
The answer is no. And to those that believe they have moral authority because they or a loved one were injured by someone with a gun the answer is also no.
What’s the problem?
From the Seattle Police Department blog:
Security came out of nowhere,” he told officers, adding that all he did “was not pay for some items.”
I will concede that the perpetrator could just be criminally stupid. But nearly every time I walk down the streets of Seattle I’m amazed at the number of communists openly advocating their failed economics. I can’t walk more than a couple blocks without seeing someone selling “Real Change” (here is one socialist/communist editorial I found after about 30 seconds of looking).
Tonight as I was heading to my bus I crossed Pine Street on the east side of 3rd. There were a bunch of people chanting and holding signs in the middle of Pine street. The one sign I bothered to read was something about demanding a $15/hour minimum wage. I couldn’t understand all the words of the chant but it ended with “against the wall”. I don’t know for certain but it sounded like a threat to me. On the north side of Pine there were a bunch of police officers on bicycles. One was giving directions to the others and they broke into two groups and surrounded the chanting crowd. A few minutes later I received a couple Tweets from the Seattle PD:
Officers have made 8 arrests in demonstration @ 3/pine. Police now working with crowd to unblock Pine St. Between 3/4 Ave.
— Seattle Police Dept. (@SeattlePD) August 1, 2013
3/Pine demonstrators requested “symbolic arrests.” After giving dispersal orders, officers granted their request.
— Seattle Police Dept. (@SeattlePD) August 1, 2013
I have to wonder; Is this what it was like in the early days before the communists took over in other countries? Even in the cities of Kirkland and Bellevue just a few miles to the east of Seattle openly advocating for communism is rare. On the east side of the state and on into Idaho it’s even more rare. Yet in downtown Seattle it’s so accepted that someone there acts as if there isn’t a problem with taking things from a store without paying for them.
We have a serious problem if the concept of private property is so alien that when these people get caught stealing their response is bewilderment and ask, “What’s the problem?”
Quote of the day—Claire Wolfe
Sometimes it’s excruciating, listening to the rhetoric of gun grabbers. The combination of self-righteousness and sheer bloody ignorance is like fingernails on the blackboard of the mind.
Claire Wolfe
August 2013 issue of S.W.A.T. Magazine
[H/T to Tamara K. for the Tweet.
I take minor exception to this. If the gun grabbers were teenagers it would be cute to see and hear them act almost grown up but with a heaping dose of ignorance. As political servants charged with protecting, and having taken an oath to protect, our rights they are insubordinate. As mental cases they are sad examples of a mind lost to grief or inherent mental defect.
It’s only as adults without positions of power do they come across as blustering fools as Wolfe describes.—Joe]
Quote of the day—Ry Jones
I didn’t cross any tape, leave any roads, or drive around any gates, but there I was in the forbidden area…
I noticed on the map there was a road that would save me several hours on an already several hour detour, so I took it. Came to the back of a ROAD CLOSED DUE TO FIRE sign. I will admit I considered turning around several times due to the thick smoke, but I didn’t.
Ry Jones
July 29, 2013
In which I do an impossible thing twice in one day, and something I didn’t want to do twice in a weekend.
[Further discussion with Ry revealed what I suspected. Ry’s definition of “road” is not universally accepted. In this case it was “the trail marked with tape”.
His definition of “thick smoke” would find significant correlation with the criteria for special equipment required by professional firefighters.—Joe]
Quote of the day—John M. Snyder
What we really need are policies that penalize politicians and managers who undermine the right and ability of law-abiding citizens to get, carry and use the guns and ammunition they need to protect the right to life itself from the madmen and criminals who burden our society.
John M. Snyder
July 25, 2012
Colorado Mass Murder Shows Need for Unencumbered Armed Citizenry
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
Editing is tedious, part 2
Over a month ago, I stopped posting daily installments of The Stars Came Back. I said it would be a week or two to finish and go live. Oops. About three weeks ago, I said it was going, but slowly – editing is tedious. The story is done, now. I’ve gone over it several more times, end to end, tweaking it here and there, but also fixing basic grammar and word selection goofs. And I’m still finding them. It’s amazing, really, how many basic things slipped by not only my first reading, but my second, the several wonderful volunteers that have sent me a lot of corrections and questions. I had a long conversation with Sean about some big picture things, some of which he had some great criticisms on, and some of which he had questions about, but the choices made were conscious decisions on my part because I was trying to do something specific with the story. And yet, there are still minor errors cropping up here and there. Cover art is being worked on. Paul very generously created some much nicer drawings of Tajemnica from my sketches. It will be a much better story for the effort being put into it now, but it will still be at least a few days, maybe a few weeks if I hire a professional editor to give it a good thrashing, er, I mean, a going over, but I hope the final product will be worth the wait.
In the mean time, I’m giving it a few days rest, so I can let my eyes uncross, and think about what stories I could write in the same universe. So far, my main ideas are Lag’s komenagen, Allonia’s past, further adventures of Taj in the future, or a series of stories about Tajemnica’s past adventures; the downside of the last one is that they’d tend to be downers at the end of each installment. (for example, how did she win a battle but lose her entire crew?) Going in a different direction, there are doing things like looking at the life of a terraforming platform crew on a new planet.
Chicago Confiscation
On the civil-rights side, we keep saying that the there is a slippery slope that the anti-rights people want to push us down as fast as possible, and things like registration serve no purpose other than to confiscate. On the other side, the anti-rights bigots keeps calling us paranoid, saying that it’ll never happen, etc. Except for when it does.
Chicago Firearms confiscation BeginsThose that have their FOID card lapse are making pols worry that their guns are not taken away that very moment. But, because of the change in IL law recently, the number of FOID applicants is up, WAY up, so waiting times after application for renewal are also way up.
It’s not paranoia if they really ARE out to get you. It’s simply recognition of reality. On the flip side, I think delusional is a term that can be applied to the antis.
Those who support the Second Amendment should be ashamed
This is part of the reason we got to where we did:
Anti-rights Activist Judge Caught Abusing Authority in Court
Connecticut Carry Calls for Judge to Step Down
Vernon, CT, July 16, 2013: Prominent firearms Attorney Rachel Baird of Torrington filed a motion to recuse and disqualify Judge Edward Mullarkey from a Rockville Superior Court GA-19 case on July 15th. The Motion for Recusal and Disqualification of Judge puts forth serious and egregious ethics issues raised by Mullarkey’s courtroom behavior, who is charged with being impartial.
Without any further facts or explanation, it would appear that Judge Mullarkey took it upon himself to harass Attorney Baird in the presence of her client due to her prominent and public support of firearms civil rights. In one hearing, Mullarkey checked to make sure the court reporter had stopped recording the proceeding, and then the judge proclaimed from the bench that those who support the Second Amendment should be “ashamed”.
Judge Mullarkey also made mention of ‘The Hidden History of the Second Amendment’ by Professor Carl Bogus, a rabidly anti-gun propaganda piece written by a devoted anti-gun activist. Professor Bogus has been or is currently on the National Advisory Panel for the Violence Policy Center, the Board of Governors for Handgun Control, Inc., and the Board of Directors for the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence. These are all zealous anti-rights organizations with histories of advocating for bans on firearms.
According to the language and allegations brought forth in Attorney Baird’s Motion, Judge Mullarkey has clearly used his position as a Superior Court Judge in order to act as an activist for anti-rights in defiance of our Constitution and our Second Amendment right to bear arms. The judge’s actions are also in direct defiance of the Supreme Court decisions in DC v Heller. Legal precedent requires that Judge Malarkey is bound to uphold the rulings of the High Court, regardless of his personal advocacy mission. In addition, serious concerns about discrimination and misogyny can be raised from other behaviors that the motion describes regarding Judge Mullarkey’s conduct, whereby he appears to harass Attorney Baird about her gender and background.
Based on the above Motion for Recusal and Dismissal of a Judge, Judge Mullarkey has no place as a judge, nor in holding any position of power, when he is so willing to abuse his position of power to push an anti-civil rights agenda from the bench. Connecticut Carry calls for Judge Mullarkey to immediately step down from the bench and retire.
Judge Mullarkey is not alone in his bias and contempt for our rights. Connecticut Carry is following up on allegations of judges across Connecticut with similar prejudices.
Connecticut Carry is a 501(c)(4) non-partisan, grassroots, non-profit organization dedicated to advancing and protecting the fundamental civil rights of the men and women of Connecticut to keep and bear arms for defense of themselves and the state as guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Constitution of Connecticut.
I find it very telling that he made sure the court reporter had stop recording before revealing his disdain for the Bill of Rights.
I wonder if he also thinks those that support the 13th Amendment should be ashamed? Regardless, the punishment should be the same for both. He should be immediately removed from power, all of his previous decisions carefully reviewed, and hounded into hiding by the press.
Quote of the day—Blag Dahlia
I’m not interested in guns; I was blessed with a big dick. But I understand the impotent pantywaists who need them to fight with. I only wish they would shoot each other instead of those of us who go unarmed, like 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, a young man who earned the enmity of middle-aged Jim Goad for the crime of buying Skittles and getting shot.
Blag Dahlia
July 25, 2013
TRAYVON GOAD—HUNTED LIBERTARIAN!
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday! Plus a bonus wish of injury and death to those who exercise a specific enumerate right.
H/T to reader Brian J. for the email.—Joe]
Support for a friend
The daughter of a close friend is soon going to Ecuador for a few months. She is participating in “Global Citizen Year”.
I’m not sure how it works but subscribing for email updates on her blog (the link above) is of benefit to her.