Quote of the day–Barbara Scott

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Can we drive anyplace we want to go after this?


We can drive to the Bahamas, right?


Barbara Scott
August 9, 2010
After going through TSA at the St. Louis International Airport.
[Her experience was rather ordinary compared to mine. But I have mine on video for mocking later when I’m a little more removed from the situation.


In other news we have treated all the chigger bites, removed all the ticks, and are waiting for our plane to board and take us back to the Seattle area. Once we get home we will remove our sweat soaked clothes and take a shower.


It will be good to be back home in our underground bunker.–Joe]

Gun cartoon of the day

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This is the last of the Charlton Heston cartoons I have. I meant to post it yesterday but was in a hurry and grabbed the first one on my list.


I mostly give the artist a pass on this one too. It’s not exactly classy to criticize someone on their death but compared to some of the other crap that was thrown at him this is pretty mild.

Quote of the day–Greg Hamilton

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Universal Unloading Place

Translation: Bathroom.

From the Greg Hamilton to English Dictionary by Meredith Robinson.
[If you travel and carry a gun a lot you will find yourself needed to load and unload as you cross political jurisdictions and entering/leaving an airport. Bathroom stalls are your friend. Although I have successfully done it at baggage pick up, while at the curb waiting for a shuttle and other nearly open places.

We really need to fix these stupid laws that force this sort of behavior. The more gun handling the greater the chance of an accident. The gun should be put on when you get up from bed and taken off when you go to bed.–Joe]

Not helpful

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This sort of thing is not helpful to the cause of gun rights (found on a towel dispenser in a bathroom). If this particular politician was signing orders to put people in cattle cars to send them to the “camps” then sure that would be appropriate. But we aren’t anywhere close to that.


When Alan Gura spent time with a bunch of gun bloggers at the NRA Convention last May I asked him what bloggers could do to help the civil rights war. He said (paraphrased), “Make guns fun. Don’t bring up or associate with Threepers. It scares people.”


I’ve elaborated on this sort of thing before and don’t see a need to elaborate further at this time.

Gun cartoon of the day

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Even if you ignore the U.S. Revolutionary War (it was prior to the 2nd Amendment but it was enabled by the inalienable right to keep and bear arms) the scorecard is far from complete. It doesn’t show the (probably incalculable) number of tyrants prevented in places all over the world. It doesn’t show the number people murdered by tyrants who successfully infringed the right to keep and bear arms. And it doesn’t show the number of innocent lives saved by people who exercised their specific enumerated right to to keep and bear arms on a much smaller personal scale.


But it’s anti-gun artist. Of course they are going to leave information out and distort things. It’s what bigots do.

Quote of the day–T-Shirt

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The economy is worse than a divorce.


I lost half my money and I’m still married.


T-Shirt
August 7, 2010
Seen on a t-shirt in a restaurant in Camdenton, Missouri this evening.
[I wouldn’t mind the temporary economic situation so much if it meant we were getting a divorced from an oppressive big government. But like the t-shirt says (after twisting the meaning a little bit), we are stuck with both.–Joe]

Gun cartoon of the day

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So… do you think the artist thinks that when they go for a walk in Seattle, Indianapolis, Las Vegas, Dallas, Tampa, Phoenix, or any of the state parks in (probably) 40 different states? Of course not.


Then why the big deal about National Parks? It’s those damn uppity gun owners–they let them go anywhere rather than staying in their place where they belong.

Quote of the day–Ronald Reagan

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Some people live an entire lifetime and wonder if they have ever made a difference in the world, but the Marines don’t have that problem.


Ronald Reagan
[I have had this in my collection for quite a while but never had the appropriate occasion to use it. Today I saw it printed on a tile at the restaurant at Middle of Nowhere. The owner is a former Marine.


While I was at Middle of Nowhere I put 1000 rounds of .40 S&W and 500 rounds of .22 into steel plates. I have a couple sore fingers and I’m tired of standing but I also trimmed about 0.1 seconds per plate off my time and I can shoot weak handed a lot better.–Joe]

Real Men…

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…and women should have available, and know how to use, either a micrometer or a good caliper that reads in thousandths of an inch and/or hundredths of a millimeter.  I don’t see how a person could get through life without one.  They’re cheap and they last a long time.  A set of hole gauges and snap gauges is good also, but the calipers are essential.


That’s in my book.


Jeff Cooper wrote about some other things;



Before the young man leaves home, there are certain things he should know and certain skills he should acquire, apart from any state-sponsored activity. Certainly the youngster should be taught to swim, strongly and safely, at distance. And young people of either sex should be taught to drive a motor vehicle, and if at all possible, how to fly a light airplane. I believe a youngster should be taught the rudiments of hand-to-hand combat, unarmed, together with basic survival skills. The list is long, but it is a parent’s duty to make sure that the child does not go forth into the world helpless in the face of its perils. Shooting, of course, is our business, and shooting should not be left up to the state.


Or something like that.  I recall he had learning to handle a motorcycle in there too.


My son took it upon himself to row a boat across Hood Canal a few weeks ago without telling anyone.  We saw him heading over, until he disappeared from sight.


I was miffed.  That is, until I remembered some of the crazy things I did at that age (16) like piloting a canoe (two canoes, four people) up one side of Priest Lake in Idaho, by moonlight, and then navigating up the channel to Upper Priest Lake by starlight (after moondown) then landing and setting up camp on a low cliff.  We figured flashlights were for sissies, back then.  Nowadays I carry one.  Must be getting soft.


But I digress.  Being able to measure the difference between .678″ and .710″ can be pretty important, and it’s not complicated.  This sort of thing comes up often while talking to customers.  Most of them have the tools and the skill, but a disappointing minority do not.

Gun cartoon of the day

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I almost have to give the artist a pass on this one.

Quote of the day–Edward Abbey

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The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders.


Edward Abbey
(1927 – 1989)
[The same thing could be said of freedom. I wish we could get to that place in politics and public discourse.–Joe]

I sucked all the bits out of this town

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I’m in a small town in central Missouri. I’ve been accessing the Internet via Internet Sharing with my cell phone and that worked well for a while. Then the data transfer rate gradually went to zero. Rebooting the phone and computer didn’t help. I started “borrowing” wireless bandwidth from someone with a SSID of “Linksys” (it is my understanding they are the largest free Internet provider in the country). That went away about two hours ago and I’m back on the cell phone which gives me a few bits every once in a while before drying up.


It’s like I am pumping water from a well and I pulled the water table down below all the intake pipes in the town. I’m mostly sucking air now with just an occasional few spurts of water.


Another indication of the low bit table is that my new phone with the weak cell signal (known issue, we are working on it) runs its battery dead, even while plugged into USB power, trying to sync my email from work.


Until I leave town blogging and email responses will be marginal at best.

Gun cartoon of the day

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The same things Lyle said yesterday apply to this cartoon.


Also note that even Heston’s death does not stop the anti-gun people from attacking him.

We’re All Gonna Die! – Details at Eleven

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This post from Uncle reminded me of John Stossel’s campaign to ban dihydrogen monoxide.  It’s about what I call ignoracracy– control of the people through ignorance, or the “Ignorati”– those who use that tactic.  Stossel got plenty of signatures on his petition.  He told people things like; dihydrogen monoxide, used heavily in industry, corrodes metal, and it kills thousands of people each year including children.  Congress is doing nothing about it!  All totally true of course.


Yellow journalism could be seen as a form of ignoracracy, except that we can turn it off or look away at will.


Education would be the obvious antidote, except that education is owned by the Ignorati.

Quote of the day–Lyle @ UltiMAK

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Politicians who advocate liberty are the tools and puppets of “special interests” and are therefore stupid, weak and/or corrupt, whereas politicians who advocate statism do so out of compassion and concern for their fellow human beings and are therefore smart, strong and/or heroes.

Lyle @ UltiMAK
August 3, 2010
Comment to Gun cartoon of the day.
[Nominated for QOTD by Hank Archer. I agree.–Joe]

Gun cartoon of the day

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I wasn’t going to actually use this one. But Bitter’s comment changed my mind.


As Lyle pointed out in the same comment thread advocation of liberty is not something that should be ridiculed or condemned no matter what the source. Yet that appears to be the intent here.

Quote of the day–Dmitry Orlov

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More interestingly, many Americans no longer even understand the concepts of loyalty and treason—again, not surprising, since for a few generations now they have been ruled by traitors, whose routine acts of betrayal are designed to benefit just about anyone—from Israeli arms smugglers to Afghani heroin dealers—except the people who supposedly elect them to office.


Dmitry Orlov
July 10, 2010
US Swaps Russian Spies for … Russian Spies
[Reading Kevin’s post, But What if Your Loyalty is to the Constitution? – Part III reminded me of the above quote in my collection.–Joe]

Gun cartoon of the day

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Were there ever any cartoons expressing the view that President Clinton was the puppet of The Brady Campaign? That view certainly would have had more truth to it than President Bush was the puppet of the NRA or Charlton Heston.


But then truth is irrelevant to bigots.

Quote of the day–Daniel Schmutter

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If it is lawful to possess a book in one’s home, does that mean it is lawful to read a book while sitting on one’s porch? How about in one’s backyard? These questions sound absurd, but they are precisely the questions New Jersey gun owners face every day because New Jersey gun law treats gun owners as criminals unless they can show that they are not.

New Jersey courts have made it clear that gun laws are to be interpreted and applied as unfavorably as possible against the gun owner. In a 1973 case, State v. Valentine, the court declared: “The overriding philosophy of our Legislature is to limit the use of guns as much as possible.”

Similarly, in a 1996 case, State v. Pelleteri, the court declared: “When dealing with guns, the citizen acts at his peril.”

The New Jersey Legislature must face the reality that the gun owner and the book owner alike must be treated with equal constitutional dignity. After McDonald, we now see that the emperor has no clothes.

New Jersey gun law is upside down, and if the New Jersey Legislature does not fundamentally reform its scheme of regulating guns, the courts will likely do it for them.

Daniel Schmutter
July 30, 2010
Op-Ed: Throwing the book at gun laws
Schmutter is a litigation attorney at the firm of Farer Fersko in Westfield, focusing on
environmental, commercial real estate and business law. He represented Jews for
the Preservation of Firearms Ownership as amicus curiae before the U.S. Supreme
Court in both the Heller and McDonald cases and currently represents the
Association of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs in its challenge to New
Jersey’s one-gun-a-month law.
[And the reform cannot come any too soon. People are dying and being put in prison out there.

H/T to John Richardson.–Joe]

Encrypting mobile communication

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This is very interesting to me:

More than a million BlackBerry users may have key services in Saudi Arabia and
the UAE cut off after authorities stepped up demands on smartphone maker
Research In Motion for access to encrypted messages sent over the device.

BlackBerry’s Messenger application has spread rapidly in the Gulf Arab region
but because the data is encrypted and sent to offshore servers, it cannot be
tracked locally.

“Certain BlackBerry services allow users to act without any legal
accountability, causing judicial, social and national security concerns,” the
United Arab Emirates’ Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) said in a
statement.

…

India raised similar security concerns last week, and Bahrain in April warned
against using BlackBerry Messenger to distribute local news. As far back as
2007, France cautioned officials about using the services.

Indian security officials were concerned that BlackBerry’s encrypted data
could be used to coordinate acts against the state. They have clamped down on
mobile phone operators in the wake of 2008 attacks that killed 166 people in
Mumbai.

Sure, secure communications can “be used to coordinate acts against the state”. But secure communications can be used to secure the Jews in your attic too.

There is a lot of secure communications that goes on with Windows Phone 7 too. I wonder if any of it will run afoul of repressive government laws.

I may have to write an app for defeating such laws if things progress to far in that direction. It consumes more bandwidth but it’s possible to create communication channels that are essentially invisible while in plain sight and encrypt them as well. I’ve done this before with another app but sort of lost interest when we started winning the gun rights war in this country. I might have to fire up that project again.