Ear-based ‘virginity test’

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There are times when I think people, in general, intuitively know how to determine truth from falsity. Then reality comes crashing in on me:

An acupuncturist in Vietnam who claims she can detect a man’s virginity based on a small red dot on the ear is credited with helping to free three convicted rapists from prison, the Associated Press reports from Hanoi.

…

“They all had small red spots on the back of their ears,” said Hong, 54. “The
spots should have disappeared if they had had sex. My many years of experience
told me that these men did not have sex before.”

Investigators who revisited the case found other flaws, leading to the
release of the prisoners.

Hong says she was first taught how to determine if a man has ever had sex by
feeling his pulse. She later developed the ear-spot method on her own, the AP
says.

She says the red spot only disappears after heterosexual intercourse and is
not affected by gay sex or masturbation.

Update: Now if she had said the red spots were an indication of not being a virgin in their ears I could see the possibility of some truth in her conclusions.

Gun cartoon of the day

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As if this would be a bad thing. They don’t even consider the possibility that existing gun laws that prohibit the innocent from defending themselves are both unconstitutional and unconscionable.

Quote of the day–Robert Nozick

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Of course, spikes in gun violence do not follow gun-rights rulings, either. Yet that has not stopped gun-control advocates from falsely predicting them, again and again. So they’re wrong on the empirical evidence, the normative considerations, and the Constitution. Aside from that, they’ve got an airtight case.

Robert Nozick
July 2, 2010
Facts & Law Aside, Gun Control Advocates Are Right
[The part of the anti-rights advocates which is “airtight” is the part that allows them to be subject to the influences of reality.–Joe]

Gun cartoon of the day

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I had two different people suggest this cartoon for today.

The artist thinks this ruling went too far? As if the incredibly tiny step of recognizing the specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms means cities and states may not enact total bans on handguns in the home for self-defense implies unfettered access to rocket launchers for non-adults.

Quote of the day–Thom Mannard

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Despite the Supreme Court’s ruling today it is absolutely important to emphasize that the conservative majority held that strong and effective gun
laws are still constitutional and can be enacted.

Thom Mannard
Executive Director of the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence
http://www.gunguys.com/?p=4049
June 28, 2010
[Emphasis in the original.

And when you find one of those mythical laws let us know. Okay?–Joe]

Gun cartoon of the day

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Penis “jokes”, freedom is about killing people, guns are only good for killing, armor piercing bullets, and racism. Not bad for a four panel cartoon.


But they left out kids killing kids, explicitly saying gun owners are stupid and crazy, the NRA is a lobby for greedy gun manufactures, and we worship guns.

Quote of the day–Glenn Reynolds

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Nonetheless, the Supreme Court’s Second Amendment decisions have made a major difference. In particular, they have offset the gun-control community’s longstanding effort to “denormalize” firearms ownership — to portray it as something threatening, deviant, and vaguely perverse, and hence demanding strict regulation, if not outright prohibition. That effort went on for decades, and received much media support. Two decades ago, it seemed to be working.

But with the Supreme Court saying that it’s clear the Framers regarded individual gun ownership as “necessary to our system of ordered liberty,” that effort must be seen as a failure now. Gun ownership by law-abiding citizens is the new normal, and the Second Amendment is now normal constitutional law. It will stay so, as long as enough Americans care to keep it that way.

Glenn Reynolds
June 29, 2010
The New Normal: The Second Amendment After Heller and McDonald
[They are still trying to “denormalize” it. They do it with zero tolerance in the schools for even a sandwich bitten to look like a gun, registration, licensing, publicizing concealed carry license holders along with sex offenders, and here and here for example. See also my gun cartoon of the day topic.

We came very, very close to losing this via “denormalization”. It’s how the holocaust came into being and it’s not that much of a stretch to imagine a similar fate for gun owners had we not been able to turn it around.

We must continue to normalize it. The safe and responsible exercise of a specific enumerated right is not something that should ever be looked down upon. Those that disparage it should be derided, scorned, and humiliated and the Heller and McDonald rulings give another great tool to accomplish that with.–Joe]

Why are Brady Campaign supporters so violent?

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In the Facebook thread here a commenter points people at his blog post on the McDonald ruling:

Stern Dixon

Read my
log post on today’s Supreme Court ruling: http://wwwtoecheesecom.blogspot.com/
Yesterday at 11:35am

And the response? It’s typical:

Suzanne MacDougall Avila

to the
above poster, take your H&K 93, shove it up your ass and pull the trigger.
Yesterday at 12:46pm · 2 people
Sara L. Messenger

Sara L.
Messenger

Could
have said it better myself Suzanne, he has to be a nut.
Yesterday at 12:52pm
Sara L. Messenger

Sara L.
Messenger

You are
sick.
Yesterday at 12:56pm
Sara L. Messenger

Sara L.
Messenger

I am not
mad but, people like you who shoot off their mouths don’t need guns.
Yesterday at 12:57pm
Suzanne MacDougall Avila

Suzanne MacDougall Avila

Thank
you, Sara. He’s not even worth arguing with. He can take his filthy mouth and
his guns somewhere else.
Yesterday at 1:20pm

There is lots of other stuff worthy of comment in the thread as well. I particularily liked the irony of this one:

Richard J. Osborne

Repeal
the Second Amendment. It belongs on the scrap heap of history along with the
provisions of the Constitution that protected slavery.
Yesterday at 9:04am · 5 people

If they can repeal the Second Amendment then people could repeal the 13th Amendment as well. For some reason they can’t seem to grasp the principle of freedom.

What’s the difference?

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I was reading the article titled “Supreme Court extends rights of gun owners” and I was annoyed with the title. The Supreme Court didn’t extend anything. It recognized the pre-existing right and said local government may not infringe that right.

Then I thought about the picture they used in the article. It wasn’t of gun owners and gun rights activists waiting for the decision. It was the anti-rights people:

Would the LA Times have used a similar picture of the KKK standing outside the Supreme Court waiting on a decision regarding the rights of non-whites with such a neutral caption? What’s the difference? The Brady Campaign and the KKK both want to use the force of law to suppress the rights of others. Sure, the KKK sometimes took violence into their own hands. But the Brady Campaign has a lot of innocent blood on their hands too. Some of it via criminals enabled by disarmed victims and some of it via the enforcement of repressive gun laws against private citizens (Ruby Ridge and Waco are the better known examples).

The biggest difference that I see is had the KKK been standing outside the Supreme Court there would have been more of them. The KKK had far more public support and members than the Brady Campaign ever has. They are fringe group by any definition of the phrase and they need to be politically extinguished.

Gun cartoon of the day

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Would a political cartoonist say this about “allowing” blacks the right to vote and keep their job? Yet the anti-gun people talk about the Supreme Court “allowing” people to own firearms.

Don’t forget what Bill Clinton said about rights.

Quote of the day–Alan Gottlieb

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Through this lawsuit in North Carolina we intend to show that state emergency powers statutes that allow government officials to suspend fundamental civil rights, including the right to bear arms, are unconstitutional and therefore should be nullified. Citizens do not surrender their civil rights just because of a natural or man-made disaster.

Alan Gottlieb
June 29, 2010
SAF SUES TO OVERTURN NORTH CAROLINA’S ‘EMERGENCY POWERS’ GUN BANS
[I expected something in New York City or maybe New Jersey. But I suppose this was fairly low hanging fruit with lower risk.

It may also be that it will take some time to incorporate the McDonald rulings  into the filings for those jurisdictions.–Joe]

Having an impact

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Rob reports on something that gives me a warm glow.

Almost as rewarding is the Wikipedia entry for the Brady Campaign shows the membership as 50,500. Nice (you heard it here first)!

But then I noticed the link in the Wikipedia entry for the citation supporting that number no longer lists the number of members. Apparently the Brady Campaign didn’t like having the information being that public. It seems to you can request that information but the numbers are not public.

Hmmm… apparently I had an impact on them.

Well, it’s not as if Winston Smith from the book Nineteen Eighty Four is editing history in this case. It’s only the Brady Campaign attempting to implement Nineteen Eighty Four.

The Internet is forever and we have backups.

Gun cartoon of the day

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The baby’s name is McDonald.

The “proud parent” really should be labeled “SAF“. But since the cartoon was drawn many years ago with a completely different intention they can’t really be faulted for that particular error.

The intent, of course, was to claim the NRA has no limits as to who may own and use a gun.

Quote of the day–Wayne LaPierre

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We are practical guys. We don’t want to win on philosophy and lose on freedom. The end question is, can law-abiding men and women go out and buy and own a firearm? Today the Supreme Court said yes – anywhere they live!


This decision cannot lead to different measures of freedom, depending on what part of the country you live in. City by city, person by person, this decision must be more than a philosophical victory. An individual right is no right at all if individuals can’t access it. Proof of Heller and McDonald will be law abiding citizens, one by one, purchasing and owning firearms.


The NRA will work to ensure this constitutional victory is not transformed into a practical defeat by activist judges, defiant city councils, or cynical politicians who seek to pervert, reverse, or nullify the Supreme Court’s McDonald decision through Byzantine labyrinths of restrictions and regulations that render the Second Amendment inaccessible, unaffordable, or otherwise impossible to experience in a practical, reasonable way.


What good is a right without the gun? What good is the right if you can’t buy one? Or keep one in your home? Or protect your family with one?


Here’s a piece of paper – protect yourself. That’s no right at all!


Victory is when law abiding men and women can get up, go out, and buy and own a firearm. This is a monumental day. But NRA will not rest until every law-abiding American citizen is able to exercise the individual right to buy and own a firearm for self defense or any other lawful purpose.


Wayne LaPierre
June 28, 2010
Statement by Wayne LaPierre Executive Vice President, NRA and Chris W. Cox Executive Director, NRA-ILA Regarding U.S. Supreme Court Decision McDonald v. City of Chicago.
[SAF also has a statement. Tomorrow’s QOTD will come from it.


Expect the NRA and SAF to be racing to file cases within minutes or at most hours, from now. I’m placing my money, literally, on SAF.–Joe]

I’ve been busy

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For the last week the tension at work has steadily increased. I came home at 3:00 AM on Saturday morning and was back at it by 8:00 AM. I went to sleep at midnight last night and was working again by 5:30 this morning.

From Thursday morning until this afternoon I had not checked checked email.

I finally have my stuff under control and am trying to catch up on a few things on the home front.

There are hundreds of blog posts that I probably won’t get caught up on for a week. There are over 400 unread news alerts about various things that I’m going to just mark as “read”. If something important happened that I missed out on I’ll probably eventually see it on one of the blogs I read.

Now, I’m going to take a nap.

Gun cartoon of the day

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As if it has ever happened at any gun show, NRA convention, a gun range, and any other place where nearly everyone has a gun.

It only takes one solid data point to disprove a hypothesis and we, over the years, have millions of solid data points. Do they have even a hint of one?

Quote of the day–James Madison

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Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.

James Madison
[And this is why those that wish to govern us also attempt to keep the masses ignorant. It is only by enforcing ignorance that they can become our rulers.–Joe]

Gun cartoon of the day

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There is no clue this artist has heard of the specific enumerated right to keep and bear arm. There is no clue they understand that evil is enabled by gun control.

They did do a fairly good job of rendering the guns so I guess I can’t insist they are totally clueless.

Quote of the day–Justice Antonin Scalia

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We are aware of the problem of handgun violence in this country, and we take seriously the concerns raised by the many amici who believe that prohibition of handgun ownership is a solution. The Constitution leaves the District of Columbia a variety of tools for combating that problem, including some measures regulating handguns, see supra, at 54-55, and n. 26. But the enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table. These include the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home. Undoubtedly some think that the Second Amendment is outmoded in a society where our standing army is the pride of our Nation, where well-trained police forces provide personal security, and where gun violence is a serious problem. That is perhaps debatable, but what is not debatable is that it is not the role of this Court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct.



Justice Antonin Scalia
June 26, 2008
District of Columbia, et al., petitioners v. Dick Anthony Heller, No. 07-290, Page 64
[It’s not the role of our legislators or the executive branch either. The only legal way for them to try is through a constitutional amendment and even that has some serious problems because the formation of the union was dependent upon those first ten amendments known as the Bill of Rights.–Joe]

Gunnies be Patient

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I’ve seen it before and let it go, but today I ran into several variations of, “Once you get the sights adjusted, this gun is very accurate” in different places on gun forums and product reviews.


Serious shooters should know the problem with that assertion, but not all shooters know it.  These were shooters making the assertion after all.


Accuracy and sight adjustment (or zero) are not the same thing.


(Joe uses the term “sight angle” or “indicated sight angle” which makes more sense when you think about, which of course he has)


Accuracy is the ability of the firearm system (the gun itself, the ammo and the sighting system) to place shots consistently.  The sights could be “off” considerably (bullets impacting far from the point of aim) and that gun is just as accurate as if it were putting your bullets exactly at the point of aim.


The difference is in sight adjustment, but that in itself has nothing to do with accuracy.  Accuracy = consistency.


It has been said that “Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious.”  — George Orwell  (Thank You, Walter Williams, for pointing that out)


You intelligent men have your assignment, then.  Carry on.