Friday, June 30, 2006

Why People Keep Guns for Self-Defense.

Story 1:
Home-invasion spree led to killing

Five robbers who broke into a house and killed a man while his wife and children were home early Monday are believed to have invaded four other South Side residences and attempted to break into another in a spree that began Sunday night, police said.

Three of the five suspects had been arrested by Tuesday morning and Tucson police continued to look for the remaining two men.

The crime spree is said to have began Sunday at 9:15 p.m. in Pima County when several men entered a home in the 10000 block of South Oak Canyon Lane, near South Country Club Road and East Summit Street, while the family was home, said Lt. Michael O'Connor of the Pima County Sheriff's Department violent-crimes section. The robbers confronted the residents, demanding money, drugs and valuables. When they left, the men stole two vehicles, abandoning one a short time later and fleeing in the other, which is described as a light-colored Lexus.

Nearly five hours later at 2:02 a.m., robbers forced their way into another residence, in the 800 block of West Milton Street, near South 12th Avenue and West Drexel Road, and demanded money, but left the home without taking anything, said Sgt. Decio Hopffer, a Tucson Police Department spokesman.

Around 3:15 a.m., robbers made their way to the 7300 block of South Via Hermosa, near South Cardinal Avenue and West Los Reales Road, where they forced their way into a residence, O'Connor said. They confronted the homeowners, pistol-whipped a man and fired a shot but did not hit anyone. It was unknown what was stolen at that home, but the men fled the scene.

The next home to be hit by the robbers was in the 2600 block of West Vereda Las Muchas, near West Valencia and South Mission roads, around 3:30 a.m., O'Connor said. Several men pounded on the door, trying to force their way in, but when neighbors were awakened and came out to check on the noise, they got into a vehicle and left.


After that unsuccessful attempt, the robbers arrived at a home in the 1800 block of West Arroyo Vista Drive at 3:45 a.m. where they once again forced their way in and demanded money, but did not get any and left the scene, Hopffer said.

Then the group made its way to the home of 35-year-old Martin Guillermo Rodriguez in the 6300 block of South Beardslee Drive, near Valencia and Mission.

They forced their way into the two story home at the end of the cul-de-sac where Rodriguez's wife, children and relatives were staying, Hopffer said.

They demanded money and gunfire broke out, he said. Rodriguez was hit and the men left in a white sedan.


At 4:44 a.m., Rodriguez's wife called 911 to report that her husband had been shot, Hopffer said. Police arrived two minutes later, but Rodriguez was pronounced dead in his home shortly thereafter.

The motive remained unknown Tuesday, but police did say that it did not appear to be drug-related.

"These suspects were out there on a crime spree, hitting homes, hitting people," Hopffer said. "They did not hesitate to use violence and kill a person. The community is safer as a result of having taken these violent individuals off the streets."

Thomas Michael Hernandez and Adrian Valenzuela, both 19, and 18-year-old Andy Chavarria Gonzales were booked into the Pima County jail on more than a dozen charges each, including first-degree murder, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, kidnapping, discharging a firearm at a structure, armed robbery and burglary.

Hernandez was arrested early Tuesday while Gonzales and Valenzuela were arrested Monday. They were each being held on $2 million bond.

Hernandez was recently released from prison in March after serving only 10 months of a 2 1/2-year sentence for an aggravated assault charge, according to the Arizona Department of Corrections Web site.

He was to be on supervised release until July 16, the Web site shows.

Gonzales and Valenzuela were indicted by a grand jury on weapons-misconduct charges that stemmed from an incident in April, according to online court records.

Valenzuela has had several other run-ins with the law, including being indicted on a drive-by-shooting charge in an October 2004 incident and a charge of weapons misconduct in November 2005, according to online court records. He is currently facing drug charges as well.

Police are still seeking two men, who are described as being 18 to 20 years old with shaved heads.

Anyone with information is asked to call 911 or 88-CRIME, the anonymous tip line of the Pima County Attorney's Office.
Story 2, also from here in Tucson:
Homeowner exchanges gunfire with would-be burglars

Imagine waking-up in the middle of the night to the sound of someone trying to break into your home.

A Southwest side homeowner says that happened to him early this morning on South Sparrow Avenue, near West Los Reales Road and Camino de Oeste just east of the Pascua Yaqui Indian Reservation.

"There's been so many home invasions," says Alex Morales, "Like what happened down the street. You get scared for your life."

So, Alex Morales, who lives with his wife, two children, and two grand kids says he didn't think twice about grabbing his gun when burglary suspects tried to enter his home.

"It's not that you're trying to protect what you have; you're scared for your life, and you're scared for your family's life that they might do something to them," says Morales, who woke up to see a man trying to pry his back door open with a crow bar.

He then grabbed his gun, and rushed over to the door.

"I told him, 'Either get out of here, or I'm going to blow your head off!' "

Then Morales said it appeared the intruders tried to run away, so he headed towards the front of the house.

With gun in hand, Morales rushed down this hallway and straight towards the front door.

He went on the door step and then he heard gun shots and says he was forced to exchange fire with the car that was fleeing.

Morales said, "I walked out and they had seen me and they stopped and they shot twice at me, so I got my gun and shot about three or four times at them again."

Morales doesn't believe he hit the suspects and, so far, nobody has been arrested.

Whatever the case, Morales says that because he has a family to look out for and protect, if someone tries to rob his house again, "I'm not going to hesitate. If they want to come back, and try to do it again, they are more than welcome. I'll beef up security and get a few bullets for them. There's a bullet for everybody that wants to come to my house."
But Dr. Arthur Kellermann wants you to believe that having a gun in your house for self-protection is more dangerous to you and your family than being disarmed.

If a gun ban was actually passed, who would be disarmed? The home invaders or people like Alex Morales?

Thursday, June 29, 2006

Hey! I'm "This Guy"!.

I was on Hugh Hewitt's radio show late this afternoon, and dropped Hugh an email:
I was one of your last callers on Thursday (6/29). In the beginning of the Mark Steyn interview you said:

"I've always thought we were going to win this war, and I've always thought we'd summon the political will to do it. But today's Supreme Court decision, coupled with the House of Representatives' refusal to name names in their resolution condemning the action of the New York Times, and the similar reasoning coming out of the United States Senate leaves me wondering."

Then you asked Mark, "What's it going to take?"

As I said, I've been struggling with that question myself. I've been a blogger for a little over three years, and while my particular concentration has been on individual rights, I sometimes (often) stray into other areas of politics. Last weekend, as I said, I posted a piece specifically on this question, "A Terrible Resolve." In short, unless the Jihadis strike a major blow against us, here, in the continental United States, we aren't going to get serious and we're going to give up.

As I say in the piece:

"And here we are again. This time we're engaged in combat with enemies that wear no uniform, that blend with the civilian population, that use that population as a shield as well as a target, and who embrace their own deaths. Our soldiers, once again, are in the unenviable position of having to determine which woman, child, or old man is harmless, friendly, or a killer. Sometimes we make mistakes. And, as before, sometimes they might not be mistakes.

"But still, we're restrained. No carpet-bombing. No nukes. In fact, we've gone so far as to drop precision-guided bombs filled with concrete in order to minimize the risk of killing innocents or destroying important infrastructure. However, we're willing to unapologetically kill women and children when the target requires it.

"The question is, 'How much longer will this restraint last?'

"The Wilsonians want us out for diplomatic reasons. The Hamiltonians don't want to keep paying the financial bill. The Jeffersonians don't want to keep paying the bill in blood.

"The Jacksonians want us to take the gloves off."

Please do read the whole thing. It will probably depress you further, but it will remind you that there are a lot of people out here in the shaft of the spear backing up the people on the point.
The "shaft of the spear" bit had to do with the caller right before me, "Major Mike," who commented that the NYT story and today's SCOTUS decision were going to send a message to the soldiers on the point of the spear that there was nothing backing them up.

Well, Hugh must've read the piece and liked it, because he linked:
Bonus Question: Who's better read and more trustworthy on basic matters of logic? NYTer Eric Lichtblau, or this guy?

Well, Dammit, There Goes Another One

Instapundit informs us that publisher Jim Baen has died, and links to an obituary by author David Drake.

Dammit.

Jim Baen was the proprietor of Baen Books, my favorite publisher for some time now. Baen Books publishes Drake, Lois McMaster Bujold, Elizabeth Moon, John Ringo, David Weber, Eric Flint, Jerry Pournelle, and many, many others. He gave many new authors their first shot, among them Elizabeth Moon and Lois McMaster Bujold, I believe.

A while back, Baen books had this included at the back of each volume:
TRAVIS SHELTON
LIKES BAEN BOOKS
BECAUSE THEY TASTE GOOD
Recently we received this letter from Travis Shelton of Dayton, Texas:
I have come to associate Baen Books with Del Monte. Now what is that supposed to mean? Well, if you're in a strange store with a lot of different labels, you pick Del Monte because the product will be consistent and will not disappoint.

Something I have noticed about Baen Books is that the stories are always fast-paced, exciting, action-filled and seem to be published because of content instead of who wrote the book. I now find myself glancing to see who published the book instead of reading the back or intro. If it's a Baen Book it's going to be good and exciting and will capture your spare reading moments.

Another discovery I have recently made is that I don't have any Baen Books in my unread stacks -- and I read four to seven books a week, so that in itself is a meaningful statistic.
I found myself in full agreement with Mr. Shelton. And the reason he (and I) looked at the publisher's mark first was because of Jim Baen. He published stuff that was good, not because it was written by a "name." For example, here's a list of my favorite Baen books:
The General series by S.M. Stirling and David Drake:
The Forge,
The Hammer,
The Anvil,
The Steel,
The Sword,
The Miles Vorkosigan saga by Lois McMaster Bujold,
The Belisarius series by David Drake and Eric Flint,
The Hammer's Slammers series by David Drake,
1632 and all of its sequels by Eric Flint et. al,
And that's just a taste. I'm not a big fan of fantasy, but Elizabeth Moon's The Deed of Paksennarion is excellent, as is Lois McMaster Bujold's The Spirit Ring.

The Baen website informs us, "The surviving partners of Baen and his heirs intend to continue Jim's legacy of innovative, independent publishing. Longtime Baen Books executive editor Toni Weisskopf will be acting publisher and direct day-to-day operation of the company." I hope they are up to the task. They have great big shoes to fill.

A Blogger Walks the Walk


Tim Tyrell, aka "Gunscribe" and author of the blog From the Heartland, decided to try to illustrate to the Lincoln, Nebraska City Council the stupidity of their proposed ban on concealed weapons, now that Nebraska state legislature has passed a "shall-issue" concealed carry law. He tried to do so in a most graphic manner. He open-carried at a City Council meeting - in full compliance with existing law:
Pistol-packer tries to make a point to City Council

Tim Tyrrell Sr. went to the City Council meeting on Monday with a loaded 40-caliber Glock handgun on his hip.

And that's perfectly legal.

Until now, council members haven't been concerned enough about their safety to ban anything other than cell phones from the council chambers.

Even though plenty of angry citizens march down to city hall on a regular basis, there are no metal detectors at the door; no signs asking people to leave their guns at home.

Tyrrell was trying to make a point about the concealed weapons ban on the council agenda: Even if Mayor Coleen Seng's proposed ban were to pass, nothing would prevent people from carrying around unconcealed weapons. (He did not testify at the meeting; the council won't have a public hearing on Seng’s proposal until July 31.)

Tyrrell is a disabled veteran and firearms instructor who writes a blog called "From the Heartland." He has debated the gun rights issue with Lincoln Police Chief Tom Casady, and even called Casady before Monday's meeting to let him know he'd be packing heat.

Casady supports the mayor's proposal to exempt Lincoln from recently passed state legislation that will allow law-abiding citizens to carry concealed weapons beginning in January. Tyrrell believes Seng’s ban would do nothing to prevent criminals from carrying guns.

"Anybody who wants to can go to a gun shop, buy a firearm, a box of ammunition and a holster without knowing anything about what they're doing, strap it on and walk down the streets of Lincoln and be perfectly legal," Tyrrell said.

The new state conceal-carry law will put people through their paces — a background check and training — in order to get a permit to carry a concealed weapon, he said.

"The people that the mayor is worried about are already carrying and they're not gonna stop," he said.

As it is, no city ordinance or council rule bans weapons from pistols to bayonets in the council chambers.

Years ago, one particularly colorful "regular" council meeting attendee often wore a single-action Colt revolver on his hip, Casady said, and eventually took to bringing all manner of weapons to the meetings, including a wooden club called a shillelagh.

"(That) worried me because he could be rather volatile at times," Casady said.

While Casady believes Tyrrell is a law-abiding citizen, he doesn't think it's a good idea for people to go around displaying a pistol on their belt and doesn't think weapons should be allowed into meetings of governing bodies. But if people are going to bring guns to council meetings, he said, "I'd rather have it out where I can see it."

The Public Building Commission — which maintains city and county government buildings — considered banning weapons, but decided to wait to see what happened with Seng’s proposed ordinance.

State law will ban concealed weapons in some public buildings come January, but nothing in state law or Seng's ordinance would stop people from bringing an unconcealed weapon into city hall, according to City Attorney Dana Roper.
Good on 'ya mate, but I don't think the exposure of the Mayor and Council's hypocrisy will do much good. That's like water off a duck's back to a politician. Hypocrisy, along with bull-headed obstinancy, is their stock-in-trade.

I am encouraged by the reader's comments, however. Only three of them were clueless bigots. The rest were quite positive.

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Oh For...
Secondhand smoke classified as lethal

Surgeon general says there's no safe level

By Miriah Meyer and Jeremy Manier
Tribune staff reporters
Published June 27, 2006, 10:48 PM CDT


No amount of air filtration can eliminate the health hazards of secondhand smoke, according to a new U.S. surgeon general's report that could challenge a controversial loophole in Chicago's impending ban on smoking in public places.

The report surveyed 20 years of scientific evidence about the effects of secondhand smoke and found that even trace amounts cause immediate and damaging effects in non-smokers. That led Surgeon General Richard Carmona to conclude there is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke.

"The debate is over as far as I'm concerned," said Carmona. "Based on the science I wouldn't allow anyone in my family to stand in a room with someone smoking."

Some 126 million non-smokers in the U.S. are exposed to secondhand smoke in their homes and workplaces, putting them at a 20 percent to 30 percent greater risk for lung cancer and heart disease, according to the report. It attributed an estimated 50,000 deaths each year to secondhand smoke exposure, 430 of them babies who succumb to sudden infant death syndrome.

The new report comes 20 years after the surgeon general concluded for the first time that exposure to tobacco smoke causes lung cancer and other ailments in non-smokers. Since then, science has expanded the list of diseases and conditions resulting from exposure to include SIDS, developmental effects in children, heart disease and the risk of other cancers.

The findings have "tremendous public policy implications" and should give ammunition to cities and states trying to enact smoking bans, said Stanton Glantz, director of the University of California at San Francisco's Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, who helped draft the paper.
"Tremendous public policy implications." Yes, I bet it does.

Tell me, Dr. Carmona, if you wouldn't allow anyone in your family to stand in a room with someone smoking, is that true for a closet? A living room? A ballroom? A warehouse? Where do you draw the line? "Oh my God! Someone in Kentucky is smoking a cigarette!"

If cigarette smoke is "lethal," then why are my parents at age 71 - smokers until about five years ago - still alive? Why am I? After all, they smoked around me from birth until I moved out of the house. Same for my sister. My brother still smokes - and that means he's still living, too. My grandmother on my father's side smoked until she died - in her eighties.

What you see here is the initial salvo of the last battle over property rights. It's the final step down the slippery slope that started quite a while back.
"Sandra Starr, vice chairwoman of the Princeton Regional Health Commission . . ., said there is no 'slippery slope' toward a total ban on smoking in public places. 'The commission's overriding concern,’ she said, 'is access to the machines by minors.'" — New York Times, Sept. 5, 1993, § 1, at 52.

"Last month, the Princeton Regional Health Commission took a bold step to protect its citizens by enacting a ban on smoking in all public places of accommodation, including restaurants and taverns. . . . In doing so, Princeton has paved the way for other municipalities to institute similar bans . . . .”— The Record (Bergen County), July 12, 2000, at L7.
(Both quotes courtesy of Eugene Volokh.) What we're headed for is a government mandated ban on smoking in your own home - and the excuse will be (as it usually is) "It's for the CHILDREN!"

And then what else will the .gov decide that you are unqualified to decide on your own?

The 197th Carnival of the Vanities...

...is up over at Lil' Duck Duck. It's been a while since I put an entry in. This week I entered A Terrible Resolve.

Go have a gander (pun intended) at what else is available in the blogosphere. I especially liked Common Folks Using Common Sense's Such Bad People: Islamist Terrorists or US Soldiers?

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Thank You, Chris Muir:.


EDITED TO ADD: An even BETTER tribute to Rob: YouBitch's The New Guy - go read! Rob would have LOVED it!

UPDATE: Dipnut of Isn'tapundit writes a hell of a eulogy. (And it would be nice if we got more than one post every six months, Dipnut. I'm just sayin'.)

Monday, June 26, 2006

I Try Not to Judge All by the Worst Examples...


From the comments of condolence at Gut Rumbles:
I seriously hope that God has a sense of humor and allows Ron to enter the Kingdom of Heaven but I suppose that poor old Ron is enduring a pain worse than all he dealt with here on Earth. Poor bastid is in Hell as we speak and I really hate it for him but he stood his ground against God and faith so.........he's paying the ultimate price.
Damn, I'm gonna miss reading him every day.
I tried to warn him but.......he just wouldn't buy what I was selling. Poor pitiful, brilliant man.
Posted by RonDoble at June 26, 2006 11:05 PM
I can just imagine what Rob would have to say to Mr. Doble. (Perhaps calling him "Ron" was projection do you think?)

I, however, shall refrain, and only excerpt one key piece from my previous post, Why I Am an Atheist:
Charles Darwin, Professor Wilson relates, lost his faith not because of his formulation of the theory of evolution, but because he realized what his faith meant:
He gradually dropped his Christian beliefs because becoming a man of the world, much more aware of other cultures and other religious beliefs and so on, he said that he realized that the stories of the Bible were basically no different than the stories of these other religions, and it seemed to him that they were not in of themselves convincing. But what really turned him against religion was the doctrine of damnation. He said "If the Bible is true, and you must be redeemed in Christ and be a believer in order to go to Heaven and not go to hell, you must be this and others will be condemned," and he said "That includes my brothers and all my best friends," and he said "That is a damnable doctrine." Those are his words.
I certainly understand the sentiment.

Asshat. Go "sell" it somewhere else.

Awww, Dammit.

News...
This is Sam. Rob has passed away. They found him at 2:00 this morning slumped over on the couch. He did not shoot himself and no pills or alcohol were found in the house. When I find out anything else I'll let you know. Out of respect for my family please do not leave nasty comments.
~Sam
I've been reading Acidman since about the time I discovered the blogosphere. I started this blog just so I could debate one of Rob's commenters on the topic of gun control.

Say what you want about Rob, he didn't pull any punches. He said what he meant, meant what he said, and took no shit from anybody. I admire and respect that. It was fascinating watching the ongoing train wreck that was often his life, and I feel for both Sam and Quinton, and especially for his Grandmother. Outliving your children is one thing. Outliving your grandchildren must be especially hard.

Rest in peace, Acidman. If there's an afterlife, I hope yours is a lot like Costa Rica, with sweet nubile women, a working Roscoe, and all the good food, good beer, and good company you could ever want. You will be sorely missed.

And if people do leave nasty comments either here or at Rob's, well, I'll know what quality of person would do such a thing, and consider the source.

Saturday, June 24, 2006

Bleg.

I'm asking for your assistance. No, not monetary or donative. I need information.

So far I've owned an Epson CX5200, an Epson CX5400 and now an Epson CX4600. All are 3-in-1 units that scan, copy and color print. The quality of the color prints has been uniformly excellent (more on that in a second). The scanners have worked very well, and the ability to copy documents at home has been occasionally very useful.

However.

The CX5200 stopped printing in magenta about 10 months after I got it. After wrangling with Epson tech support, they ponied up a replacement unit, the CX5400. Eight months later, guess what? The printer stopped printing again. Cyan this time. Out of warranty. So off to the store I go to get something to replace it. Money's a bit tight, and there on the shelf is the CX4600 for well under $100. How could I go wrong?

Easily. The print heads plug up all the time. Head cleaning drains the cartridges rapidly. And a full set of cartridges costs as much as the original purchase price of the unit. Now the only color the damned thing will print in is YELLOW.

I've had enough. I need something that will WORK. I don't need FAX capability, and I don't need a document feeder on the input. I just need to scan, copy single sheets, and print photo-quality images.

So, what do you suggest?

Friday, June 23, 2006

A Terrible Resolve


A brief (and incomplete) overview of America's involvement in WWIV (WWIII was the Cold War. We won that one, too.)
Nov. 4, 1979: The U.S. embassy in Tehran is taken over by Iranian "students." The hostage situation goes on for 444 days.

April 18, 1983: A suicide truck bomb destroys the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon, killing 17 Americans and 46 others.

Oct. 23, 1983: A suicide truck bomb destroys the Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 241. A few minutes later, another explodes near the French barracks in West Beirut, killing 58 French paratroops.

Dec. 12, 1983: Multiple suicide vehicle-born bombs target multiple locations in Kuwait City, Kuwait, including the U.S. Embassy. Five die.

Sept. 20, 1984: Beruit again. A truck bomb is detonated outside the U.S. embassy annex. The death toll is 24.

Dec. 3, 1984: Beirut one more time. A Kuwait Airways flight is hijacked to Pakistan. Two Americans working for USAID are killed.

June 14, 1985: A TWA flight en route from Athens to Rome is hijacked. Navy Seabee diver Robert Dean Stethem was extensively tortured and then shot to death.

April 5, 1986: A Berlin disco popular with off-duty American service members was bombed by Libyan-backed terrorists. One Turkish woman died, about 200 people were wounded.

Dec. 21, 1988: Islamist terrorists with Libyan backing put a bomb on board a Pan Am flight. It detonated over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 259 on board, and 11 on the ground.

Aug. 2, 1990: Iraq invades Kuwait. January 17, 1991 the Coalition air campaign against Iraq begins. The ground campaign commenced on Feb. 24, and was over in 100 hours. U.S. losses are reported 147 combat and 325 non-combat deaths, the non-combat deaths mostly traffic and aircraft accidents. Iraqi military casualties are estimated at 20-22,000 dead.

Feb. 26, 1993: The first attempt to bring down the World Trade Center towers with a truck bomb, killing 6 and injuring over 1,000.

Oct. 3 & 4, 1993: Task Force Ranger attempts to capture Somali warlord Mohammed Farrah Aidid and get caught up in a running firefight that lasts two days. One hundred and sixty U.S. combatants are involved in the initial assault. A joint task force enters the city on the following day to rescue the trapped members of the assault force. The U.S. forces suffer 18 dead, 73 wounded. Somali losses are estimated at as much as 1,500 dead, 4,000 wounded.

June 25, 1996: A massive truck bomb explodes outside the Khobar Tower apartments in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia where U.S. military personnel are billeted. Nineteen service members die, hundreds are wounded. Osama Bin Laden is suspected as one of the planners of this attack.

Aug. 7, 1998: Simultaneous truck-bombings at the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania kill 224 and injure about 4,500.

Oct. 12, 2000: A suicide boat-bomb explodes next to the U.S.S. Cole in port in Aden, Yemen, killing 17 sailors and heavily damaging the ship.

Sept. 11, 2001: Everybody knows about that.

Oct. 7, 2001: Air strikes against Afghanistan begin. Small Special Forces groups are already on the ground in Northern Afghanistan. By Dec. 6 the Taliban was no longer in control of any major area. As of June 22, 2006 there have been 306 American fatalities and 84 other Coalition dead in Operation Enduring Freedom. About 775 American service members have been wounded. I can't find reliable stats on Taliban casualties. They're in the thousands.

March 20, 2003: The U.S. begins its assault on Iraq. So far, 2500 or so American service members are dead, tens of thousands of Iraqi and foreign jihadists.
What's stands out in this?

That we didn't get serious until a lot of American civilians got killed, and got killed here on our own soil. We seem to expect that our service members and government employees face violent death on a regular basis, but not our civilians. We seem to accept that being in a foreign land is risky, but we're supposed to be safe here. Nick Berg was kidnapped in Iraq and beheaded. We were outraged, but restrained. Four Blackwater contractors were murdered and mutilated - again, we were outraged, but restrained. Just this week two soldiers were kidnapped, tortured, murdered, and mutilated, and still we are restrained.

Restrained? Hell, the Senate is discussing surrender.

But restrained or not, when our military kicks ass it does it far out of proportion to its size.

A while back I found a tremendously thought-provoking essay, The Jacksonian Tradition by Walter Russell Mead, which discusses the primary philosophies extant in the American polity; Jacksonian, Jeffersonian, Hamiltonian and Wilsonian - named, of course for their respective politicians. The Wilsonians are described by Mead as crusading moralist transcendentalists, Hamiltonians as commercial realists, Jeffersonians as supple but principled pacifists. Jacksonians, however, are described as follows:
Suspicious of untrammeled federal power (Waco), skeptical about the prospects for domestic and foreign do-gooding (welfare at home, foreign aid abroad), opposed to federal taxes but obstinately fond of federal programs seen as primarily helping the middle class (Social Security and Medicare, mortgage interest subsidies), Jacksonians constitute a large political interest.

In some ways Jacksonians resemble the Jeffersonians, with whom their political fortunes were linked for so many decades. Like Jeffersonians, Jacksonians are profoundly suspicious of elites. They generally prefer a loose federal structure with as much power as possible retained by states and local governments. But the differences between the two movements run very deep -- so deep that during the Cold War they were on dead opposite sides of most important foreign policy questions. To use the language of the Vietnam era, a time when Jeffersonians and Jacksonians were fighting in the streets over foreign policy, the former were the most dovish current in mainstream political thought during the Cold War, while the latter were the most consistently hawkish.

One way to grasp the difference between the two schools is to see that both Jeffersonians and Jacksonians are civil libertarians, passionately attached to the Constitution and especially to the Bill of Rights, and deeply concerned to preserve the liberties of ordinary Americans. But while the Jeffersonians are most profoundly devoted to the First Amendment, protecting the freedom of speech and prohibiting a federal establishment of religion, Jacksonians see the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms, as the citadel of liberty. Jeffersonians join the American Civil Liberties Union; Jacksonians join the National Rifle Association. In so doing, both are convinced that they are standing at the barricades of freedom.
I've recently read James Webb's Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America, and I'm nearly finished reading David Hackett Fischer's Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America, which does a deft job of detailing the cultures that spawned these four very different men and their philosophies. I'm also reading Victor Davis Hanson's Ripples of Battle: How Wars of the past Still Determine how We Fight, how We Live, and how We Think (I tend to read more than one book at a time, especially when I'm reading non-fiction.)

One interesting common thread throughout all four of these works is America's military, and its unique combination of lethality and compassion, of general decency in action, but ruthlessness when unrestrained. The first chapter in Ripples of Battle is concerned with the battle for Okinawa in WWII. Hanson points out the absolutely horrendous casualties suffered by both sides, and the military tactics employed to produce them, such as Japan's massive kamikaze attacks and the U.S. tactic of firing flamethrowers into enemy-occupied caves before sealing them up with satchel charges.
...American ground and naval forces suffered 12,520 killed and another 33,631 wounded or missing in the three months between the invasion on April 1 and the official end of the Okinawan campaign on July 2.

--

The defenders... suffered far worse -- at least 110,000 killed or nearly ten soldiers lost for every American slain, at a sickening clip of fifty men dead every hour of the battle, nearly one per minute, nonstop for three months on end. Perhaps 100,000 civilians may have been killed -- how many of them were active combatants is not known. Nor do we have any accurate idea of the number of wounded and missing Okinawans; some estimates put the number of soldiers and civilians who were sealed in caves at over 20,000. Fewer than 7,500 Japanese soldiers were taken prisoner. All in all, nearly a quarter of a million people were killed or wounded in the fighting on Okinawa...
Mead notes in the opening of his essay:
In the last five months of World War II, American bombing raids claimed the lives of more than 900,000 Japanese civilians -- not counting the casualties from the atomic strikes against Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is more than twice the total number of combat deaths that the United States has suffered in all its foreign wars combined.

On one night, that of March 9-10, 1945, 234 Superfortresses dropped 1,167 tons of incendiary bombs over downtown Tokyo; 83,793 Japanese bodies were found in the charred remains--a number greater than the 80,942 combat fatalities that the United States sustained in the Korean and Vietnam Wars combined.
Both James Webb and David Hackett Fischer note that America's military muscle is made up mostly of the descendants of Scots-Irish immigrants - a people with a long history of military service and martial pride, and no politician better exemplifies the Scots-Irish temperament better than Andrew Jackson. Mead explains:
Many students of American foreign policy, both here and abroad, dismiss Jacksonians as ignorant isolationists and vulgar patriots, but, again, the reality is more complex, and their approach to the world and to war is more closely grounded in classical realism than many recognize. Jacksonians do not believe that the United States must have an unambiguously moral reason for fighting. In fact, they tend to separate the issues of morality and war more clearly than many members of the foreign policy establishment.

The Gulf War was a popular war in Jacksonian circles because the defense of the nation's oil supply struck a chord with Jacksonian opinion. That opinion -- which has not forgotten the oil shortages and price hikes of the 1970s -- clearly considers stability of the oil supply a vital national interest and is prepared to fight to defend it. The atrocity propaganda about alleged Iraqi barbarisms in Kuwait did not inspire Jacksonians to war, and neither did legalistic arguments about U.S. obligations under the UN Charter to defend a member state from aggression. Those are useful arguments to screw Wilsonian courage to the sticking place, but they mean little for Jacksonians. Had there been no UN Charter and had Kuwait been even more corrupt and repressive that it is, Jacksonian opinion would still have supported the Gulf War. It would have supported a full-scale war with Iran over the 1980 hostage crisis, and it will take an equally hawkish stance toward any future threat to perceived U.S. interests in the Persian Gulf region.

In the absence of a clearly defined threat to the national interest, Jacksonian opinion is much less aggressive. It has not, for example, been enthusiastic about the U.S. intervention in the case of Bosnia. There the evidence of unspeakable atrocities was much greater than in Kuwait, and the legal case for intervention was as strong. Yet Jacksonian opinion saw no threat to the interests, as it understood them, of the United States, and Wilsonians were the only segment of the population that was actively eager for war.

In World War I it took the Zimmermann Telegram and the repeated sinking of American ships to convince Jacksonian opinion that war was necessary. In World War II, neither the Rape of Nanking nor the atrocities of Nazi rule in Europe drew the United States into the war. The attack on Pearl Harbor did.

To engage Jacksonians in support of the Cold War it was necessary to convince them that Moscow was engaged in a far-reaching and systematic campaign for world domination, and that this campaign would succeed unless the United States engaged in a long-term defensive effort with the help of allies around the world. That involved a certain overstatement of both Soviet intentions and capabilities, but that is beside the present point. Once Jacksonian opinion was convinced that the Soviet threat was real and that the Cold War was necessary, it stayed convinced. Populist American opinion accepted the burdens it imposed and worried only that the government would fail to prosecute the Cold War with the necessary vigor. No one should mistake the importance of this strong and constant support. Despite the frequent complaints by commentators and policymakers that the American people are "isolationist" and "uninterested in foreign affairs", they have made and will make enormous financial and personal sacrifices if convinced that these are in the nation's vital interests.

This mass popular patriotism, and the martial spirit behind it, gives the United States immense advantages in international affairs. After two world wars, no European nation has shown the same willingness to pay the price in blood and treasure for a global presence. Most of the "developed" nations find it difficult to maintain large, high-quality fighting forces. Not all of the martial patriotism in the United States comes out of the world of Jacksonian populism, but without that tradition, the United States would be hard pressed to maintain the kind of international military presence it now has.
It is the Jacksonians who fight our wars, and the Jacksonians who are willing to pay for them, and - to date - it has been the Jacksonians who make up a majority of the public, or at least the part that votes.

But there is one other important component of the Jacksonian philosophy. Mead again:
Jacksonian America has clear ideas about how wars should be fought, how enemies should be treated, and what should happen when the wars are over. It recognizes two kinds of enemies and two kinds of fighting: honorable enemies fight a clean fight and are entitled to be opposed in the same way; dishonorable enemies fight dirty wars and in that case all rules are off.

An honorable enemy is one who declares war before beginning combat; fights according to recognized rules of war, honoring such traditions as the flag of truce; treats civilians in occupied territory with due consideration; and -- a crucial point-- refrains from the mistreatment of prisoners of war. Those who surrender should be treated with generosity. Adversaries who honor the code will benefit from its protections, while those who want a dirty fight will get one.

--

Although American Indians often won respect for their extraordinary personal courage, Jacksonian opinion generally considered Indians to be dishonorable opponents. American-Indian warrior codes (also honor based) permitted surprise attacks on civilians and the torture of prisoners of war. This was all part of a complex system of limited warfare among the tribal nations, but Jacksonian frontier dwellers were not students of multicultural diversity. In their view, Indian war tactics were the sign of a dishonorable, unscrupulous and cowardly form of war. Anger at such tactics led Jacksonians to abandon the restraints imposed by their own war codes, and the ugly skirmishes along the frontier spiraled into a series of genocidal conflicts in which each side felt the other was violating every standard of humane conduct.

The Japanese, another people with a highly developed war code based on personal honor, had the misfortune to create the same kind of impression on American Jacksonians. The sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, the gross mistreatment of American POWs (the Bataan Death March), and Japanese fighting tactics all served to enrage American Jacksonians and led them to see the Pacific enemy as ruthless, dishonorable and inhuman. All contributed to the vitriolic intensity of combat in the Pacific theater. By the summer of 1945, American popular opinion was fully prepared to countenance invasion of the Japanese home islands, even if they were defended with the tenacity (and indifference to civilian lives) that marked the fighting on Okinawa.

Given this background, the Americans who decided to use the atomic bomb may have been correct that the use of the weapon saved lives, and not only of American soldiers. In any case, Jacksonians had no compunction about using the bomb. General Curtis LeMay (subsequently the 1968 running mate of Jacksonian populist third-party candidate George Wallace) succinctly summed up this attitude toward fighting a dishonorable opponent: "I'll tell you what war is about", said Lemay in an interview, "You've got to kill people, and when you've killed enough they stop fighting."
Hanson makes a similar point:
The American military and public also came away from Okinawa with a number of perceptions about land warfare in Asia, some of them accurate, some racist, a few entirely erroneous -- but all fundamental in forming the American way of war in Korea and Vietnam in the next thirty years. After the startling array of suicides on Okinawa, Americans were convinced that Asians in general did not value life -- theirs or anyone else's -- in the same manner as Westerners, and when faced with overwhelming military power and sure defeat would nevertheless continue to fight hard in their efforts to kill Americans. Because territory was not really as important on Okinawa as body counts -- the fight would end not with the capture per se of strategic ground but rather only with the complete annihilation of the enemy who was trapped on the island -- Americans developed a particular mentality that would come to haunt them in both the Korean peninsula and Southeast Asia.

--

Because Okinawa was the major engagement in the Pacific where civilians sometimes fought on the side of the enemy, Americans experienced the dilemma of determining which woman, child, or old man was harmless, friendly, or a killer. And because Okinawa was out of view, little reported on, and fought against a supposedly repugnant and fascist enemy, Americans left the island with the assurance that when stranded in such a hell, they should blast indiscriminantly any civilian in their proximity on suspicion of aiding the enemy -- also with disastrous consequences to come in the suddenly televised fighting of the 1960s and 1970s when victory hinged not on enemy body counts alone, but also in winning the hearts and minds of supposedly noncombatant civilian populations in an arena broadcast live around the world. Japanese veterans of the rape of Nanking might murder thousands of Okinawan civilians -- 40,000 adult males alone were shanghaied into the imperial army. But in such a messy battle, jaded American GIs -- as purportedly more liberal Westerners -- who either mistakenly or by intent shot a few hundred would incur far greater moral condemnation both at home and far abroad.
And here we are again. This time we're engaged in combat with enemies that wear no uniform, that blend with the civilian population, that use that population as a shield as well as a target, and who embrace their own deaths. Our soldiers, once again, are in the unenviable position of having to determine which woman, child, or old man is harmless, friendly, or a killer. Sometimes we make mistakes. And, as before, sometimes they might not be mistakes.

But still, we're restrained. No carpet-bombing. No nukes. In fact, we've gone so far as to drop precision-guided bombs filled with concrete in order to minimize the risk of killing innocents or destroying important infrastructure. However, we're willing to unapologetically kill women and children when the target requires it.

The question is, "How much longer will this restraint last?"

The Wilsonians want us out for diplomatic reasons. The Hamiltonians don't want to keep paying the financial bill. The Jeffersonians don't want to keep paying the bill in blood.

The Jacksonians want us to take the gloves off.

I noted a while back that Eric S. Raymond made this comment:
One of the reasons I support the present war is that killing 50K of the jihadis now may keep them from mounting the city-killing attack that will really enrage the U.S.. Because if that happens, millions on millions of Arabs will die and my country will be transformed by its rage into something I won't like.
In that same comment, he also said:
These are not civilized people.... They’re barbarians — howling fanatics with a world view so close to psychopathology that I still find it difficult to comprehend even after having studied Islamic history for 31 years. Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi, OBL’s mentor, once wrote of infidels: “There can no dialogue with them, save by the sword and the rifle.” Mainstream Salafists and Wahhabis and Deobandis really believe this! It’s not just posturing.

Being “reasonable” with barbarians like these doesn’t work; you have to make them fear you, and if you can’t make them fear enough you have to kill them as you would put down a rabid animal. I wish it wasn’t that way, but it is.
Sounds remarkably close to Hanson's "Americans were convinced that Asians in general did not value life -- theirs or anyone else's -- in the same manner as Westerners, and when faced with overwhelming military power and sure defeat would nevertheless continue to fight hard in their efforts to kill Americans", doesn't it? Just yesterday Ace at Ace of Spades HQ posted this:
If the majority of Muslims do in fact believe that an apocalyptic conflict with the west is inevitable, then 1, it is indeed inevitable, and 2, let the apocalypse begin.

If genocide is unavoidable, I choose genocide against my enemies rather than myself.

There will be one more massive outrage from the Religion of Peace, and then things are going to go rather badly for them.

Okay, let me not be so coy and cute. I am just about ready to give my blessing to a genocidal nuclear strike on the majority of the Muslim world, and I suspect many of my countrymen are similarly itchy-fingered.

One more. One more fucking mass-murder. Go for it, boys. Give us the excuse. Some of us suspect it's inevitable and the only way to finally get it through your primative heads that we will no longer put up with being murdered by savage animals, but we need the moral pretext. We need the hot anger of fresh provocation.

So do it. If you are incapable of sharing the earth peacefully, then we will have to absent you from it. And when the nuclear fire rains down on you, you can cry out to your God and ask him "What have we possibly done to deserve this?"

In 50 years Americans will look back in horror at what we've done, just as they did 50 years after Hiroshima; but then, we'll have peace for 50 years. I'll exchange some guilt for safety.
Ace is obviously Jacksonian in philosophical outlook - and he's quite right, many of his countrymen are similarly itchy-fingered. Francis Porretto offers a slightly less dark analysis:
Another strike with a hijacked aircraft would be terrible, but it would be a scale of destruction with which we're already tragically familiar. It would probably precipitate a new expedition by our conventional military forces. But a terrorist act involving a biological agent, poison gas, or a nuclear weapon would reap many more lives, perhaps in the hundreds of thousands. It would evoke demands that the Islamic world be punished with supreme brutality -- demands that could not be denied.

--

Americans aren't enthusiasts for the shedding of innocent blood, and either of the above scenarios would guarantee the destruction of an unthinkable number of lives, among which some innocents would surely be numbered. Yet one or the other would be unavoidable should Islamic lunatics perpetrate an atrocity with WMD. Were Washington to balk at such a response, the American people would scrape Washington hollow -- and we wouldn't wait for the next election to do it.
No, indeed. And the Jeffersonians and Hamiltonians will join us. The Wilsonians never do.

All it will take is a little bit more convincing. September 11, 2001 was enough to get the Jacksonians on board to fight the war against our attackers - correctly identified as Islamic extremists, not just Al-Qaeda, and not just Osama Bin Laden. It was, to us, another Pearl Harbor. As usual, the Jacksonians are worried only that the government is failing to prosecute the war with the necessary vigor.

As Admiral Yamamoto is credited to have said after the Japanese naval air strikes on Pearl Harbor, "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve." Okinawa, if nothing else, fulfilled that fear. If the Islamists manage to pull off a truly major strike involving thousands or even tens of thousands of American civilian casualties, the world will once again see what we moral, liberal, civilized Americans are willing to do when the gloves finally come off.

The difference between us and them is, once we're finished we'll pick up the pieces and wearily go home to our lives again, because we're really not interested in running the world. As Eric Raymond so eloquently stated in American Empire Redux:
I was traveling in Europe a few years back, and some Euroleftie began blathering in my presence about America’s desire to rule the world. “Nonsense,” I told him. “You’ve misunderstood the American character. We’re instinctive isolationists at bottom. We don’t want to rule the world — we want to be able to ignore it."
That, too, is a Jacksonian characteristic.
An EXCELLENT Post.

By somebody else.

Via South Park Pundit, I stumbled across an excellent post, Why own guns? at the blog To Which I Replied... Excerpt:
Living in southern California along a fault line, which (everyone agrees) is LONG overdue for the "big one," the idea of being left high and dry in the event of a natural disaster seemed like a sobering prospect. As to police protection; remember the LA riots? Police fought valiently to protect the city? Nope. There were too many rioters and the police literally stepped back and let them have control of the city for days until it burned itself out. Unbelieveable. The world was rapidly becoming a more dangerous place. Well, not really, it was already dangerous, I was just naive.

I looked into the future, and saw my family, and looked at my girlfriend (mostly fiance), and knew that I had things to protect.

But I still wasn't decided. I thought I was being a little cynical to think that the police can't protect me at all. So I started talking to my police friends and family members... Wow. I didn't believe it, and wound up searching the net for a long time to find people denying these statements, but only found agreements. The police DO NOT, and WILL NOT "protect" you.
I guess everyone hasn't read Is the Government Responsible for Your Protection? Still, an excellent restatement of the reasons for being a gun owner. Strongly recommended for those still thinking about taking the plunge.

"For those who want Utopia today, yesterday is always a villain.
Regardless of how it made tomorrow possible."


Read today's Bleat. Lileks outdoes himself.

Thursday, June 22, 2006

No WMDs, Eh?.

I posted this cartoon back in July of 2004:

It looks like the WMD existed after all, but they were never the ONLY reason for invading Iraq.

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

SonofaBITCH That Man Can Write!.

That's precisely what I said when I finished reading Bill Whittle's latest offering, RAFTS. I am heartened that in this piece, the promised opening chapter of an upcoming second book, he hits on numerous ideas that I have written about myself. The power of belief. The hardwired nature of the human psyche and the fact that we've not been at this Civilization thing all that long. The need for constant maintenance of said Civilization. The "forces of ignorance and barbarism."

Go read. It's a short one for Bill, who normally prefers "not to get paid by the word, or the page, but by the pound," but it's worth every minute of your very valuable time.

Monday, June 19, 2006

"...the relative ease in which someone can attempt to manufacture an automatic weapon in their home..."


As a subject of the Crown, you've got to admire Edwin Johnson's testicular fortitude:
Cache of illegal firearms found at 78-year-old's home

A CACHE of illegal firearms was discovered by ambulancemen after a 78-year-old retired Royal Navy engineer collapsed at his home.

Edwin Johnson had legitimately bought the deactivated weapons but then used his engineering skills to alter them so they could be fired.

Johnson, who later admitted he had 'misapplied' his interest in engineering had also started building his own weapon using a 'How to make your own sub-machine gun' manual.

Stuart Lody, prosecuting, told Lincoln Crown Court an Italian-licensed 9mm pistol, a German 9mm pistol dating back to 1896, and an air-powered revolver were all found in the property at Burgh le Marsh.

"Some gentlemen of his age design and make their own steam engines. Unfortunately he developed an interest in weapons," Mr Lody said.
"A number of components for a sub-machine gun he was making were found. He said he stopped doing that because the drawings in the book were not precise enough."

Mr Lody said Johnson, who worked as an engineer for Rolls Royce after leaving the Royal Navy, was thoroughly investigated to see if he had links with the underworld but none were found.

Johnson, of High Street, Burgh-le-Marsh, admitted three charges of possessing a prohibited firearm on 20 December and possessing ammunition without a firearm certificate.

He was given a two year conditional discharge by Judge John Machin who said there were exceptional circumstances which meant he had no need to impose the minimum five year jail term set down by law.

On Friday Johnson was given an absolute discharge after admitting manufacturing an offensive weapon.

The judge told him: "You find yourself in court because of legislation which was designed to aim at a mischief of which you clearly have not been the perpetrator.

I can imagine few cases where it would be easier to find exceptional circumstances. The inquiries revealed nobody could be less inclined or in any way involved in gun crime.

"This was an activity you took up. You activated the weapons simply for the purpose of your own cultural amusement."

Steven Gosnell, defending, said Johnson served the Royal Navy with distinction and worked on the development of weapons for the Polaris nuclear submarines.

"He is an intelligent man. He is a gentleman," said Mr Gosnell.

DC James Manning, who carried out the enquiry, said: "This case was very unusual and disturbingly highlights the relative ease in which someone can attempt to manufacture an automatic weapon in their home, with the aid of the right equipment, skills and information.

"We want today to serve as an example to everyone that this practice is unlawful.

"All firearms require licensing and anyone found with weapons in their home without a licence will be dealt with accordingly."
All the law did in this case was make a criminal out of an otherwise good guy. Thankfully they didn't throw the book at him.

You'll note that the law doesn't prevent gun manufacturing or reactivation.

Sunday, June 18, 2006

That's Not Risk-Aversion, it's Risk-PHOBIA.

Back in 2005 I wrote More Moronics from Nerf™land - I Mean England, about a recommendation by a group of doctors who wanted the government to ban kitchen knives because - and I quote:
Doctors claim long kitchen knives serve no purpose except as weapons
I noted that, were it me, I wouldn't be giving up my 10" Henckel's Chef's knife any time soon. In the same piece I also reported on the effort to get pubs to use plastic pint glasses and plastic beer bottles because - again I quote:
Pub fights 'cost £4m a year.'
In that piece I advised:
I'll tell you what: Let's just raze the British Isles, tote off all of the wood and brick and glass and metal and rebuild with terrycloth, foam rubber, Saran-wrap and soft plastics and then you'll all be safe! Right?

As soon as everyone is in a straightjacket, that is. You seem to need the spinal support.
I thought I was being facetious. Apparently not:
Now pupils are banned from throwing paper planes

Pupils have been banned from throwing paper planes to one another - in case they get injured.

Staff at a primary school have instead set up special targets in the playground for the children to aim at.

The edict follows claims by teachers that a few of the school's pupils, aged between three and 11, had been 'over-zealous' in launching the missiles.

The headteacher argued the ban was 'a sensible' measure - but parents of some of the 230 pupils reacted with disbelief.

Coming in the wake of high-profile bans around the country on traditional playground games such as tag and conkers, they fear aversion to risk is denying their children the learning experience they enjoyed.

One father of a seven-year-old boy said: 'I've heard it all now. We made paper planes and our parents did the same and I never heard of anyone getting hurt.

'It's taking the health-and-safety measures to absurd lengths. Heaven knows what they will think to ban next.'

Staff at Bishops Down Primary School in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, introduced the ban earlier this month after two pupils were seen aiming their paper planes at other children.

The youngsters are still allowed to make the darts but are being supervised to ensure they only launch them at the targets.

Headteacher Emma Savage sai staff were particularly concerned about eye injuries.

'These planes can have sharp edges and have the potential to damage a young person's eyes,' she said.
You'll put your eye out!
'We have stopped pupils from aiming them at other children's eyes, which would seem like a reasonable thing to do.
You've flown paper airplanes before. They're not exactly yard-darts. Can anybody accurately hit a moving target with a paper airplane? Especially one with a 15mm bullseye? (Pun intended.)
'But they can still make and throw planes as much as they want because we have a safe area with targets in the playground.

'The measure was taken because some of the children were getting a bit over-zealous.'

Mrs Savage claimed no one had complained about the ban.

Paper planes have been a feature of playgrounds since the turn of the last century, although the Chinese were making paper kites 2,000 years ago. And Leonardo da Vinci created parchment planes after sketching early designs for flying machines.

The art of making paper planes is taken seriously enough for an entry to be registered by Guinness World Records.

American enthusiast Ken Blackburn holds the record for achieving flight time of 27.6 seconds in 1998.

A spokeswoman for Kent Council said schools were free to enforce their own safety measures but added.

'I have never heard of any restrictions being imposed on paper planes before.'

It is the latest in a string of playground safety clampdowns.

Staff at Broomley First School in Stocksfield, Northumberland, ordered children to stop playing tag because it was 'too rough'. Many schools have banned conkers forcing pupils to wear goggles while playing - because they fear they could be used as 'offensive weapons'.

And a Gloucestershire village had to remove swings because they faced the sun and there was concern users could be blinded.
Sweet. Bleeding. Jeebus. I guess even they figured out that banning the sun wasn't going to work.
A survey of 500 youngsters by The Children's Society charity found the majority believe playgrounds are boring. Forty-five per cent said they had been stopped from playing with water and a third from climbing trees.
It really is Nerf™land!

Some comments from the article:
Has anyone checked that the cotton wool, the kids are wrapped up in these days, is not allergic to them...?

- Pete, Colchester, Essex

There are way too many laws, rules, regulations and prohibitions in this country now in an effort to make life failsafe. Life's not like that, and any intelligent person will merely ignore this nonsense.

- Nigel Smith, London
But you can't ignore it, Nigel. The State will come enforce itself on you if you try.
What can anyone say? Words completely fail me - except to say the people who decide on these rules are completely barking mad.

- Carolyn, Isle of Man
But Carolyn, the "completely barking mad" are in charge of the education of your children.
Balls can be thrown so why not ban those... skipping ropes could be used to hang children and god forbid that they should carry sharp pencils or even worse umbrellas.

These sad, sad people who think up such rubbish must have had a sad, sad childhood themselves.
Let the children laugh to remind us of ourselves and let them grow with a strength and determination to succeed. Allow them to have a competitive spirit and the will to go forward. Let them rejoice in the thrill of winning and the fear of chance.

Wrap them in cotton wool and we will be breeding a generation of losers and whiners.

- Alan, Weston Super Mare
Err, Alan, which generation is it, do you think, that's proposing these bans?

I've got two quotes to add to this. One is very old:
All who have meditated on the art of governing mankind have been convinced that the fate of empires depends on the education of youth. - Aristotle
The other I've repeated here often:
The other day our Carpenter’s helper heard me say something along the lines of, "it is difficult to conclude that incompetence is the reason why our public schools have deteriorated. There comes a point where you have to suspect sabotage, or a conspiracy."

He asked me if I really meant that. I gave him the five minute explanation of John Dewey’s known affiliation with communists, his frequent essays and articles about the wonders of the Soviet education system, and his quote, "You can’t make Socialists out of individualists. Children who know how to think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society which is coming where everyone is interdependent."

I then went on to tell him about how public schools changed at the turn of the last century. That there were others involved in turning Americans from free-thinking individualists to factory drones. I also added that many people probably went along with it because it seemed like a good idea, but there were certainly enough people behind the scenes, who knew that the goal posts had been moved. THAT is a conspiracy.

Yes. There does come that time when you are forced to don the tinfoil hat.

The incompetence excuse only works once. Incompetence this great is impossible to attribute to accident.
That one's by Connie du Toit.

Yup. I'm convinced this kind of thing is deliberate, and for precisely the reason Aristotle noted.

Intelligent, active, healthy, educated children make poor drones when they grow up.

Friday, June 16, 2006

I Refuse to Believe We're Stuck Here.

In relation to my previous post about getting off this planet, I'd like to show you this:

It's the Milky Way as seen from Death Valley.

We can't be stuck here. We can't.

A Comment on Podcasts.

Glenn Reynolds links to an interview of Iraq the Model's author Omar by Belmont Club's author Richard Fernandez. Sounds interesting, so I click on over.

It's a podcast.

This is the blogosphere. It's not talk radio. It's not that I mind that it's audio, but I want to READ the interview. There might be something in it I'd like to excerpt for a post, or save in my ever-growing "Quotes" file. While I'm at work, I like to listen to talk radio. It's often just background noise, but sometimes something truly interesting is said. One of the things I most appreciate is Duane Patterson's Radio Blogger site. Duane is the Senior Producer for Hugh Hewitt's afternoon radio show, and he posts transcripts of most of Hugh's interviews. Hugh has his own blog, but Duane does the transcripts. He often also posts audio links to the interviews as well, which I think is an excellent idea, but the written word is the media of the blogosphere, in my opinion. You want to podcast? Fine. I'm quite taken with Michelle Malkin's Hot Air site myself, but I WANT TRANSCRIPTS.

< /Rant >

And We Thought the Kelo Decision Was Bad!.
Homes of the dead to be seized

Bereaved families could have the homes of dead relatives seized under new laws that allow the state to commandeer empty properties.

Local councils will be able to take control of inherited homes if they are left vacant for more than six months.

After that time the beneficiaries of a will risk seeing the house that has been left to them taken over and rented out as social housing.

The new rules, which could affect 250,000 homes in England, will come into force next month, according to details slipped out by Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly.

They state that those who leave a house or flat empty for six months risk losing control of it to the local council, which will have power to break in, alter or refurbish it, and let it out to tenants of the authority’s choice. The greatest impact is likely to fall on bereaved families.

Although actual ownership will remain with the family, the new law means that the home of a relative who has died may be taken over by the council just six months after the will has been put into effect.

Many families are likely to be debating how to deal with or share out the value of the home of a loved one for several months after a death. The risk of losing family property comes on top of the growing burden of inheritance tax and the highly controversial ‘means test’ system for long-term care of the elderly.

Tory housing spokesman Michael Gove said yesterday: "Seizing homes of the recently deceased is particularly disturbing. I doubt that state officials will always recognise the delays that can result from complex wills or appreciate the traumatic ordeal that families face with the task of clearing a home of personal possessions." He added: "I fear this is a stealthy new form of inheritance tax."

Housing experts called the confiscation of property 'outrageous'. Robert Whelan of the Civitas think-tank said: "This runs right against the ancient common law principle of private property, which is as fundamental as habeas corpus.

"The right to private property is the Englishman’s right to his castle. This looks to me like the point where Labour has overstepped the mark into behaving more like a dictatorship than a democratic government."

Mr Whelan added: "I think anybody whose property is seized under this law should go straight to court to see if a judge thinks it should stand."

Henry Stuart, head of property at the City law firm Withers, said: "Many families decide to sell inherited property – but they often wait for the right time. For example, you do not sell a country cottage in November, you wait until the spring. But by then the local council could have put a tenant in."

The right for councils to impose 'Empty Dwelling Management Orders' was included in a 2004 Housing Act pushed through by Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott.

Miss Kelly, his successor in charge of housing policy, published guidance on how the orders will work last Friday afternoon, without informing MPs or the media.

When the law was pushed through Parliament, it was said that target homes would be in crime-affected streets in inner cities. However, the details now made public show that the orders will apply to any home. The guidance on the new powers said: "The property does not have to be run down or uninhabitable. The fact it has not been lived in for more than six months may be enough to allow an EDMO to be made."

Exceptions cover second and holiday homes and homes of those working 'temporarily' away. In the case of inherited property, exemption applies for six months after grant of probate. An EDMO can last for seven years, but owners can apply to get their house back earlier. No home can be seized if its owner can show it is 'genuinely' on the market.

The seizure of homes must also be approved by a Residential Property Tribunal. These are the panels that have until now been confined to settling disputes between private landlords and tenants.

Those who are the first to lose control of property to a council may also challenge the new law in the courts through the process of judicial review.

A spokesman for Miss Kelly’s department said: "The owner retains ownership rights and can dispose of their dwelling at any time or seek revocation of an order to enable sale or to otherwise secure occupation."
Yes, England slides further towards bondage.

And the populace increasingly avoids involving itself in fighting crime, since the State has made it plain that they're not qualified and will be punished for doing the State's job:
Pensioner brutally attacked at seafront - yet no one came to his aid

When pensioner Derek Gull was targeted by two vicious muggers he was not walking through a tough housing estate or along some dark alley.

The 76-year-old was sitting on a bench in broad daylight on a busy sea front.

But as the thugs smashed a brick into his face and broke both his wrists as they tried to wrench his watch off his arm, not a single person stepped in to help.

The grandfather told yesterday how more than a dozen people carried on walking as he struggled against his attackers with blood streaming down his face.

He fought bravely to stop them taking the watch - which was a present from his wife on their golden wedding anniversary - and they eventually fled after pushing him down an 8ft embankment.

And as he staggered through the town covered in blood, still no-one stopped to help.

"I couldn't see properly because my eyes were watering," Mr Gull said yesterday as he recovered from his injuries at home.

"I was covered with blood from my nose. At least a dozen people walked past and did not bother to do anything, they just ignored me.

"It's disgusting, my whole family is upset about it. I suppose people just don't want to get involved any more, they don't seem to care.

"But if I saw someone like that I would see if I could help, I wouldn't just walk past and ignore it."

Mr Gull's ordeal earlier this month came just days after motorists ignored a girl of eight as she dragged herself to the pavement with a broken leg after being mowed down by a hit and run driver.

Cait Atkins was walking near her home in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, when she was run over. Up to 12 motorists drove past her without stopping to help.

Mr Gull, a retired electrician from Rainham, Essex, had been visiting Clacton-on-Sea on a day trip with his local working men's club.

During the day, he separated from the others to visit a friend at the town's bowling club.

As he walked back to meet the rest of the group in a restaurant he decided to sit on a bench for a while and watch some youngsters playing football on the beach.

"Suddenly I felt an arm come round from behind and grab me and a voice demanded that I hand over my watch," the father of three said.

'He would have had to kill me for the watch'

"It was a golden wedding anniversary present from my wife so he would have had to kill me to get it.

"Another arm came round and started tugging at the watch and trying to get it off. I clenched my fist so he couldn't get it off me.

"Then he pulled my arm through the slats and twisted it until it broke.

"I heard him say to someone else "hit him" and the next thing I knew half a brick hit me in the face breaking my nose.

"There was blood everywhere and my eyes were watering, I couldn't see a thing."

Mr Gull, who is registered disabled as he suffers from curvature of the spine, managed to struggle to his feet and his attackers - aged in their late teens - pushed him down an 8ft bank onto a concrete path before fleeing.

"I got my faculties together and tried to make my way back to the restaurant but I was covered in blood and it was pouring out of my nose.

"I couldn't see a thing because my eyes were watering so much.

"I must have passed about half a dozen people but no one asked me what had happened or offered to help me.

"At the time I was so upset that people just ignored me but looking back I suppose they just didn't want to get involved or maybe they thought I was a drunk.

"If it was me though, I would have gone out of my way to help someone in that situation."

Eventually Mr Gull met some members of his group who guided him back to the restaurant where he was cleaned up and the police were called.

After showing them where the incident took place he insisted on taking the hour and a half long journey back to Rainham with the working men's club on the coach.

It was only when he got home that he agreed to go to hospital where he collapsed in casualty.

Doctors were so concerned about the amount of blood he had swallowed that they gave him a lung scan and he was kept in hospital for more than a week before being allowed back home on Wednesday. He is unable to drive his car or play his regular game of bowls.

Mr Gull, who served in the Army for two and a half years after joining in 1947, suggested bringing back national service to deal with antisocial youths.

"That would sort out all the young thugs of today. Like the old saying goes, you go in as a boy and come out as a man."

Mr Gull's 75-year-old wife, Violet, said she was pleased that her husband clung on the the gold Ellesse watch she had bought him.

She added: "He was very brave, but it's disgusting that no-one helped him.

"I don't know what the world is coming to."

Essex Police are appealing for witnesses.
What's the world coming to? Well, apparently it's coming to shit.

Damn, it pains me to see what the Mother Country has become.

OK, but Why?.

Titled "4 (Million) Eyes":

This is a publicity shot for Micreon GmbH of Hannover, Germany. It took a pulsed titanium-sapphire laser to cut the eyeglass frames from an itty-bitty, thin sheet of tungsten, and then a pair of tweezers, a microscope, and two weeks of labor to get them on the (very dead) fly.

It's supposed to "demonstrate the precision possible with femtosecond lasers."

Ooookay.

Hey! You Kids! Get Off the Planet!


(Blogging from work again. Left last night at 7:00PM, back again at 6:15AM.)

Physicist Stephen Hawking recently declared that humans must go into space if we want to survive as a species. I'm pretty much with him on that one. I'd hoped (since I grew up on Florida's Space Coast during the race to the moon) that we'd already have colonies on the moon and a significant presence in space.

Two guys floating around Earth in a Greyhound Bus is not a "significant presence" in my book.

There are two hurdles that have to be overcome for this to happen, though. One: we have to have the will to do it. Two: we have to have the money. To some extent will equals money, but even if the ready cash was on hand, if you're not willing to spend it on getting out of here, then it might as well not exist. Leaving the planet is expensive - or at least it will be until we develop technologies that reduce the cost.

Right now it costs (officially) about $5-10k to put one pound into low Earth orbit. The real cost, when you add in the expense of the support infrastructure behind a launch and ground support during a mission, is probably more on the order of $40-50k. Assuming your average buck-naked human being weighs 150Lb (obviously we're not talking about your average American here) and you're looking at between $1.5 and $75 million dollars just to put someone into a not-too-stable orbit around the Big Blue Marble. Getting to escape velocity costs a lot more. (The $1.5M price tag obviously ignores things like life-support.)

There are other ways to get into space. Glenn Reynolds thinks that a Space Elevator is a good idea, and the idea of a gigantic magnetic-induction catapult has been floating around for decades, but both are multi-billion dollar investments with engineering, safety, environmental, and materials problems of their own.

I'm not sure the United States has the political will to do the job. At this point, I'm not sure we have the political will to defeat the forces of Islamism. I've written before that it's possible that China may be the country that first succeeds in colonizing off-planet. Dictatorships don't have as much of a problem with "political will" as democratic forms do, and they can wring the money out of the rest of the world, so long as we keep buying from what are largely State-owned industries.

In the same speech, Hawking said,
We are getting closer to answering the age-old questions: Why are we here? Where did we come from?
That's great, but I'm more interested in "Where are we going, and how will we get there?"