MidwayUSA Discount Codes (repost)

Another bump on this one. MidwayUSA is offering discounts to my readers through October 17:

To receive your Savings:

1. Place in-stock products in your shopping cart totaling:

$10 off $100 - Use Promotion Code 19310
$20 off $200 - Use Promotion Code 29310
$30 off $300 - Use Promotion Code 39310

Enter the promotion code in the box entitled "Promotion Code" on the shopping cart page.

2. You will see the discount on the Confirmation page before placing your order.

3. Remember, this promotion code is valid for orders placed on MidwayUSA.com.

4. Limited to in-stock products, one per Customer and one promotion code per retail order.

5. Excludes Gift Certificates and Nightforce products, Sale priced products and Clearance products.

6. Offer valid for retail Customers only.

7. Offer cannot be combined with Birthday or Special Pricing.

8. Hurry, offer ends at 11:59 PM CT October 17, 2010.

Match Report - 10/10/10 "Ten Pins"

Match Report - 10/10/10 - "Ten Pins"

Today's bowling pin match went off quite well if I do say so myself, but I can see some changes are going to be necessary. Fourteen people showed up to shoot the match (not counting me), and this was the first month where we shot a .22 rimfire class. Five of the fourteen brought a .22 to shoot in addition to their centerfire guns, and one shooter brought two different .45's to shoot, so there were a total of 20 entries (plus mine).

I ran out of entry sheets!

In agreement with the shooters, we had only three qualifying runs per shooter with their centerfire pistols instead of five, then we went straight to the .22 competition. Instead of running a .22 classifier, I just lined up two shooters against each other and ran one "practice" round to see what kind of differential we were looking at. From that I set a handicap, and we ran a double-elimination tournament. John Higgins with an iron-sighted S&W model 41 took the honors, competing against "Doc" O'Hanlon shooting a Browning Buckmark with a red-dot. Best match of the day, though was this one, filmed by John O'C with his cell phone:

I wish I could tell you who was shooting, but that match was a dead-even tie at just over five seconds.

After the .22 competition we started the centerfire class, running a single-elimination competition due to time constraints. I lasted two whole rounds before I was eliminated. The match eventually ended up with Jim Burnette shooting against Phil Roberts. Jim has a long history shooting bowling pin matches and has an original Clark custom compensated 1911 chambered in John Moses Browning's (PBUH) .45ACP. Phil was shooting an uncompensated STI hi-cap 1911 in .40 S&W. Jim won the first round, but Phil pulled it out in the last two for the win.

John O'C drove down from Chandler for the match, and as I mentioned, provided the video above. He won the drawing at the end of the match and took home the $21, which might actually cover the cost of his gas for the trip.

I want to thank everyone for coming, and for helping set up, run, and tear down afterwards. It makes everything run much more smoothly.

I think for next month's match we will stay with single-elimination, but we will go to a best 3 out of 5 competition rather than best 2 out of 3. The idea here is to come out and shoot, and if you got taken out in the first or second round, you didn't get to shoot much. Again, we will stay with the three runs for time for the centerfire shooters, and one side-by-side "practice" run for those competing in .22. (I may have to drag out my MkII and join in on that one. Or maybe my Single-Six...)

Overall, everyone seemed to have a good time, but I'll keep trying to improve the match and pull in more shooters. The next match will be held November 14 at 8:00AM at the Tucson Rifle Club.

Bowling Pin Shoot - Tucson, Sunday October 10

At the Tucson Rifle Club Action Range. Classifying starts at 0800 (8AM).

Pistols only, .38 Special caliber or heavier. We will also have a .22 rimfire class, so bring 'em!

Course of fire:

Five standard bowling pins placed on a 4' x 8' table approximately 42" high. For "Major" calibers (.40 S&W or higher) the pins are placed 12" from the front edge of the table. For less powerful centerfire calibers, the pins are placed 18" from the back edge. For .22 rimfire, pin tops are placed on the back edge. In all cases the targets are spaced 18" apart across the 8' width of the table.

The shooter starts from the "low ready" position, 25 feet from the front edge of the table. At the sound of the timer, shoot all five pins off the table.

Each shooter will have five three (3) timed solo runs to establish a handicap. After all shooters have been timed, shooters will be paired off in competition. Slower shooters will receive a handicap advantage. Two tables, two shooters. At the sound of the first beep, the slower shooter begins. At the sound of the second beep, the faster shooter begins. Whoever clears their table first, wins. Best two out of three determines the set winner. This way revolver shooters have a chance against semi-autos, stock guns have a chance against race guns. I determine the handicap delay. If I think you're sandbagging, I'll disqualify you or adjust your handicap to suit.

This is a double-elimination match. Losers from the first round will compete against each other, winners will compete against winners. Competition will continue until there is only one shooter left who hasn't lost twice. The .22 class will be separate from the centerfire classes.

Cost to shoot is $10 for the first gun, $5 for each additional gun. A dollar from each entry goes into a pot. At the end of the match, a random drawing will occur. Out of those still present, someone will win the pot. The winner of the match just gets to be king of the hill for the month.

Bring enough ammo!

Hope to see you there!

"This is not science; other forces are at work."

Another Martin Luther 95 Theses moment.

"Harold Lewis is Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, former Chairman; Former member Defense Science Board, Chairman of Technology panel; Chairman DSB study on Nuclear Winter; Former member Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards; Former member, President's Nuclear Safety Oversight Committee; Chairman APS study on Nuclear Reactor Safety, Chairman Risk Assessment Review Group; Co-founder and former Chairman of JASON; Former member USAF Scientific Advisory Board; Served in US Navy in WW II; books: Technological Risk (about, surprise, technological risk) and Why Flip a Coin (about decision making)"

Professor Lewis has resigned from the American Physical Society. Here is his letter of resignation:

Sent: Friday, 08 October 2010 17:19 Hal Lewis

From: Hal Lewis, University of California, Santa Barbara
To: Curtis G. Callan, Jr., Princeton University, President of the American Physical Society

6 October 2010

Dear Curt:

When I first joined the American Physical Society sixty-seven years ago it was much smaller, much gentler, and as yet uncorrupted by the money flood (a threat against which Dwight Eisenhower warned a half-century ago).

Indeed, the choice of physics as a profession was then a guarantor of a life of poverty and abstinence—it was World War II that changed all that. The prospect of worldly gain drove few physicists. As recently as thirty-five years ago, when I chaired the first APS study of a contentious social/scientific issue, The Reactor Safety Study, though there were zealots aplenty on the outside there was no hint of inordinate pressure on us as physicists. We were therefore able to produce what I believe was and is an honest appraisal of the situation at that time. We were further enabled by the presence of an oversight committee consisting of Pief Panofsky, Vicki Weisskopf, and Hans Bethe, all towering physicists beyond reproach. I was proud of what we did in a charged atmosphere. In the end the oversight committee, in its report to the APS President, noted the complete independence in which we did the job, and predicted that the report would be attacked from both sides. What greater tribute could there be?

How different it is now. The giants no longer walk the earth, and the money flood has become the raison d’être of much physics research, the vital sustenance of much more, and it provides the support for untold numbers of professional jobs. For reasons that will soon become clear my former pride at being an APS Fellow all these years has been turned into shame, and I am forced, with no pleasure at all, to offer you my resignation from the Society.

It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. (Montford’s book organizes the facts very well.) I don’t believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist.

So what has the APS, as an organization, done in the face of this challenge? It has accepted the corruption as the norm, and gone along with it. For example:

1. About a year ago a few of us sent an e-mail on the subject to a fraction of the membership. APS ignored the issues, but the then President immediately launched a hostile investigation of where we got the e-mail addresses. In its better days, APS used to encourage discussion of important issues, and indeed the Constitution cites that as its principal purpose. No more. Everything that has been done in the last year has been designed to silence debate

2. The appallingly tendentious APS statement on Climate Change was apparently written in a hurry by a few people over lunch, and is certainly not representative of the talents of APS members as I have long known them. So a few of us petitioned the Council to reconsider it. One of the outstanding marks of (in)distinction in the Statement was the poison word incontrovertible, which describes few items in physics, certainly not this one. In response APS appointed a secret committee that never met, never troubled to speak to any skeptics, yet endorsed the Statement in its entirety. (They did admit that the tone was a bit strong, but amazingly kept the poison word incontrovertible to describe the evidence, a position supported by no one.) In the end, the Council kept the original statement, word for word, but approved a far longer “explanatory” screed, admitting that there were uncertainties, but brushing them aside to give blanket approval to the original. The original Statement, which still stands as the APS position, also contains what I consider pompous and asinine advice to all world governments, as if the APS were master of the universe. It is not, and I am embarrassed that our leaders seem to think it is. This is not fun and games, these are serious matters involving vast fractions of our national substance, and the reputation of the Society as a scientific society is at stake.

3. In the interim the ClimateGate scandal broke into the news, and the machinations of the principal alarmists were revealed to the world. It was a fraud on a scale I have never seen, and I lack the words to describe its enormity. Effect on the APS position: none. None at all. This is not science; other forces are at work.

4. So a few of us tried to bring science into the act (that is, after all, the alleged and historic purpose of APS), and collected the necessary 200+ signatures to bring to the Council a proposal for a Topical Group on Climate Science, thinking that open discussion of the scientific issues, in the best tradition of physics, would be beneficial to all, and also a contribution to the nation. I might note that it was not easy to collect the signatures, since you denied us the use of the APS membership list. We conformed in every way with the requirements of the APS Constitution, and described in great detail what we had in mind—simply to bring the subject into the open.

5. To our amazement, Constitution be damned, you declined to accept our petition, but instead used your own control of the mailing list to run a poll on the members’ interest in a TG on Climate and the Environment. You did ask the members if they would sign a petition to form a TG on your yet-to-be-defined subject, but provided no petition, and got lots of affirmative responses. (If you had asked about sex you would have gotten more expressions of interest.) There was of course no such petition or proposal, and you have now dropped the Environment part, so the whole matter is moot. (Any lawyer will tell you that you cannot collect signatures on a vague petition, and then fill in whatever you like.) The entire purpose of this exercise was to avoid your constitutional responsibility to take our petition to the Council.

6. As of now you have formed still another secret and stacked committee to organize your own TG, simply ignoring our lawful petition.

APS management has gamed the problem from the beginning, to suppress serious conversation about the merits of the climate change claims. Do you wonder that I have lost confidence in the organization?

I do feel the need to add one note, and this is conjecture, since it is always risky to discuss other people’s motives. This scheming at APS HQ is so bizarre that there cannot be a simple explanation for it. Some have held that the physicists of today are not as smart as they used to be, but I don’t think that is an issue. I think it is the money, exactly what Eisenhower warned about a half-century ago. There are indeed trillions of dollars involved, to say nothing of the fame and glory (and frequent trips to exotic islands) that go with being a member of the club. Your own Physics Department (of which you are chairman) would lose millions a year if the global warming bubble burst. When Penn State absolved Mike Mann of wrongdoing, and the University of East Anglia did the same for Phil Jones, they cannot have been unaware of the financial penalty for doing otherwise. As the old saying goes, you don’t have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing. Since I am no philosopher, I’m not going to explore at just which point enlightened self-interest crosses the line into corruption, but a careful reading of the ClimateGate releases makes it clear that this is not an academic question.

I want no part of it, so please accept my resignation. APS no longer represents me, but I hope we are still friends.

Hal

That took balls.

In Response to That Video . . .

. . . the one about "I'm voting Republican because..." I give you this email I just received from my brother:

A Flood of American Liberals

The Manitoba Herald as Reported by Clive Runnels, Oct. 6, 2010

The flood of American liberals sneaking across the border into Canada has intensified in the past week, sparking calls for increased patrols to stop the illegal immigration. The recent actions of the Tea Party are prompting an exodus among left leaning citizens who fear they'll soon be required to hunt, pray, and to agree with Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck.

Canadian border farmers say it's not uncommon to see dozens of sociology professors, animal-rights activists and Unitarians crossing their fields at night. "I went out to milk the cows the other day, and there was a Hollywood producer huddled in the barn," said Manitoba farmer Red Greenfield, whose acreage borders North Dakota . "The producer was cold, exhausted and hungry.. He asked me if I could spare a latte and some free-range chicken. When I said I didn't have any, he left before I even got a chance to show him my screenplay".

In an effort to stop the illegal aliens, Greenfield erected higher fences, but the liberals scaled them. He then installed loudspeakers that blared Rush Limbaugh across the fields. "Not real effective," he said. "The liberals still got through and Rush annoyed the cows so much that they wouldn't give any milk."

Officials are particularly concerned about smugglers -- the so-called northern coyotes -- who meet liberals near the Canadian border, pack them into Volvo station wagons and drive them across the border where they are simply left to fend for themselves." A lot of these people are not prepared for our rugged conditions," an Ontario border patrolman said. "I found one carload without a single bottle of imported drinking water. They did have a nice little Napa Valley Cabernet, though."

When liberals are caught, they're sent back across the border, often wailing loudly that they fear retribution from conservatives. Rumors have been circulating about plans being made to build re-education camps where liberals will be forced to drink domestic beer and watch NASCAR races.

In recent days, liberals have turned to ingenious ways of crossing the border. Some have been disguised as senior citizens taking a bus trip to buy cheap Canadian prescription drugs. After catching a half-dozen young vegans in powdered wig disguises, Canadian immigration authorities began stopping buses and quizzing the supposed senior citizens about Perry Como and Rosemary Clooney to prove that they were alive in the '50s. "If they can't identify the accordion player on The Lawrence Welk Show, we become very suspicious about their age," an official said.

Canadian citizens have complained that the illegal immigrants are creating an organic-broccoli shortage and are renting all the Michael Moore movies. "I really feel sorry for American liberals, but the Canadian economy just can't support them," an Ottawa resident said. "How many art-history majors does one country need?"

In an effort to ease tensions between the United States and Canada, Vice President Biden met with the Canadian ambassador and pledged that the administration would take steps to reassure liberals. A source close to President Obama said, "We're going to have some Paul McCartney and Peter, Paul & Mary concerts. And we might even put some endangered species on postage stamps; The President is determined to reach out," he said. The Herald will be interested to see if Obama can actually raise Mary from the dead in time for the concert.

Turnabout is fair play, no? Interestingly enough, this dates back to at least 2006.

Bill Whittle

Need I say more?

"We're going to make this much more difficult for you if you don't cooperate."

These are words that ought to chill you when delivered by an agent of the government.

Wired has the story of 20 year-old American citizen Yasir Afifi who discovered a GPS tracking device attached to his car. He removed it, took pictures of it, and posted those pictures on line asking viewers if they could identify it. Turns out it was an Orion Guardian ST820 tracking device.

People wondered if it was real.

The answer to that question came less than 24 hours later when the FBI came to recover their "expensive piece" of hardware. Afifi was told:

We're here to recover the device you found on your vehicle. It's federal property. It's an expensive piece, and we need it right now.

When Afifi asked if the FBI had placed it on his car, the response was:

Yeah, I put it there. We're going to make this much more difficult for you if you don't cooperate.

Now the really chilling thing about this is that the FBI didn't need a warrant to track the whereabouts of Mr. Afifi. They needed no probable cause, and didn't have to convince a judge that it was necessary to put a tracker on his car, they could just do it to whomever they wished because the Ninth Circus Circuit Court of Appeals has said it's fine. In the January 11 decision of U.S. v. Pineda-Moreno the Court said:

...in United States v. Knotts, the Supreme Court held that law enforcement officers do not conduct a "search" cognizable under the Fourth Amendment by using a beeper to track a vehicle because "[a] person traveling in an automobile on public thoroughfares has no reasonable expectation of privacy in his movements from one place to another."

Pineda-Moredo appealed for an en banc rehearing and that appeal was denied in August (PDF).

I am reminded, once again, of Judge Alex Kozinski's unforgettable dissent in the denial of an en banc rehearing of the Silveira v. Lockyer case. In that one Kozinski wrote:

Judges know very well how to read the Constitution broadly when they are sympathetic to the right being asserted. We have held, without much ado, that “speech, or...the press” also means the Internet...and that "persons, houses, papers, and effects" also means public telephone booths....When a particular right comports especially well with our notions of good social policy, we build magnificent legal edifices on elliptical constitutional phrases - or even the white spaces between lines of constitutional text. But, as the panel amply demonstrates, when we're none too keen on a particular constitutional guarantee, we can be equally ingenious in burying language that is incontrovertibly there.

It is wrong to use some constitutional provisions as springboards for major social change while treating others like senile relatives to be cooped up in a nursing home until they quit annoying us. As guardians of the Constitution, we must be consistent in interpreting its provisions. If we adopt a jurisprudence sympathetic to individual rights, we must give broad compass to all constitutional provisions that protect individuals from tyranny. If we take a more statist approach, we must give all such provisions narrow scope. Expanding some to gargantuan proportions while discarding others like a crumpled gum wrapper is not faithfully applying the Constitution; it's using our power as federal judges to constitutionalize our personal preferences.

Kozinski also dissented in this case:

Having previously decimated the protections the Fourth Amendment accords to the home itself, United States v. Lemus, 596 F.3d 512 (9th Cir. 2010) (Kozinski, C.J., dissenting from the denial of rehearing en banc); United States v. Black, 482 F.3d 1044 (9th Cir. 2007) (Kozinski, J., dissenting from the denial of rehearing en banc), our court now proceeds to dismantle the zone of privacy we enjoy in the home's curtilage and in public. The needs of law enforcement, to which my colleagues seem inclined to refuse nothing, are quickly making personal privacy a distant memory. 1984 may have come a bit later than predicted, but it’s here at last.

Read the whole dissent, it's worth your time. And hey, it's Kozinski. The man can write.

And remember: YOU HAVE NO EXPECTATION OF PRIVACY WHEN MOVING IN PUBLIC. The .gov can track you for any reason it feels like.

And if you find out they're doing it, they can "make it very difficult for you" if you don't cooperate.

Remember who your masters are! 1984 indeed.

Mr. Completely on the TeeWee

Mr. Gun Blogger Rendezvous himself does a terrific TV interview on steel challenge shooting for KING-5 TV, the same outfit that did a damned fine job on a story about Joe Huffman's Boomershoot. Mosey on over and give it a look.

Moral Outrage and Rights

By now I'm sure you've heard about the fire department in Tennessee that let a family's doublewide trailer burn to the ground because the owner hadn't payed the $75 annual fee the department requires. Here's just one of many reports covering the story:

A small rural community in western Tennessee is outraged and the fire chief is nursing a black eye after firefighters stood by and watched a mobile home burn to the ground because the homeowner hadn't paid a $75 municipal fee.

South Fulton city firefighters -- equipped with trucks, hoses and other firefighting equipment -- didn't intervene to save Gene Cranick's doublewide trailer home when it caught fire last week. But they did arrive on the scene to protect the house of a neighbor, who had paid his fire subscription fee.

--

Firefighters in South Fulton city are under orders to respond only to fire calls within their city limits, as well as to surrounding Obion County, but only to homes there where people have signed up for a fire subscription service.

Because Cranick hadn't paid his fee, firefighters doused the border of his neighbor's property to protect that house in case the flames spread, but wouldn't help him. He lost all his possessions, plus three dogs and a cat.

"They could have been saved if they had put water on it, but they didn't do it," Cranick told MSNBC. The fire began when Cranick's grandson set fire to some trash near the house, and the flames leapt up. Cranick said he told the 911 operator that he'd pay whatever fee was necessary, but it was too late.

Here's a representative sample of the majority of the comments left at this particular piece:

by MIteach on 10-06-2010 11:40 AM

They should have gone ahead and put out the fire, and then put the $75 fee or the cost of the fire run on his property taxes for the year. Either way the house would have been saved and the firefighters would have looked like heros. This is government at its best!!!

--

by jpinteriorsgo on 10-06-2010 11:43 AM

This is totally outrageous. How could anyone with any conscience stand by and let this happen? This family needs a good lawyer and the animal rights groups should protest. Basically this goes against EVERYTHING that firefighters stand for!

--

by SilverFin on 10-06-2010 11:46 AM

Unbelievable. I am shocked that they stand by what they did. It's horrendous. So does this mean that the uninsured and poor are left to die outside of hospitals because they can't pay? That rape and murder victims don't get police help if they don't pay their taxes? This is bullsh*t. How could any decent human being with the means to save another's home stand by and watch it burn, allow animals to die and this man to lose everything. Just standing there?!?! The firefighters may have followed policy, but they have no souls or human decency. Douse the fire, make the man pay the tax plus their time and a penalty after. But save his home. Pure crap to let this happen.

There's lots more like this, most outraged over the fact that a mere $75 fee hadn't been paid. One has to wonder if it had been, say, $1,000 if they'd feel any different.

Today Say Uncle linked to a piece at LeanLeft, Life in Libertarian Land, that stated that this is how the Libertarians want the world to work. Uncle characterized the piece thus:

Remember those government employees following government rules and letting house burn as sanctioned by government regulations contracted with another government? Seems that is a fundamental flaw in libertarian philosophy.

OK, then.

But Kevin (the other Kevin that blogs at LeanLeft) put it this way:

Fire fighting — like all government services — costs money. Firetrucks need to be purchased. 911 systems need to be staffed. Alarm systems need to be maintained. Firefighters need to be clothed, housed and fed while on duty. None of that can exist without money — money that the residents of the county have refused to supply as a community and only sporadically as individuals. So the choice is clear: let people freeload on the taxpayers of the municipalities that do support fire departments and eventually ruin their budgets or let houses burn to the ground. It is, in other words, the perfect libertarian world.

Letting houses burn to the ground is the only result acceptable to a libertarian. If you do not let the house burn to the ground, then you encourage free loading, which eventually bankrupts the fire department or the people who are willing to support the fire department. And when we replace the notion of community and collective action for the good of the community, then we are left with the libertarian schemes that require firefighters to stand by and watch homes burn.

Some of you may think that is just fine, that the man got what he deserved. I would argue that that is immoral — that putting out fires is a community responsibility best shared by the community. In this scheme, a person who is poor or down on their luck might lose everything because they could not pay the flat fee for the protection. Someone just might forget, or have the paperwork lost. It is not just to allow someone to lose their home or life to that kind of mistake if the damage from that mistake can be reasonable mitigated.

Now, interestingly enough, not too long back I wrote a piece tangential to this topic in response to a post at Markadelphia's. In the comments to Mark's post "blk" wrote:

Most people would agree that protection by the fire and the police departments is a right. It wasn't always that way.

I responded:

Obviously I'm not "most people." I know better. I've lived where residents had to pay a local private fire company to get them to come to their homes if there was a fire. If they chose not to pay, the firefighters could choose not to come. Or if they did, the homeowner would get a big damned bill for their appearance afterward that would represent a lot more than a few years of subscription to their services. If the homeowner chose not to pay that bill, they'd be taken to court.

Does that sound like a "right"?

I also understand that I have no "right" to police protection. That happens to be just one of many reasons I'm an activist for the right to arms. As I said, I'm a pragmatist. I try to deal with the way the world works rather than how people think it ought to be.

(Emphasis added.)

Now, Kevin (the other Kevin) admits that:

75% of the fire calls to those services are in the county. And when the fire department tries to collect for the costs of going to put out fires, they are stiffed more than fifty percent of the time. So the citizens of the cities are paying for fire protection for people who refuse to contribute the common good. So, inevitably, they were forced to make a choice: enforce the penalty for opting out of the community or continue to pay higher and higher costs to protect those who refuse to be fully paid up members of society.

(Emphasis added.) So Kevin (the other Kevin) thinks that morally it's the community's responsibility to provide fire protection to all, therefore everyone ought to be forced to chip in and pay. This, of course, disregards the fact that "the community" is made up of people - people who decided not to pay. For Kevin (the other Kevin), forcing people to pay at gunpoint isn't immoral, but letting a home burn to the ground is.

Here's where our positions differ: He wants people to behave one way, and I know that given the freedom to choose they may not.

I'd rather people have that freedom. He'd rather they didn't.

Here's an example of a group opposing being forced to pay:

A proposed fire district annexation in Oro Valley has been met with opposition from a group of residents,

Nearly all of the 120 property owners in La Cholla Airpark have refused to sign annexation petitions circulated by the Golder Ranch Fire District. Some of the residents have organized a formal opposition to the move to incorporate the airpark and nearly 500 other properties, mostly in Pima County, into the district.

"I think it's just a big money grab," said Dick Heffelman, a La Cholla Airpark resident and one of the forces behind the group Citizens Against Annexation.

Heffelman said he wants to see less government and doesn't want to pay the more than $1,100 in secondary property taxes per year he estimates annexation would cost him. The total secondary rate in the district stands at $1.73 per $100 of assessed value.

"It's more than twice as much as I pay for insurance," Heffelman said.

Residents have proposed having all homeowners pay $1,000 into a fire-service fund that would be tapped to pay fees for emergency services.

Did you get that? "Nearly all of the 120 property owners" object. But hey! They're outvoted by the nearby municipality that wants to annex them! Now these residents say they're willing to pay $1,000 (one assumes annually) for emergency services, not the piddling $75 that the residents of Obion County, TN are required to pay, but you have to wonder about that, really. How many actually would?

But here's the thing I wanted to point out, one comment among the hundreds left to that original piece on the home being left to burn down:

by sekkymomma on 10-06-2010 12:19 PM

I have lived in Chattanooga TN for almost 4 years now and didnt(sic) believe the "statements" that we received in the mail stating that we needed to pay for fire service were real. I just assumed that it was a donation type thing. I live less than a mile from fire station and always felt safe knowing they were so close. After hearing this story we have since paid our "dues" which are $105.00! I think this is outrageous! Something needs to be done.

(Emphasis added.) What do you want to bet that a whole bunch of people just mailed checks to their local fire departments? And not just in Tennessee?

Human beings are human beings. They respond to incentives.

So yeah, Kevin, rather than let people freeload on the rest of us, occasionally letting a home burn to the ground because of someone's right to choose is A-OK with this small-"L" libertarian.

Quote of the Day - Conservative/Libertarian Edition

From the comments to How Could They? Ed Heckman linked to Theodore Dalrymple's essay The Frivolity of Evil (worth your time, BTW). In that piece Dalrymple writes:

When the barriers to evil are brought down, it flourishes; and never again will I be tempted to believe in the fundamental goodness of man, or that evil is something exceptional or alien to human nature.

And in response, Sarah "Stickwick Stapers" writes today's QotD (my emphasis):

And thus the conservative/libertarian ideology. When you recognize that everyone has a tendency to evil, you resist the notion of concentrated coercive power for any group. When you think only the other guy is evil, it becomes your mandate to have all of the coercive power for your group only.

Yup.

How Could They

David Burge (Iowahawk) made this observation about the recent 10:10 Campaign "No Pressure" television ad:

(S)omehow, throughout this entire process, not one of the hundreds of people involved seemed to have questioned the wisdom of an advertising message advocating the violent, sudden death of people who disagree with it.

Many among those of us who disagree with the message have spent much of the last week obsessed with the question, "How could they?" As in "How could they not see what the reaction would be?" "How could they think blowing school children up would be funny?" Etc., etc.

But that question was answered long, long ago. In 2002 Charles Krauthammer put it in modern terms:

To understand the workings of American politics, you have to understand this fundamental law: Conservatives think liberals are stupid. Liberals think conservatives are evil.

But it goes back much earlier in history.

I'm currently reading Thomas Sowell's Intellectuals and Society, volume III in his Conflict of Visions trilogy. The second book in that series is Vision of the Anointed: Self Congratulations as a Basis for Social Policy. In Sowell's lexicon, "The Anointed" are the Leftist intellectuals who believe they know best how the world ought to work. In the section of Intellectuals and Society entitled "Unworthy Opponents," Sowell has this to say (long excerpt follows):

Because the vision of the anointed is a vision of themselves as well as a vision of the world, when they are defending that vision they are not simply defending a set of hypotheses about external events, they are in a sense defending their very souls - and the zeal and even ruthlessness with which they defend their visions are not surprising under these circumstances. But for people with opposing views, who may for example believe that most things work out for the better if left to free markets, traditions, families, etc., these are just a set of hypotheses about external events and there is no huge personal ego stake in whether those hypotheses are confirmed by empirical evidence. Obviously everyone would prefer to be proved right rather than proved wrong, but the point here is that there is no such comparable ego stakes involved among believers in the tragic vision. (That would be those of us on the putative "right." - Ed.)

This difference may help explain a striking pattern that goes back at least two centuries - the greater tendency of those with the vision of the anointed to see those they disagree with as enemies who are morally lacking. While there are individual variations in this, as with most things, there are nevertheless general patterns, which many have noticed, both in our times and in earlier centuries. For example, a contemporary account has noted:

Disagree with someone on the right and he is likely to think you obtuse, wrong, foolish, a dope. Disagree with someone on the left and he is more likely to think you selfish, a sell-out, insensitive, possibly evil.

Supporters of both visions, by definition, believe that those with the opposing vision are mistaken. But that is not enough for those with the vision of the anointed. It has long been taken for granted by those with the vision of the anointed that their opponents were lacking in compassion. Moreover, there was no felt need to test that belief empirically. As far back as the eighteenth century, the difference between supporters of the two visions in this regard was apparent in a controversy between Thomas Malthus and William Godwin. Malthus said of his opponents, "I cannot doubt the talents of men such as Godwin and Condorcet. I am unwilling to doubt their candor." But when Godwin referred to Malthus, he called Malthus "malignant," questioned "the humanity of the man," and said "I profess myself at a loss to conceive of what earth the mad was made."

Edmund Burke was a landmark figure among those with the tragic vision but, despite his all-out attacks on the ideas and deeds of the French Revolution, Burke nevertheless said of those with the opposing vision that they "may do the worst of things, without being the worst of men." It would be hard, if not impossible, to find similar statements about ideological adversaries from those with the vision of the anointed, either in the eighteenth century or today. Yet such a view of opponents - as mistaken or even dangerously mistaken, but not necessarily evil personally - has continued to be common among those with the tragic vision. When Friedrich Hayek in 1944 published The Road to Serfdom, his landmark challenge to the prevailing social vision among the intelligentsia, setting off an intellectual and political counter-revolution later joined by Milton Friedman, William F. Buckley and others intellectually and by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan politically, he characterized his adversaries as "single-minded idealists" and "authors whose sincerity and disinteredness are above suspicion."

Clearly, however, sincerity was not considered sufficient to prevent opponents from being considered not only mistaken but dangerously mistaken, as illustrated by Hayek's belief that they were putting society on "the road to serfdom." Similarly, even in the midst of a political campaign in 1945, when Winston Churchill warned of authoritarian rule if the opposing Labour Party won, he added that this was not because they wanted to reduce people's freedom but because "they do not see where their theories are leading them." Similar concessions to the sincerity and good intentions of opponents can be found in Milton Friedman and other exponents of the constrained or tragic vision. But such a view of ideological opponents has been much rarer among those with the vision of the anointed, where the presumed moral and/or intellectual failings of opponents have been more or less a staple of discourse from the eighteenth century to the present.

While sincerity and humane feelings are often denied to ideological opponents by those with the vision of the anointed, whether or not opposition to minimum wage laws or rent control laws, for example, is in fact due to a lack of compassion for the poor is irrelevant to the question whether the arguments for or against such policies have either empirical or analytical validity. Even if it could be proved to a certainty that opponents of these and other "progressive" policies were veritable Scrooges, or even venal, that would still be no answer to the arguments they make. Yet claims that opponents are racist, sexist, homophobic or "just don't get it" are often advanced by the intelligentsia in lieu of specific refutations of their specific arguments.

In other words, they don't need to argue the merits. If you oppose them, you're morally repugnant and can be dismissed on those grounds alone.

Carried to its logical conclusion you get "No Pressure" - first as "humor" and later on as policy.

The Vision of the Anointed has existed since at least the beginning of the eighteenth century, and it has survived (I would argue) largely because those of us with the tragic vision attribute sincerity, idealism, and good intentions to our ideological opponents.

This has to stop.

Hayek called it "the road to serfdom" for a reason. Those with the vision of the anointed believe they are doing what is necessary to drag humanity into Utopia. Those of us with the tragic vision believe that what they are doing is dragging us into hell. I don't care how good their intentions are, I WANT THEM TO STOP. As James Lileks put it many years ago,

Personally, I’m interested in keeping other people from building Utopia, because the more you believe you can create heaven on earth the more likely you are to set up guillotines in the public square to hasten the process.

Or blow up children.

Your Moment of Zen - Firefall Edition

Reader Grumpy is psychic. He sent me an email today entitled "Moment of Zen" with a photo attached - the one below. However, I'd received another email a couple of weeks ago that contained that photo (not as high resolution, but the same photo) and several others of the same subject: Horsetail Falls in Yosemite, taken at a very specific time when the sunlight hits it juuust right. I was going to use one of them as the next MoZ, but Grumpy's gets the nod.

Your moment of Zen:

No, that's not a photoshop. Thanks, Grumpy!

Reality Capitalism TV

I was just thinking the other night about the current crop of "reality TV" shows out there on the History Channel, TLC and the like, shows like "Ice Road Truckers," "Axe Men," "Deadliest Catch," "Pawn Stars" and "American Pickers."

They're televising capitalism. Hell, they're celebrating it. How did that happen?

If I'm not mistaken, it started with Mike Rowe's series, "Dirty Jobs," of which "Deadliest Catch" is a spin-off. For those two of you who might not have seen it, "Dirty Jobs" is a show about people who do the most manual of manual-labor work in some of the nastiest jobs you're likely to find. Crab fishing in the Bearing Sea is among those jobs. It's cold, exhausting, mind- and body-numbing work that can get you dead or injured in short order through a moments inattention or through absolutely no fault of your own.

But it pays great - if your captain does his job well.

In the first three shows I list, "Ice Road Truckers," "Axe Men" and "Deadliest Catch," the stars do high-risk manual labor jobs in rough conditions and pull down good pay doing it. They do this voluntarily - no one tells them they must, they choose their professions. They all know that they could find other work, less dangerous, less risky, but they take pride in the fact that they are doing something that few other people are willing to do, and that has a pay scale commensurate to their rare skills and work ethic.

It's called "the pursuit of happiness" for a reason.

In the last two, "Pawn Stars" and "American Pickers," the stars don't risk themselves, but their capital - and they're neither bashful nor ashamed of it. In "Pawn Stars" people bring things in to sell, and we in the audience get to see a huge variety of items that people have collected or acquired. They often but not always get an offer, and they decide whether to accept. Each time an offer is made, the guys behind the counter are risking their money on the belief that at some time in the future they can sell the item at a profit. Experts are often brought in to identify and authenticate items in order to reduce the risk, but not always. I'm not certain what agreements the experts have with the shop, but I would not be at all surprised to learn that at least some of them are paid an annual retainer for their services. Their customers are free to refuse the offer, and often do. That's capitalism at its raw base - an item is worth what two parties agree upon.

In "American Pickers" the stars are more proactive - they go looking for stuff and then try to convince people to A) let them look around, and then B) sell. The stars are not only risking their capital on inventory, they are out spending money and time in active search. They very seldom contact an expert until after they've made a purchase, so their risk is higher, and they have much less in the way of a "walk-in" clientele, reducing the volume of material they can acquire. Consequently, their profit margins need to be higher to cover their risks and expenses.

In both shows the stars use third-parties as restorers/renovators, adding value to many of the purchases and increasing both their saleability and (hopefully) profitability, thus creating jobs. The people who do these jobs are chosen for their knowledge and skills, and they too are pursuing happiness. Vendor A is chosen over Vendor B because of their reputation, not because A put in a lower bid.

I have to admit, as little TV as I watch, I do occasionally enjoy some of these shows, and I'm pleased to see capitalism given a bit of its due on the nation's cable networks.

This Is How They Think of Us. Seriously.

It's no wonder they can't grok the Tea Parties.

They are going to be so butthurt in November. Worse than 2004, I think.

And One More B4 Bed . . .

I found this amusing:

As Tam Said, So Wrong it's Right

...when she posted her video.

Via AR15.com, I give you "While my Ukulele Gently Weeps":

The guy has talent!

And for the hell of it, I'm going to add this piece, which I think is both freaking amazing to watch, and beautiful to listen to - Andy McKee, "Drifting"

Enjoy!

Clark County (NV) Kids Can't Do Math

No matter what their grades say. Read Vin Suprynowicz on the subject. Excerpt:

Cheyenne High School, with its 2009 "Nevada state Principal of the Year," supposedly made "Adequate Yearly Progress" in 2009-2010, according to Arne Duncan and his federal parachute team. But the main thing the numbers there show is rampant grade inflation — kids who can't pass the test taking home misleading "passing" grades.
At Cheyenne, the Algebra I common assessment test scores held steady — from 96 percent flunking in 2007, to 96 percent flunking in 2009.

After two years, the teaching staff still didn’t know they had a problem? They still want to claim the test is "unfair"?

Meantime, however, in the same years, Cheyenne parents were told 63 to 72 percent of the kids PASSED Algebra I. Similarly, while 90 to 97 percent of kids flunked the standardized geometry test each year, students carried home report cards informing parents 64 to 72 percent of kids had PASSED geometry each year.

RTWT. Ask yourself if your kids are in the same kind of "schools" these kids are.

"...Parasitic Human Infants..."

That's what eco-terrorist James Lee called children in his Al Gore-inspired eco-rant. So here's the logical conclusion to the "save the Earth" campaign, as pointed to by Pascal:

You'll notice that the teacher doesn't kill herself, though.

They're seldom quite that dedicated to saving Mother Gaia.

Watermelons: Green on the Outside . . .

As Instapundit puts it,

It always ends up as mass murder, real or fantasized, with these people. That’s what they do.

So a Greenie comes up with a "clever" ad to make people want to join a movement to reduce their carbon footprint. But first, here's former undercover Weather Underground member Larry Grathwohl on what they had planned for America after the Glorious Revolution:

Here's what Richard Curtis thought would be an acceptable advertisement to help convince people to "voluntarily" reduce their carbon output by 10%:

This is what's known as a Freudian slip.

"No pressure." Just conform or they'll kill you and your children.

Just like they burn down luxury homes under construction and other structures, bomb pipelines and manufacturing facilities, destroy crops, etc. Killing their enemies is merely the next logical step. I mean, listen to this kid:

As I said, the world is full of pissed-off people.

Interesting Question

I received the following interesting question in email today:

Mr Baker:
I am doing a history paper on the Constitution and was wondering what 3 books you would recommend reading. I am looking for books meant for the average person that can discuss the history and philosophy of the constitution and our government. The paper will probably be about how a lot in government view it as a "living document" compared to how it was viewed in the past.

I have some of the brightest, best informed readers on the web. How about it? What are your suggestions?