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Clayton Cramer's BLOG |
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Clayton's commentary on news and events of the day. Broadly speaking, I'm a conservative with libertarian sympathies (getting more conservative as my children get older).
 Never forget! I'm running for Idaho state senate I've written a number of history books, as well as scholarly and popular articles, (see my web page).
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Saturday, July 22, 2006
"Never Bring a Knife to a Gunfight" It's a more PC version of what one of the characters in the movie version of The Untouchables said while drawing a gun on a criminal with a knife. What brought it to mind was this event, which we blogged over at the Civilian Gun Self-Defense Blog (of course). And as tragic as this event is, it is also pretty interesting and amazing how much national coverage it received--something that would have been unimaginable twenty years ago, when it would have appeared in local paper, if at all--because the mainstream media would have been concerned that it might encourage others to be "foolish" with a gun: MEMPHIS, Tenn. Police in Tennessee say a knife-wielding grocery store employee attacked eight co-workers. They say he seriously injured five of them before a bystander pulled a gun and stopped him.I was pleased at the number of places that this story appeared. UPDATE: USA Today didn't just leave the gun out of the story--they made up details to avoid admitting that a gun can be a good thing: The suspect was tackled by a witness as he tried to run from the building and was held until officers arrived, Higgins said. Friday, July 21, 2006
House Project: Water Testing, Concrete Color The builder came up with someone from another concrete company--not the guy who washed his hands of the project (but not of the money he received) and we did some color testing with a particular strategy for getting a reasonably consistent color. I think we have a solution. The builder needs to power wash everything before they do this, so probably next week. The water test I submitted a couple of weeks ago came back. Iron: 0.17 ppm; lead: <0.002 ppm (none detectable); coliform bacteria: none. I guess I won't worry about this. I'll re-check it in six months. Last house project entry. Labels: house project Yeah, Right, I'll Believe It When I See One Instapundit is skeptical. Yeah, that's the word I would use as well about this electric sports car, "0-60 in about 4 seconds" 250 miles per charge. They aren't saying how long it takes to recharge--nor are they quoting a price. I suppose if it were $35,000, it might pay for itself quickly enough to replace the Corvette. If it is $200,000, gasoline would have to go to a price where leftists would be coming up with rationalizations for invading all OPEC members and "protecting" the indigenous people from the corrupting influence of letting them have any of the money for their oil. Anyway, I indicated that yes, I'm interested in one. We'll see if it pans out, or turns into another device for separating gullible investors from their money. Interesting Problem With My Sherline Lathe The motor on the lathe is thermally protected--meaning that it shuts down if it gets too hot. I tried running it last night--and even though I haven't run it in several days, it turned itself off almost immediately--even without any load on it. Huh? Okay, it was a bit warm in the garage--maybe 90 degrees. (We're having a heat wave here.) But that shouldn't be enough to stop it from running for a few seconds, should it? Eventually, for whatever reason, I closed the rear garage door--and now it ran perfectly. The garage wasn't any cooler, but there was no longer any direct sunlight falling on the motor (which is painted black). I can't believe that direct sunlight itself was increasing thermal load that much--perhaps the sunlight was directly affecting the temperature sensor? UPDATE: Whatever the problem is, it is intermittent, and maybe getting worse. Sherline is shipping a replacement motor and speed controller out today, should be here Tuesday, so that I return this one. They agree that even the warm days we are having and direct sunlight shouldn't cause this. A Rather Famous Couple Has Separated Julie and Hillary Goodridge. Who? Does the last name look familiar? The couple whose suit allowed the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court to impose same-sex marriage, have separated. Any Billionaires Out There That Want To Make Me Really Happy... Deposits now being taken on a 21" f/12 triplet airspaced apochromatic refractor: We have in Production a 21" ( 530 mm diameter) triplet aispaced Apo with a focal length of 6500 mm, the glas was melted and is already under polishing.There's no price listed; as the saying goes, "If you have to ask, you can't afford it." A Coyote Just Walked By My "Office" No more than 25 feet from me. I'll bet that doesn't happen to you in cubicle world! Capitol Hill Blue Should Prove That They Were Victims of a Fraud McKinley's America is asking Capitol Hill Blue to prove (or at least provide evidence) that they were the victims of the "George Harleigh" fraud: As a refresher, back in 2003 I wrote this article which detailed how Thompson and Capitol Hill Blue had relied on a non-existant person for some slanderous quotations about President Bush.This seems like a legitimate request. It would certainly establish that CHB was the victim of a fraud, and not the orginator of it. How The Left Will Destroy American Universities I've mentioned in the past this nutcase who will be teaching a class at the University of Wisconsin that spends a week exploring how 9/11 was an inside job (done by the U.S. government)--and the university has decided that this is a perfectly legitimate use of tax dollars. Ann Althouse, who is a law professor at UW, has been covering this insanity for some time, and is not happy that she is now teaching at a university where whackjobs teach--and the Republican-controlled legislature is getting ready to teach UW a lesson about being adults. I was amused by this comment on Ann's blog from someone who sounds like they aren't a traditional conservative: For a while I made fun of Barrett. Then I made fun of U Wisconsin. Then I talked about the impossibility of his claims a little.There's a loud and fairly large minority of faculty who are intellectually three sheets to the wind: people like Barrett, Michael Bellesiles, and Ward Churchill. The reluctance of universities to clean their own houses until these kooks become major embarrassments is quite telling about how low the standards seem to be. Yes, Michael Bellesiles "resigned" from Emory University (a private school, by the way). Yes, Ward Churchill has been given his walking papers. But look at how concerted an effort it took of demonstrating that both of these guys were liars--and that effort was almost entirely in the popular media, because the academic world didn't much care, until these twerps became major embarrassments. How many more dishonest academics like Bellesiles and Churchill are there that just haven't received national attention yet? Thursday, July 20, 2006
George Harleigh Is Vanishing Before Your Eyes! Classical Values started this a couple of days ago, asking if anyone could find evidence that "George Harleigh" actually exists. He is described as a retired Southern Illinois University political science professor who had worked in the Nixon and Reagan Administrations--and is frequently quoted by leftists about what an evil crazy man George Bush is. I did a little digging too, and George Harleigh, for a retired professor, had left no mark anywhere. Well, guess what? One of the leftist journalists who seems to be source of most (all?) the news stories quoting "George Harleigh" is not responding to the email from Classical Values asking about this guy--but news stories that used to quote George Harleigh are being silently edited. I'm sure that somewhere in a virtual reality hell, "George Harleigh" is disappearing, while screaming, "I'm melting, I'm melting!" This Google search brings up a bunch of places where "George Harleigh" gets quoted. The very first result (at when I just ran it) was this Capitol Hill Blues news story. Guess what? There's no longer any reference to George Harleigh--and no acknowledgement that the story has been updated or changed. Someone can't admit that he is a liar, making people up, can he? However, other leftists have already copied (rather than linked) to those news stories, such as this one. It is really amusing that the left feels the need to make people up. I am reminded of the musician Moby's suggestion that leftists should go onto web sites and pretend to be conservative Republicans, disgruntled with George Bush, spreading stories that Moby admitted that Moby admitted that didn't believe. I suppose if you believe that there's no right or wrong, all of this is perfectly acceptable behavior. For decent people, it's another matter. UPDATE: Capitol Hill Blue is now admitting that George Harleigh doesn't exist: In 1998, our former editor, Jack Sharp, began receiving a regular, almost daily, email "newsletter" from a "Professor George Harleigh" offering quotes, observations and commentary on current political events along with permission to use those comments as we saw fit. "Professor Harleigh" claimed to be a retired political science professor from Southern Illinois University and offered, as backup, links to a number of web sites and news publications that quoted him or used material furnished by him. We checked the web sites and other news publications and found him quoted often so we began using his material in selected stories. Since 1998, we have used quotes from "George Harleigh" in 83 stories on our web site.Oh yeah, it could not have been Classical Values raising questions about this guy, could it? What a coincidence! I'm also told by my readers that at least one of the Capitol Hill Blue writers quoting this guy Harleigh is more part of the lunatic fringe libertarian side (think Justin Raimondo) of things than a leftist. Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Armed America Manuscript Is Back From The Publisher With Their Proposed Edits I'm overwhelmed at the moment when I look at the areas they want me to change by August 4th. There is quite a bit of what I expected--summarizing some points, and moving some information from the body into the notes. That doesn't cause much pain. The part that hurts involves moving big sections from one chapter to another; changing the overall flow of the book. Perhaps it won't look so daunting after a good night's sleep. TWA 800: Reactions From Readers I was surprised (although perhaps I shouldn't be) at the amount of response I received from readers about this entry. One reader tells me: Several of my friends at Boeing have told me the talk around there is that there is no way it was a mechanical failure. They (my friends, not necessarily the Boeing people involved in the investigation) don't know what it was but it wasn't a mechanical or electrical failure of some sort.Another reader told me: Have you read Nelson DeMille's novel Night Fall? It's about the Flight 800 crash and, like you, DeMille is clearly of two minds, having looked closely into it. He seems to be fundamentally disposed to dismiss the idea of a conspiracy, but finds it impossible to dismiss all the eyewitness testimony. The book's a thriller whose underlying plot assumes there was a missile, accidentally photographed by two people who had personal reasons to suppress the tape. But much of the exposition is a clear laying out of both the official story, and the plausible, problematic aspects of it. DeMille notes on his website:One of the problems with conspiracies is that:I myself don't know if it was a missile or a malfunction, and I teeter back and forth, so, no, I don't want to join any groups or organizations that subscribe to the missile/cover-up/conspiracy theory. I'm just a novelist. But I do hope that NIGHT FALL will again stir the public debate about TWA 800. 1. There are no successful large conspiracies. There's a saying that the only way for two people to keep a secret is for one of them to be dead. As the number of people who know the truth of something dark increases, the odds that someone's conscience will cause them to open up increases. This is how a lot of murders are solved; the person who did the crime starts to feel increasingly guilty about it, and while he may phrase his discussion of it with a cellmate or a companion in terms of boasting, what is usually driving this boasting is guilt. 2. Government officials have strong reasons to hide their involvement in criminal enterprises--and if everyone has a significant level of criminal liability, this may be enough to keep the secret. That would seem to be the case at Waco, where at least negligence by the FBI seems to have been a factor. But TWA 800 does not seem to have any area where government officials were even negligent, if it was shot down by a missle fired by terrorists. 3. If, as some have suggested, a missle was fired by a U.S. Navy vessel that accidentally shot down TWA 800, this would have been impossible to keep secret. Firing a missle--and one that took down an airliner--would have been known by at least half a dozen people when it happened, and within hours, by dozens of people. Many of these would have had absolutely no personal responsibility for this happening, and it defies imagination to think that none of them would have squealed about it. At the same time, there are so many serious problems with the official explanation. Dark Skies At the encouragement of my wife, I am resuming astrophotography. Big Bertha gathers so much light that even without a clock drive on it, it should be possible to get decent pictures of the Moon and perhaps of Jupiter and Saturn with it. With 800 speed film, 1/1000th of a second is a long enough exposure for a quarter Moon--and there's not much motion in 1/1000th of a second. (There's a very nice calculator for this here.) Film? Why so primitive? Unfortunately, consumer digital cameras really aren't well suited to this, because the lens can't be removed to do prime focus or eyepiece projection astrophotography. In prime focus photography, you use the telescope objective as the lens, so Big Bertha is properly understood as a 2000mm f/4.5 telephoto lens. In eyepiece projection, you put one of the telescope eyepieces between the objective and the camera, substantially increasing the focal length and f-ratio. For example, with an 18mm eyepiece in Big Bertha, it becomes a 11,227mm lens at f/29.5. It is possible to use a consumer digital camera in what is called "afocal" mode, where you focus the camera on the image in the eyepiece, but I haven't found that to work too well. There are considerably higher end digital cameras with removable lenses, the digital equivalent to a 35mm SLR, but these were priced in the $800 to $1000 range until recently. (I just checked, and I was startled to see the Pentax body only version now offered for $342, after rebates.) Certainly when the old house in Boise sells, this is on my list of things to get! Why Pentax? I have a number of Pentax lens from my ME Super that will fit, and I have an adapter for the telescope that is also made for the Pentax lens mount. Anyway, away from astrophotography, and to dark skies. I was outside last night do star trails, where you aim the camera at the North Star, and set various exposure times: 5 minutes, 10, 20, and 40. As the stars rotate around the North Star, you get photographs like this. My wife shared my amazement at how dark the sky was at our house. The Moon had not risen yet, and the Milky Way stretched across the entire sky, from north to south. Even the skyglow of Boise wasn't enough to drown it out. I couldn't find the constellation Hercules at first, because it was overwhelmed by all the other stars. There's a big development going in about ten miles from us, just across the county line, called Avimor. I guess that I better write them a letter, asking them to think about preserving the dark sky when they are picking out light fixtures. UPDATE: I located the Governmental Affairs guy at Avimor. Yes, preserving dark skies is on their list of objectives, and they will be picking exterior lighting with this in mind. While he has not yet joined the Boise Astronomical Society, he has attended at least one of our events, with his telescope. It's nice to have allies in important places! Labels: telescopes Infomercial Law Reviews I've mentioned in the past that the Joyce Foundation did something unprecedented--they rented out a law review. Contrary to the standards of scholarly journals, they paid a bunch of anti-gun sorts to write papers for a special issue of Chicago-Kent Law Review, then paid tens of thousands of dollars to publish the issue and distribute it. Most contrary to scholarly practice, they invited only anti-gunners to participate. Now, there's nothing unlawful about this, but when a scholarly journal becomes effectively an infomercial for one perspective only, it should damage the credibility of the journal. They've done this not only with Chicago-Kent Law Review, but also with Fordham University Law Review. Now they seem to have added Stanford Law and Policy Review to the list of formerly scholarly journals that can be rented out by the issue. I suppose that we should be glad that the Church of Aryan Nations doesn't have the bucks, or perhaps we would see a special symposium issue in which only papers explaining why exterminating Jews is Constitutional are published. (To use the punchline of a rather famous joke, "We've already determined what you are. We're just haggling about the price now.") Now, what practical impact does it have when Stanford Law and Policy Review joins the ranks of fitness equipment, "How to get rich in real estate," and similar infomercials? Remember that judges send their clerks out to look for scholarly-sounding papers that they can use to justify the ends. (And yes, there are judges who actually do it right--figure out what the law is, then come to a conclusion, instead of the other way around, but not enough to matter.) This now gives judges a few more excuses to defend their position. I guess that it is also a positive sign, too, because it means that the anti-gunners are so desperate to get "scholarly" nonsense published that the only way they can do so is the academic equivalent of hiring a call girl. UPDATE: Arms and the Law reports that Saul Cornell says that there were gun control skeptics invited. I'm checking the story. It is a little odd that no papers were published reflecting that. Does George Harleigh Exist? And Why Should You Care? Over at Classical Values, Eric Scheie points out that leftist news organizations keep quoting George Harleigh who says horrifying things about George Bush. (And you can find hundreds of amazingly nasty quotes by searching the web, searching Internet news groups, and a very few references to him in Google's news archive.) This George Harleigh is described as a retired Southern Illinois University political science professor who worked for both the Nixon and Reagan Administrations (which gives him great credibility when attacking a slightly conservative moderate like Bush). There's one little problem: George Harleigh may not exist. Scheie can't find any mention of Harleigh in any histories of the Nixon or Reagan Administrations. His readers with access to Lexis/Nexis can't find any evidence that he exists. When Scheie called Southern Illinois University, there's no George Harleigh on their emeritus list. There are no scholarly papers on Google's Scholarly papers search engine by him, or that reference George Harleigh. (By comparison, even though I am not a professor anywhere, if you search in that same Scholarly papers search engine for me, you'll find 60 references with either me as an author, or cited by other scholars.) Okay, so some leftist reporters are making people up. What's the big deal? "George Harleigh" has some credibility in attacking Bush because of his obvious impeccable credentials, as a political science professor, and as someone who worked for two conservative presidents. But if he exists only in the imagination of leftists, then he's a lie. UPDATE: A reader tells me: There's nothing by "George Harleigh" on EBSCOHost Academic Search Premiere, either.UPDATE 2: Anothe reader tells me: Social Science Citation Index reports, for Harleigh, G :Amazing--someone became a professor at Southern Illinois University without a single published work, anywhere! Persecution of Homosexuals in Iran There's a series of demonstrations planned today against "homophobic persecution" in Iran. No, Iran isn't prohibiting them from getting married, nor is it discriminating against them in employment. Iran is hanging homosexuals. Now, there is some question as to whether all of these executions are actually for homosexuality, or for homosexual rape: The execution of two Iranian males in July and current allegations that two more Iranian men are on death row because they are gay has led to allegations of an anti-homosexual campaign in Iran. But homosexuality is just part of the laundry list of charges leveled against people caught up in the Iranian justice system, and in a country with such a reprehensible human rights record, the actual charges rarely have a connection with reality.Still, there's no question that homosexuality alone is a capital crime in Iran: A different perspective, and one that seem to reflect the official attitude, came from Shahpur Ismailian, a lawyer and retired judge in Iran. Even if the victims' families in the Pakdasht case had not filed complaints, he said, the charge of homosexuality would have justified the death penalty for Ali Baqi, "Hamshahri" reported on 16 October 2004. This isn't just an Iranian quirk. Afghanistan executed homosexuals regularly, using two different methods: Islamic jurists in Kabul and Kandahar only differed on the method of killing. One group of scholars believed the condemned should be taken to the top of the highest building in the city and hurled to their deaths, while others advocated placing them in a pit next to a wall which was to be toppled on them, so that they are buried alive. Both methods were solidly grounded in authoritative tradition, and both were applied. At least five men convicted of sodomy by Afghanistan’s sharia courts had been “placed next to walls by Taliban officials and then buried under the rubble as the walls were toppled upon them.” In one such incident, three homosexuals were punished thus while Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar watched along with thousands of spectators. After the 30-minute waiting period, the three men were still alive, but two died the next day. What became of the third is unknown (4).Saudi Arabian sentences for homosexuality have included not just prison time, but sentences of 2600 lashes. Even if homosexuals are misstating the actual crimes that are causing some of these executions in Iran, it seems clear that Islam makes every social conservative in America seem positively gay friendly by comparison. It is therefore all the more amazing the amount of effort that academics are putting into defending Islamofascism. It is almost as though the left's hatred of America (an enemy of my enemy is my friend) takes precedence over the left's love of homosexuality. Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Mr. "Dinosaurs on the Ark" Arrested I mentioned this guy a while back. Innocent until proven guilty, of course, but this isn't a great news story to read: A Pensacola evangelist who owns the defunct Dinosaur Adventure Land in Pensacola was arrested Thursday on 58 federal charges, including failing to pay $473,818 in employee-related taxes and making threats against investigators. A Shocking Story Well, at least for chickens, and proof that there is nothing new under the sun: "We are proposing to have live poultry processed here at the store," said owner, Anthony Trujillo. "It's just live poultry that's processed in the back that has no access to the store."I don't know if killing chickens by electric shock is more or less painful than the traditional decapitation technique. My late father-in-law, who spent many years in the meat industry, told me that the reason that cow brains (which used to be readily available in some stores) became less available is that slaughterhouses changed their technique for killing the cattle. At least at the slaughterhouse associated with his employer, the cattle used to be killed by an enormous black guy with a sledgehammer. According to my father-in-law, he was a mass of upper body muscles, and consistently killed the cow with one blow. Eventually, this technique was replaced with two electrodes on either side of the cow's head. I suspect that it was more efficient. Anyway, I should mention that while reading through Benjamin Franklin, The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, Leonard W. Labaree, ed. (New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press, 1961), 4:82-83, I found a letter in which he mentioned his experimentation with using electricity to kill turkeys. In that letter, he mentioned that he found the turkeys, once cooked, more tender than when killed by other techniques. He also mentioned that when demonstrating the use of Leyden Jars for slaughtering turkeys, he engaged in "an Experiment in Electricity that I desire never to repeat." Franklin attempted to electrocute a turkey with his static electricity capacitors, and distracted by his audience, shocked himself into unconsciousness. "The Company present… Say that the flash was very great and the crack as loud as a Pistol...." Where the shock entered his finger, "I afterwards found it raised a round swelling where the fire enter’d as big as half a Pistol Bullet...." TWA 800: Ten Years Ago I must confess that while I find it almost impossible to believe that the Clinton Administration could have persuaded so many people to cover up a missle attack, I have never been comfortable with the official conclusions about what caused TWA 800 to explode and crash. Why? Because there were so many eyewitnesses who reported seeing a streak from the surface headed up to TWA 800 just before it exploded. I take most things that I see published in WorldNetDaily with a grain of salt (often two grains of salt), but I do know Jack Cashill, and I respect him. That's what makes this ten part series of his about TWA 800 so disturbing. From part 1: Lahr’s persistence, however, has finally paid off. In response to his petition, the CIA sent to Lahr in March 2006 tabular listings of the primary radar returns of the doomed airplane. This data lacked title, annotation or any sense of its importance. Those who released it may not have known what they were releasing. Glen Schulze did. Lahr turned the data over to this “engineer and researcher extraordinaire,” and Schulze went to work.Part 2 gives the accounts of some of the 270 people who saw what sounds like a missle streaking skyward towards TWA 800--and why it was in the interests of the Clinton Administration to cover it up, if that's what happened: The evening of July 17 was not as peaceful as it appeared to be. Not nearly so. In Iraq, July 17 just happened to be National Liberation Day, Saddam's evil 4th of July. To celebrate, Saddam had made some of his most serious threats yet against the United States. Iran was restless as well. The White House believed it responsible for the lethal bombing of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia three weeks earlier that killed 19 American servicemen.In part 3, Cashill examines Richard Clarke's description of events, and makes a case that Clarke played some part in creating the cover-up: In his book "Against All Enemies," Richard Clarke offers the only published inside account of the demise of TWA Flight 800, much of it transparently false, but all of it entirely revealing. At that time Clarke served as chairman of the Coordinating Security Group on terrorism.In part 4, he discusses how the New York Times, the lion of full disclosure and openness in government, first published news reports that suggested the government knew that there was a missle involved--and then mysteriously started taking the government line: On July 17, 1996, TWA Flight 800 exploded on a beautiful summer night only 12 minutes out of JFK. Had the plane crashed in Kalamazoo or Keokuk or Kansas City, chances are the American people would have known the cause of the crash almost immediately.The shrapnel in the bodies is the subject of part 6: In the intense crucible of an explosion, the debris and shrapnel created usually retain residues and mechanical and physical characteristics that define the precise nature of that explosion. The different types of explosions have unique characteristics of temperature, pressure and duration, which create recognizable "signatures" of chemical residues, fragment size and composition. Thus, if a fuel tank explosion had destroyed the plane, its artifacts – low temperature, low energy, low velocity, no significant metal fragmentation – could be confidently identified and distinguished from the high velocity artifacts caused by a bomb or missile. These could be corroborated with certainty from the residues and the smaller and shattered fragments.There's a lot of material in this series, and it raises enough questions that as much as I hate bizarre conspiracy theories, I do find myself wondering about TWA 800. Some years back, I saw an interview (I think with CBS) with President Lyndon B. Johnson about the Warren Commission report. This was very shortly before LBJ's death, when he had let his hair grow long, and looked like the world's oldest hippie. In that interview, he admitted that he encouraged the Warren Commission to not look too closely into Lee Harvey Oswald's involvement with the Soviet Union, out of fear that if they found a connection, it could lead to World War III. It was a startling statement, and it ran completely contrary to everything that I thought about the Warren Commission. I am surprised that I have seen no mention of those statements over the years--but it would certainly explain a great deal about the many, many discrepancies in John Kennedy's autopsy and lingering questions about who shot him, and the curious connections between Jack Ruby and the Mafia. (The Mafia had strong reasons to want to get rid of John Kennedy, and Kennedy's CIA had paid the Mafia to assassinate Castro.) I don't know what to think about TWA 800. It is pretty clear that the Clinton Administration was doing everything it could to avoid confronting Iraqi involvement in other terrorist attacks. I've mentioned before (and here) that there are disturbing coincidences involving Iraqis and the 1993 World Trade Center and 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing. Clinton had a strong interest in avoiding going to war, since that tends to be bad for the economy--and in 1995, it was certainly in Clinton's political interest to pin the Oklahoma City bombing entirely on someone whom he could use to smear Republicans. (McVeigh did eventually admit that he did it.) I can see why Clinton's people would have wanted TWA 800 turned into a mechanical failure, not a terrorist attack. I find the official explanation wildly inconsistent with the eyewitness accounts that suggest a missle attack. I just can't believe that so many people working for the FBI would engage in a cover-up so massive when there was no federal government criminal action that needed covering (unlike Waco). Labels: terrorism Monday, July 17, 2006
I Don't Approve of Adultery... I even less approve of forcing your way into someone else's home over it. A couple of days ago, my co-blogger on the Civilian Gun Self-Defense Blog pointed to a sketchy news story of someone who forced his way into someone else's home, and was shot to death: ATLANTA, Texas—The Cass County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the shooting death of a local man who allegedly entered a home unannounced and fought with a resident early Tuesday.Today I heard from Havard's sister, who told me that Lollar was in bed with Havard's wife, and suggested that most people would have responded the way her brother did, and asking why we didn't include those details. The answer is that we always want more information about these incidents. We just didn't see it. There's a bit more coverage the following day: Timothy Dean Havard, 35, of Atlanta died early Tuesday at a residence on County Road 4673 in Atlanta after being shot twice, allegedly by Jason Lollar.1. Even if what Havard's sister tells me is correct--that isn't legal justification for forcing entry into Lollar's home. Forcing entry is a tremendously dangerous thing for all involved, and there is at least the possibility that Lollar didn't know who was forcing entry. 2. This is incredibly stupid. Even Havard wanted to confront Lollar and his Mrs. Havard about this, I can think of few methods of doing so more certain to get Havard killed. Some years ago, a friend's father went over to confront his wife and a friend about their adulterous relationship. He brought a pistol with him, a Llama .380. Tempers became heated, and my friend's father pulled out the pistol, and ended up shooting his friend. At trial, he argued that the safety was defective (no surprise on a Llama), and that he really didn't intend to kill him, arguging manslaughter. The jury convicted him of second-degree murder instead. What are the lessons here? 1. If you suspect adultery, confronting someone in their home is stupid. 2. Carrying a gun with you in a situation that is going to be emotionally charged (at least), is stupid. 3. Drawing a gun on an unarmed person in his home, is stupid. 4. Owning a gun with a defective safety, is stupid. 5. Trying to argue that you weren't responsible, because the safety was broken when you pulled the trigger, is stupid. Don't be stupid. Sleep Study Last night I went in for what is called a "sleep study," which attempts to see if you have obstructive sleep apnea. My major interest in this (because I am actually sleeping pretty well) is the possibility that they can fix my very loud snoring. When my wife and I go on vacation, we either need two rooms, or by the third day she is starting to go a little crazy from poor sleep, what with sharing a room with a jet engine. Anyway, the study is done at a hospital, and I think that I can say that anyone who participates in a sleep study like this will definitely have poor sleep. They attached electrodes to my scalp and temples (for EEG), to my jaw (to measure teeth grinding), to my legs (I guess to see how much they flop around), and then something that goes in my mouth and nostrils to measure air flow in and out. Then there's belts around chest and abdomen to measure respiration, and one of those fingertip gadgets that measures pulse and oxygen content of your blood. And yes, this was an uncomfortable as it sounds. And the bed I was sleeping in had insufficient support for my neck, and since I am now in the habit of sleeping on my face (because of too many years of, "Roll over, Clayton"), I was trying to roll over and get comfortable with a dozen wires and pieces of plastic attached. In spite of bringing Benzion Netanyahu's exhaustive history of the origins of the Spanish Inquisition with me, I had a very hard time falling asleep. I suppose that I should consider it somewhat miraculous that I could fall asleep at all. Anyway, I woke up about 5:45 AM, and the technician running all this monitoring equipment said that I slept for about six hours, and they had enough data for their purposes, so I came home, quite tired. I'll sleep early and well tonight. Mideast Conflict Hannity & Colmes this evening had one of those set of guests that reminds that you that Fox News is no longer small potatoes. They interviewed Newt Gingrich and former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Gingrich is saying that we are engaged in World War III, and he pointed to all these events that share common elements: Isalmofascism; terrorism; and Iran's goal of nuclear capability. The harsh reality is that we have been at war with Islamofascism for a couple of decades now; we were just not fully paying attention until 9/11. Unfortunately, the left (including the ACLU), which still controls universities and many media outlets in the U.S. and Europe, refuses to admit it. It isn't just the U.S. and Israel with whom Islamofascists are at war; it is all non-Islamic nations that might have the power to take them on. China is fighting its own war with Islamofascists (although it gets little press). The Russians are fighting with the Chechens, who are an al-Qaeda affinity group (and the Russians are often using tactics that are reprehensible). The Filipinos are fighting Islamic terrorism in the southern islands that have al-Qaeda ties. The bombings that killed hundreds in Mumbai last week were clearly associated with Islamic terrorist groups in Kashmir. The plot in Canada a couple of weeks back; the group arrested in Florida (although they sound too stupid to be a real threat); the recently unearthed plot to bomb tunnels between New York and New Jersey. Netanyahu pointed out something that is obvious to anyone that isn't as dmb as a mud fence: Iran, which has long funded Hezbollah, has supplied with something like 12,000 rockets that are now being used to attack Israel. What would Iran do with nuclear weapons? I rather doubt that they would let them rust. One of these days, Iran is going to reach the point where they have nuclear weapons, and the ability to deliver them to the U.S. The day before that happens, the U.S. is going to have to do something about that--and it won't be asking them nicely. Earlier on The O'Reilly Factor, O'Reilly (who gets more and more obnoxious every month) read some of the letters from leftists whining about Israeli overreaction. Sorry, but the Israelis have now withdrawn from southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip--and the reaction in both cases isn't peace, but more war. It seems at times as though the only way to achieve peace when dealing with groups like Hamas and Hezbollah is the peace of the grave--theirs. Cardiac Stress Tests I mentioned my recent experience with a cardiac stress test, which I easily passed. I received a lot of feedback from readers that is a reminder that you should always be ready to die, and even if you pass the test, if the problem persists, get a second opinion: As an engineer, I find the stress tests "quite interesting". At age 63, I've had two in the last year and one/half, at different facilities, to "verify the diagnosis". As CYA.I'm wondering if the upper body workout that I keep getting at the gym might be causing some chest muscle injury--and maybe that's what I'm feeling. And this response: In Jan 2004 I spent two days in the hospital while they tried to find out why I was experiencing chest pains. I was 56 then, and, like you, carrying an extra 30 pounds. So Why Haven't You Moved Here Yet... and bought my old house? Money Magazine has ranked Boise eighth on its Best Places to Live 2006 list, noting that a booming economy and 2,700 acres of green space and trails have made the community a “magnet for Californians looking to escape congested freeways and high home costs.” Vitter Amendment Passes The Senate This would prohibit "emergency" confiscation of lawfully possessed firearms. The vote in the Senate was 84-16--pretty impressive, considering that many Democrats (and a few Republicans) in the Senate aren't pro-gun, or even neutral. I can't find the text yet, so I'm not clear if this applies only to federal authorities, or to state authorities as well. If it applies to the states, this would seem to present some federalism problems. As I have said in the past, I can imagine some very remarkable circumstances that might justify short-term (like a few days) bans on the carrying of guns in the interests of public safety--but I must confess that the post-Katrina reaction shows that there's more chance of such authority being abused. UPDATE: I'm told that the House has not considered it yet. Also, according to this press release, it only prohibits the use of federal funds for this purpose. This sounds a bit more symbolic than substantial. Rich People Are Trying To Buy Off The Government Again--And Keep Their Identities Secret Don't expect liberals to be upset: An alliance of nearly a hundred of the nation's wealthiest donors is roiling Democratic political circles, directing more than $50 million in the past nine months to liberal think tanks and advocacy groups in what organizers say is the first installment of a long-term campaign to compete more aggressively against conservatives. |
