the munchkin wrangler.

pardon the mess while we remodel.

2008-01-16T19:32:00.003-08:00

This theme is a placeholder until I have the time to fire up Ye Olde Photoshoppe and whip up some new graphics for a new look.

playing SEALs and robbers.

2008-01-16T07:06:00.003-08:00

These days, when you see a picture of a guy in fatigues, carrying an automatic rifle, a pistol in a thigh rig, and doorkicker boots, you usually have to look at the caption of the photograph to tell whether it depicts a member of the U.S. Army's Stryker Brigade on patrol in Baghdad, or a member of the Chattanooga PD SWAT team preparing for a "dynamic" no-knock entry at an American residence.

Now, I don't have a problem with police officers. I know, and respect, many of them, and the profession as a whole is full of decent people who get lousy-to-unspectacular paychecks for dealing with the dregs of society every day.

That said, I am very concerned about the direction into which law enforcement is drifting, especially in the "Special Weapons and Tactics" branch. Don't get me wrong--I don't have a problem with the concept of SWAT. These are the guys that cops call when things go sour, and I am convinced that there's a proper place and purpose for SWAT teams.

The problem here is threefold, however. It concerns the utilization of SWAT teams, their use as budget enhancers, and their mindset.

Utilization is a big issue. Originally, SWAT was established and used only for the hard cases--terrorism, barricaded suspects, and the like. Then the War on Drugs expanded in scope, and then someone in Congress had the genius idea that you can just pad the operational budget of your expensive SWAT team and police department in general by charging property with crimes, because that way you don't have to go through that pesky "due process" business. Find a bag of pot in a car, seize the pot and the car, and auction off the car without even having to charge the owner of the car with a crime. Later on, that concept (called "asset forfeiture") was expanded to encompass anything that might be remotely drug-related, to the point where police can (and routinely do) seize cash from people if they have reason to believe that it was used in drug transactions. The standard of suspicion has predictably decreased to where they seize the cash merely because it's a large enough amount, because why would you have so much cash on you if you're not slinging dime bags at the middle school? Oh, and the burden of proof is reversed, too--instead of the state having to prove that the money was obtained through illicit activity, you're the one who has to prove that it wasn't.

Now, a SWAT team is an expensive budget item. You have highly trained police officers who are issued very expensive equipment. You have to pay the salaries of the officers involved, and their continued training, and in return you get a SWAT team that may find utilization once a week, month, or year, depending on the size of your city and its crime culture.

Naturally, the folks who count the beans and set the policies came up with two ways to make the budget item marked "SWAT" look better on the annual budget request. First, they started utilizing SWAT for jobs other than high-risk situations involving armed subjects. (Not much of a stretch, they said, because when you serve a warrant, you have to assume that the folks inside are armed, anyway.) So now you have SWAT teams serving warrants, too, and they serve them as a SWAT team does, with all the gear and fanfare, lest the chief has to justify just why he needed the money for all the kit if it just gets left at the station every time the boys go out.

Next comes the use of SWAT as a budget enhancer. The War on Drugs is largely about money at this point. What drug cop wants to see an end to it if he'd not only be out of a job (what interest does the DEA have in actually winning the War on Drugs?), but also deprived of a steady source of revenue for the department? You see, under asset forfeiture rules, not only can they seize grandma's house if they find grandson's pot plant under growing lamps in the basement, but they also get a kickback--a portion of the seized assets flow back to the agency which made the arrest and seizure. It has gotten to the point where you have entire departments that are financed solely by asset forfeiture funds--they don't have an annual budget anymore, but rather get their entire annual operating budget from seized money.

Now, every time you tie a financial incentive to the enforcement of a law, it's bad policy. It encourages the enforcers to cast the net as widely as possible. For the police department, it's a no-lose scenario--they get the money to run their shop, and they look good if their arrest numbers are high, tangible and financial proof that they're doing their jobs. Before too long, the mission is no longer "Protect and Serve", but "Find Me Some Cash". The War on Drugs is the perfect alibi to soothe the conscience of the individual officer when he relieves a moving violator of the four thousand dollars in cash he was carrying around for whatever reason when he got pulled over, and it's the ideal moral justification to toss into the faces of those who dare speak up against the practice. (What, you have a problem with the cops taking ill-gotten drug money from the dealers? Are you some sort of doper yourself?)

The problem, of course, is that the state has a piss-poor record when it comes to confining the use of its shiny new powers to the purpose for which they were intended. (Just do a quick Google search on "RICO abuses".) If you hand a club to a police chief or a Federal agent and tell him that he can only use it against terrorists, mobsters, or drug dealers, he will sooner or later try to expand those definitions to justify nearly unlimited use of that shiny new club. Tie a financial reward to the use of that club, and you accelerate the process exponentially.

Then there's the problem of mindset and perception. Gallons of ink have been spilled on the discussion of what some call "The Militarization of Mayberry". Cops usually take offense to that term, saying that they should be allowed the use of any and all gear that lets them get the job done. However, when you use cops as revenue enhancers, and you tell them they're fighting a war, you end up with a police force that is unsuited for its original job, the impartial enforcement of laws. Then the issue is not the gear (which is indeed necessary for commando-style raids), but the necessity of the job that requires the gear.

When you dress like a soldier, carry the same equipment as a soldier, talk like a soldier, train like a soldier (and in many cases, alongside a soldier), and you're told that you're fighting a war, then sooner or later you'll feel like a soldier, and then you'll start acting like one.

The problem with that is that the mission of the soldier and that of the cop are fundamentally incompatible. The soldier is there to kill the enemy and break his stuff. The cop is there to impartially enforce the law with the least amount of force necessary for the job.

Lastly, there's a psychological aspect to cops that look like stormtroopers. When even the non-criminal element of society raises an eyebrow at the sight of a cop who looks like the soldier of an occupying army, then you have a perception problem. Our boys and girls in Iraq and Afghanistan have learned that you can get the population riled up against you if your bearing and appearance are overly aggressive. They're taught to not kick in doors that don't need kicking, to remove the dust goggles or sunshades before talking to locals (making the eyes invisible depersonalizes an individual), and generally try to avoid losing the goodwill of the populace through moderation of force. Now, if our soldiers have learned the value of even these small measures to avoid alienating a foreign populace, why are so many cops still in denial about the cumulative psychological effect of hundreds of incidents where a SWAT team busted into the wrong place, dragged the wrong folks out of bed with the aid of automatic rifles, flashlights and balaclavas, or shot the wrong people dead?

I don't want my police to look like they're an occupying army. More importantly, I don't want to feel as if they are. I don't want to feel apprehension when I see a cop by the side of the road or in my rear view mirror, even though I have no reason because I have done nothing wrong. In a day and age where so many cops are focused on finding something wrong at any price, whether it's for monetary reasons or simply to save face, and where cops openly refer to non-cops as "civilians", I simply don't trust the motives of the officer underneath those blue lights unconditionally. That's mostly the fault of the politicians who passed the laws which made the officer a creator of criminals and a revenue generator rather than an impartial enforcer, but that is the fallout of the War on Drugs, I'm afraid, and it won't go away while we encourage our police at all levels to wage that war. That's because the War on Drugs is a war against ourselves, and you can't win that one, no matter how hard you try.

eight months later.

2008-01-15T13:38:00.003-08:00

Lyra is eight months old today.

In just 240 days, we went from this:

to this.

There are many things that amaze me about these kids every day. For example, I'm constantly amazed at how different Quinn and Lyra are already shaping up to be, now that their personalities are starting to form. From the start, Lyra was a completely different baby. She's more alert and aware than Quinn was at her age, and she uses her hands far more--Quinn never even tried to hold his own bottle even when he was going on a year, and Lyra constantly tries to seize it. She's a frequent and enthusiastic thumb sucker as well, whereas I've never seen Quinn's thumb in his mouth in almost three years. (Yeah, he'll be three on Valentine's Day...time flies.)

Same DNA background, same hospital, same house, same foods, same attention, and even most of the same clothes (hey, we're cheap, and who cares if she's mostly wearing blue?), and they're already totally different kids.

Oh, and all you dads out there who have a leave-the-house kind of daytime job? You're both lucky (for the breaks you get), and unfortunate (for all the firsts you miss), but there's one thing you need to keep in mind. When someone asks you whether your wife works, you need to reply, "Hell yes, she does--she's staying at home with the kid/s."

It's not that parenting is physically or intellectually difficult, but there are two things that make it one of the hardest jobs I've ever done. First, there's all the stuff you need to be able to manage at the same time, and under challenging conditions. (Try to change a kid's poopy diaper while the phone is ringing, and the other kid is doing that non-stop, low-level whining for attention.) Then there's the fact that you're on the job all the time, without much of an opportunity for sanity breaks. There's a constant, low-level stress(with occasional spikes during the day) that has a cumulative sort of effect, and it does chip away at your mental state after a while.

So, get a baby sitter every once in a while, and take your SO out to a dinner that doesn't involve bibs and airplane noises, and they'll stay sane. And for all that is good and proper, don't ever assume your stay-at-home spouse doesn't have a "real job".

fly your geek flag.

2008-01-15T05:54:00.003-08:00

Without consulting Google or Wikipedia, tell us one of the claims to fame of Mr. Ron Obvious from Neaps End.

the hilarity of violence.

2008-01-15T03:42:00.003-08:00

My brother gave Quinn a Tom & Jerry DVD for Christmas. The other day, I sat down with him to watch it, and it's a gem. It's a collection of all the original 1940s and 1950s Hanna/Barbera/Quimby cartoons, not the later (crummy) Gene Deitch or Chuck Jones ones. These are the ones that won seven Academy Awards.

There's something utterly hilarious about the over-the-top cartoon violence mostly inflicted on hapless Tom. I hadn't seen any of the Tom and Jerry cartoons in ages, and it occurred to me that the entire series, Academy Awards and all, is not only one of the best animation features of all time (if not the best), but also completely politically incorrect.

What is it about the PC mindset that's so infuriating to me? It's not the intentions of the people perpetuating it. Well, maybe it is--these are the folks who preach that violence is always unacceptable under any circumstances, even in self-defense, and that's why the current generation needs to be shielded from the images of a cartoon cat getting its tail smashed in a waffle iron.

I watched a ton of violent cartoons as a kid. I've watched poor Tom getting his butt handed to him by Jerry many times, and the more outrageously the manner of it, the funnier it was. I've watched Elmer Fudd go full-auto on Bugs many times with that double-barreled shotgun of his, and I can't count the number of times I've laughed at Wile E. Coyote's Acme products backfiring on him. (For someone who's never had a good experience with the product line, he was unreasonably brand-loyal.)

Yet even at six or eight or ten years of age, it never occurred to me to stick my brother's hand into a waffle iron, or throw him head-first into the open fridge. Why is it that I was able to see the cartoon violence in context, and to correctly classify it as caricature, yet the current guardians of youth welfare think that the current generation of kids lacks that ability, and that only complete non-exposure will prevent them from playing Tom to their little baby sibling's Jerry?

Of course, now that I'm a bit older, I recognize a bit of a libertarian bent in the old cartoons. It occurred to me that all the characters on the receiving end of the most gratuitous cartoon violence are almost always the ones who initiated force against their opponents. Jerry wants to be left alone--it's only Tom's initial aggression that triggers the epic onslaught. It's the same with Bugs Bunny, and the Road Runner--the good guys are always minding their own business until the bad guy comes around and tries to eat them, at which point the violence is not only hilarious, but completely justified as well. There's a great educational message here: Don't give an attacker what he wants, give him a hammer in the face.

Of course, that kind of message is equally unacceptable to the PC crowd, isn't it?

by popular request.

2008-01-14T04:33:00.003-08:00

Alright, alright...enough with the snark. Here's something other than black-on-white.

Amber on green looks okay in a word processor, but not a web browser. The new background is supposed to be a parchment sort of color, and the ink is red instead of dark blue because it matches the color palette of the header image better.

Wow...I'm talking color palettes and color matching. That's just one step away from taking an interest in interior design, and watching Christopher Lowell, right?

Oh, and fflliberty...thanks for suggesting Open Office. I toyed with it a while back when it was just barely 2.0, but I didn't know you could change the text and background colors just like in WordPerfect Mac. I just downloaded the latest version, and it works like a charm. It's also file-compatible with MS Office, and has a nicer full-screen mode to boot. I think I'll use it for a few weeks and get comfortable with it, and if I don't find myself missing any Word features, then I may just toss Office 2007 off the hard drive.

question for fellow keyboard jockeys.

2008-01-13T19:16:00.003-08:00

The office package on this PC is Office 2007, which is all shiny and glitzy. It's very comprehensive, weighs in at 623MB on the hard drive, and sports a new look that makes its predecessors look like relics from the dark ages of computing.

However, there are two things it still cannot do. The first is to remember its cursor position in a previously edited document. When you open a document, it dumps you at the beginning of it by default, and you have to scroll down and insert the cursor in the proper position before you can start typing away. That's a pretty minor grievance, but it's one of those little things that save five seconds every time I open a document.

The other thing is something that only one word processing program has ever managed to incorporate: different colors for text and page background. I'm not talking about differently colored text that prints out as such, but rather text that only shows in your color of preference on screen, yet prints out as regular black-on-white text.

I don't like to look at black text on a white background on backlit screens. It's like watching ants on a light bulb. Word used to let you display white text on a blue background as an alternative, which is an improvement, but it's still not quite the way I want it, and they seem to have dropped that option in Word 2007 anyway.

On my old Macs, I run a 1990s-vintage word processing program called Corel WordPerfect 3.5. It lets you configure any background color and any text color you'd like to see on the screen. To my eyes, amber text on a dark green background looks most relaxing, and that's what I have set in WordPerfect. That color scheme greatly reduces eye strain, and the ability of WordPerfect to let me make all documents appear in that fashion makes it my favorite word processor. I even put up with having to export the document into HTML and then re-import and -format it into Word, which is a bit of a hassle.

Why is it that no other word processor offers this simple feature? Or do any of you know how to make Word do what the long-discontinued Mac version of WordPerfect delivered ten years ago already, and let me specify a text and background color of my choice?

(Yeah, you can change those system-wide through Display Properties > Appearance > Advanced, but then all document windows in all applications change color.)

the fun surprises of parenthood.

2008-01-11T03:41:00.003-08:00

Quinn woke up this morning at 6AM, crying up a storm. I went to check on him, and he had gotten sick from the seafood lasagna last night, vomiting all over his bed and the floor.

Then he got up to meet me at the door, covered in puke and all, wanting to be comforted. (I challenge anyone to not give your kid a hug when he desperately wants one, even if he does have barf on his jammies.)

So, it was early shower and bubble bath time. Now we might as well stay up, since his sheets are in the wash anyway.

crossing the border.

2008-01-10T07:15:00.003-08:00

I drove my brother down to Boston yesterday for his return flight to Germany. It was kind of odd to come back to Boston after ten years--I didn't have any problem at all finding my way around, but some features were definitely not there in 1997. The Mystic River bridge was a new one to me, for example.

Apparently, MA passed some new and (more) draconian gun law that stipulates a mandatory year in jail for anyone caught with an unlicensed pistol there, loaded or unloaded, in your person or in the vehicle. "Unlicensed" means "not accompanied by both a Massachusetts FOID and a home state permit, and not locked in a triple-locked safe at least two zip codes away from its ammunition." They don't recognize NH Pistol Permits, of course.

This may seem a cowardly cop-out from the guy who once wrote an essay called "A Declaration of Civil Disobedience", but we can't currently afford for me to take an unpaid year-long hiatus, so I grudgingly disarmed before driving into MA.

I don't know that the justice system of a state deserves that kind of title when they are perfectly willing to take a year of someone's life for the offense of having the wrong piece of steel in our possession. Then again, all the states have even higher penalties for possessing the botanical equivalent of a bottle of vodka, so we're already a very long way down the slippery slope of victimless crime enforcement. Sadly enough, part of the reason for that is the cheerful consent of people who defend their gun rights tooth and nail, yet don't bat an eyelash when their neighbor gets hauled in and locked up for ten years because he grew some funny tobacco in his basement.

I hate to be a pessimist, but I look at the way things are going, and I have to concur with Tam. A storm is coming, and it's going to catch a lot of folks in the open.

catch of the day.

2008-01-08T16:39:00.003-08:00

Cheddar Bunnies: They're To Die For!

first in the nation, for the first time.

2008-01-08T16:31:00.003-08:00

Finding the polling place in our new home town was easy...all I had to do was to follow the increasingly thick path of yard signs until I reached the parking lot in the middle of the Great Yard Sign Forest.

The habit of plastering yard signs all over the roads is still somewhat amusing to me. Are there really people who have no clue who they're going to vote for right until they drive to the polling place, and who make a decision based on the signs along the way?

"Okay, I'll just vote for whoever has the most signs up. That's thirty-three for Paul, thirteen for Romney....guess it's Ron Paul today."

Or maybe it's like one of those commercials where they just repeat the name of the place as often as possible so it'll get burned into your memory?

"Huckabee....Huckabee...Huckabee...must vote for Huckabee."

Anyway, voting was (dare I say it?) fun. Very small-towney, with the polling place set up in the top floor of the local library on Main Street. I made my little mark next to Ron Paul's name, for what it's worth. Unless Dr. Paul decides to go independent if he doesn't get the Republican nomination (and let's get realistic--he won't), that'll be the only time I'll get to vote for my candidate this year. Come November, it'll be nose-holding time once more.

we vote tomorrow.

2008-01-07T05:37:00.003-08:00

We registered to vote a few days after we moved in, so we'll be able to vote in the primary tomorrow. Robin and I are both registered as "Undeclared", which means that we can decide on the day of the primary whether we want to vote in the (R) or (D) primary.

The field on both sides leaves me mostly cold. On the Democrat side of the ballot, we have a power-hungry shrew whose main bribe is the promise of "free" health care for everyone, a Rorschach candidate who has so little substance that his main thing is the voicing of vague generalities so everyone may project what they want onto him. a blow-dried trial lawyer-turned-Marxist, and a handful of nuts.

On the Republican side, we have a RINO from NY who was for gun control before he was against it, an actor who's a lot like the current President except with a deeper voice, a former Mass. governor who apparently believes in the wrong Jesus (or believes in him the wrong way), an authoritarian war hero with a temper problem, and yet another former governor of Arkansas who "doesn't believe in evolution", and who apparently believes in the right Jesus (or believes in him the right way), and a handful of nuts.

I think it's not much of a secret that we'll be voting on the (R) ballot tomorrow, and that our two votes are going to go to the only guy in the race who does more than give lip service to the Constitution, even if that means the majority of the population sorts him in with the handful of nuts. (That would be the Congressman from Texas, Dr. Paul.)

On a side note: something about Mike Huckabee is deeply unsettling to me. Every time I see him, or listen to one of his speeches, he reminds me of Greg Stillson from Stephen King's The Dead Zone--the "aw, shucks" populist who is a raving nutcase underneath the rolled-up sleeves and the winning smile. Maybe it's the "I don't believe in evolution" thing, or the fact that he once told his fellow Baptists that "we need to take this country back for Christ", or the fact that he's supported by the Evangelicals (how'd the last candidate you backed work out for you and the country, folks?), but something about Huckabee definitely rubs me the wrong way.

On yet another side note: does anyone else find it amusing that the conservatives openly wonder whether Romney could be loyal to the U.S. and the Constitution before the Mormon church, or whether Giuliani could be loyal to the U.S. before the Catholic church, or whether Obama isn't really a sleeper Muslim who wants to impose Sharia on all of us...but they don't even think about asking that question when an ordained Baptist minister enters the race--one who's already publically stated he wants to "take the country back for Christ"?

Anyway, I have no illusions about Dr. Paul's chances to become the next President--the message of limited government (and by extension, limited government loot) is highly unpopular, and the country isn't buying what he's selling. But at least we won't have wasted our votes by voting for the lesser of two evils yet again.

idealism meets reality.

2008-01-04T03:24:00.003-08:00

Apparently, the "One Laptop Per Child" project is faltering, because Intel just pulled its support.

The article linked has a picture of two little Nigerian kids looking at the OLPC computer, which is being trialled in Nigeria at the moment.

Call me a cynic, but my first thought at seeing the picture was the mental picture of a little eight-year-old Nigerian boy, hunched over that hand-cranked laptop at the kitchen table, and typing furiously:

"Dear Sir,

I am Chief Accountant with the National Oil Nigeria
PLC (N/Oil) and member of 5 MAN Contract Executive
Review Panel (comprising 2 Snr.Staff of CBN and 3
Snr,Staff Of (N/Oil) set up by present Civilian Regime
of President Obasanjo. So far we have come across a
surplus of the sum of US$27M.(Twenty-seven Million
Dollars)which was as a result of deliberate
over-invoicing of certain contracts awarded by
Contract Award Committee of the cooperation..."

overheard on the radio this morning.

2008-01-02T12:00:00.003-08:00

Driving the sprogs to their new vet, I listened to the radio, and apparently there were a bunch of college football games played just a few days ago. Seems they all go by some variation of "Bowl"--Rose Bowl, Cheetos Bowl, you probably know what I'm talking about.

One of the local radio folks had the idea for an addition to the college football bowls--have one played annually at the football field up here at Dartmouth, and call it the "Hypothermia Bowl".

i have made snow my bitch.

2008-01-02T10:46:00.003-08:00

We got more snow yesterday and the day before that. It seems that this past December was the snowiest on record in NH since 1880-something.

The good news is that keeping the ice and snow off the trouble spot (and a few tubes of silicone on the backed-out roofing screws) seems to have stopped the leakage. If we're still drippage-free by the weekend, Quinn can move back into his room.

After paying the snow plow guy a nice chunk of beer money for his repeated services, we went out to Sears in West Lebanon today. We got a 28" two-stage self-propelled snow blower, and I've been trying it out for the last hour or so. That puppy throws the hell out of some snow, that's for sure. It only slows down when you try to clear more than a foot of packed snow, but on new snow, it roars through a foot of the stuff like it's not even there.

Another nine hundred dollars...but I'm thinking it'll pay for itself after the thirtieth time I clear my own driveway, instead of paying Mr. Plow $30 to do it each time.

bread and circuses.

2008-01-02T03:49:00.003-08:00

Where the frak does it say anywhere in the Constitution that the government has the authority to take money out of my pocket and give it to to other folks to make sure their Teevees don't stop working?

I think as inept as folks working in government usually are, some of them know exactly where to spend the cash to keep the masses quiet and docile. If you shut off the flow of the electronic opium to the lower-income households, the peasants are likely to a.) riot and do other nefarious things outside of the house due to sheer boredom, or b.) actually go to the library, pick up a book, and start forming an opinion that has a more solid foundation than a ten-second newsbite. Neither of those scenarios are terribly comforting to The Authorities.

on primitive computing.

2008-01-01T10:57:00.003-08:00

A few days ago, I started a little experiment.

Before we moved to New Hampshire, I sold or gave away most of my small collection of vintage Macintosh systems. The only ones I retained were a Powerbook 3400c (because it's still useful with its built-in CD-ROM and network connection, because I have an entire spare 3400c for parts in case something breaks, and because it'll make a dandy first computer for Quinn), and a Color Classic (because it's cute as a button.)

Now, the Color Classic is an obsolete computer by any standard of the definition. While the Powerbook can run Office 2001, Internet Explorer, and other modern software, the little Color Classic doesn't have the wheaties to cruise the web or serve up YouTube videos. It's an all-in-one akin to the original Macintosh, a small beige box with a floppy drive and a very sharp and crisp 10" Sony color monitor built into the case. The main processor runs at 16 MHz (even cell phones have more powerful CPUs these days), and the system has 10MB RAM and an 80MB hard drive. It runs Mac OS 7.1, and very little else.

When I purchased my Alphasmart Neo, I discovered the benefits of minimalist computing. The Neo only does text--no web browsing, no email, no WiFi, nothing but you and whatever it is you want to commit to paper. In the six months since I bought it, my word count has increased dramatically, because the Neo's One-Trick Pony nature allowed me to concentrate just on my work, without distracting me with Instant Messages or tempting me with games or a Wikipedia safari.

Well, I took another look at the Color Classic, which had been stored in my closet since I got it for free from one of fellow Robin's Ph.D. candidates at UT a few years back. Then I realized that the little Mac might have the same decluttering effect on the creative process, since it couldn't run serve up any modern distractions, either.

So, I dusted it off, replaced a dead PRAM battery that prevented it from booting up (the original half-AA cell had finally run dry after 14 years), and fired the little thing up.

And you know what? There's something liberating about that old technology. You don't get Google or streaming video, but that little Color Classic boots from a cold start to the OS 7 desktop in ten or twelve seconds, and shuts down instantly. I spent a few hours on the Internet looking for a suitable word processor that would let me save my stuff in a format the Windows box would understand (I do my final formatting and printing from Office 2007 on the modern machine), and found one called Nisus Writer that actually fits on a single floppy.

I wasn't expecting too much from Nisus Writer. I mean, how sophisticated can a program be that fits on a floppy disk and takes only 1MB of system memory to run?

Pretty sophisticated, it turns out. Nisus Writer, last updated in the early 1990s, lets me do everything I usually do in MS Word. It has a thesaurus, a spell checker, word count, and all the formatting features I routinely use. It even opens previously edited documents to the precise location where you left off, which is something that Word still hasn't learned even in the 2007 version. In addition, Nisus Writer saves its files in plain text format, which can be copied to a floppy and then opened by Word (or any other word processor) on the XP box without any loss in formatting.

Well, if you use a piece of hardware for a specific purpose only, and it does that job as well as any modern hardware, can you really brand it as "obsolete"?

Now the Color Classic is sitting on my desk as the in-house writing machine. I still use the Neo whenever I go out, or feel the need to move around in the house, but the Color Classic now serves as the screen-and-keyboard version of the Neo. It doesn't take up much space, it looks good on the desk, it's just as useful as any other computer for the limited task of word processing, and it's fun to use. Electronics recycling at its best, no?

look, ma, no crutch.

2007-12-31T10:04:00.003-08:00

I'm walking around again...the Sciatica fairy has taken her leave once again. I'll probably see her again in two years or so.

I stopped at the police station in town to pick up my NH Pistol/Revolver Permit today. It's just a very unceremonious little paper, nothing like the driver's license-looking laminated card you get in TN for your $115. They didn't even charge me for the permit--when I asked about the fee, the secretary/dispatcher just kind of waved me off and said that "the Chief doesn't believe in charging people for permits, seeing how everyone already pays enough property taxes."

Kind of refreshing, that.

The folks just across the river over in Vermont have it even better...no permit required. If you can own it, you can carry it. That's the way it ought to be in all fifty states, not just two of them.

last day of 2007.

2007-12-31T03:16:00.003-08:00

I don't have any special resolutions for 2008, just a general set of goals that aren't specific to the calendar year. Since I met Robin, every year has been an improvement over the one before it, so I'm hoping the trend continues unabated. 2007 was a little marred by the Move from Hell, but it was also the year in which Lyra was born, so it was a very good year in the end.

Two thousand and eight already, folks. I'm still waiting for the rocket car I was promised for the year 2000. The other day, I thought of the fact that Quinn and Lyra have a better than even chance of seeing the 22nd century...with health care and life expectancy improving in quantum leaps every generation, they ought to make it to their 90s.

Then again, our species has a history of exterminating each other over silly shit like what name to call our invisible friends, or the melanin content of our skins, or what have you. Nitwits and nukes don't go well together...and I'm not just talking about the Jihadis.

those winter sundays.

2007-12-30T18:00:00.003-08:00

Sundays too my father got up early
And put his clothes on in the blueback cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?

--Robert Hayden

now in stores!

2007-12-28T06:35:00.003-08:00

Here's a game to pass around, perhaps a meme of sorts.

Pick a blogger from your blogroll, and then imagine they have an action figure modeled after their likeness available at We-B-Toyz.

What kind of accessories and accoutrements would that blogger's action figure have in the blister pack?

I'll go first, since I thought this thing up, and nobody can pre-empt my pick.

I bring you the Tamara(tm) Action Figure. Comes with bottle of Ruination IPA, paperback novel, and lime-green "iBook" accessories. Clothes include blue jeans, GSG9 boots, Kalashnikitty t-shirt, and black 5.11 tac vest. Optional accessories (sold separately) include Z3 convertible with authentic dent in the hood, and retro-chic 1980s UJM motorcycle. Comes with realistic swilling action!

Your turn.

what an odd laptop.

2007-12-27T06:24:00.003-08:00

My Dearly Beloved gave me an old Royal typewriter for my birthday in October. Since it was stored at a friend's place here in New Hampshire, I didn't get to take possession of it until we moved. Now I find myself oddly fascinated by this archaic piece of writing machinery.

It seems to be a Royal Model H10, made in 1935.

Anyone know where to get ribbons for it?

such frailty.

2007-12-27T05:42:00.003-08:00

Every two years or so, I get a visit from the Sciatica fairy, who sneaks up behind me and gives my sciatic nerve a good twist. It always manifests itself the same way: back pain that gradually increases in severity until it reaches "debilitating" on the pain scale, where it then remains for a few days.

Right now I'm in bed, as sitting, standing, walking, or bending over all cause pain that makes me want to turn into AD's Gollum ("It needs the Vicodin! It is in pain!"). Luckily, my brother is still here, so somebody can watch the kids while I'm out of commission. Right now, Lyra is keeping me company on the bed, and I just popped 800mg of Motrin, so things are somewhat tolerable.

What frail and easily broken things we are...

the tiger does not relish the peach.

2007-12-26T06:17:00.003-08:00

Next time you're at the zoo and a large predatory cat escapes, follow these steps:

--Call authorities at once. 911 will summon a policeman, who will arrive in mere minutes.

--Give the attacker what he/she wants. They'll most likely leave you alone afterwards. Don't resist, you may get hurt.

--If possible, try to reason with the attacker. Everybody wants to be valued and respected.

--Do not carry a gun for self-defense. You may get hurt worse, because it may be used against you. Also, you may suffer from intense regret and remorse if you kill your attacker.

Make sense? No?

Then keep in mind that people who prey on other humans have exactly as much conscience and compassion as that tiger. Tigers kill to eat and live without concern for the feelings of their prey...same with predatory humans.

The only thing that will keep you alive when a predator mistakes you for food is to whip out larger claws and teeth.

...and goodwill to all.

2007-12-24T02:39:00.003-08:00

Robin has to work over Christmas, so Santa was nice enough to stop by on Sunday morning to leave some loot for Quinn and Lyra.

Christmas, Yule, Winter Solstice, Hanukkah....whatever you call your holiday, may it be a merry one.

our fucked-up roof: a pictorial essay.

2007-12-23T09:06:00.003-08:00

I was up on our roof for four hours yesterday, clearing the snow and hacking away ice dams.

When I had the snow cleared off the upper section, I discovered some interesting details.

This is a picture of the upper roof just above our trouble spot that's allowing water into the ceiling below.

Now, I'm not a roofer, but it seems clear as day that this section has been patched by adding a newer piece of roofing on top of the old roof. It's roughly 2' by 1' in size.

Here's another picture of the same section from a different angle.

Now, the trouble spot is at the ledge where the upper roof meets the lower one. There are roofing nails and screws which have backed out, and whenever there's the smallest bit of water forming on that section, it follows gravity and goes down the screw and nail holes. Here's a picture of where it seeps into the uncovered plywood of the vertical wall underneath.

We had the agent contact the seller, and the guy who sold us the place steadfastly maintains that a.) there were no water leaks in that house, and b.) he wasn't aware of any prior roof damage.

Once again, I'm not a roofer, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the seller is talking out of his southbound orifice, and that the inspector who looked at the place was certainly acting in the interest of the seller.

We typed up a cordial letter to the sellers, suggesting their cooperation to find an amicable solution. (Actually, Robin's original letters was more along the lines of "You motherfuckers...", but I toned it down a bit in the second revision.) There are more roofers slated to come out and give opinions and estimates, and we'll get the thing patched and then try to get our cash back from the sellers. If they keep disavowing prior knowledge of the roof issues, we'll sic the Dogs of Law, and take the whole thing to court. To my unschooled eye, it seems that we have a pretty good case for a "Failure to Disclose" lawsuit.

it's a van! it's a snow plow!

2007-12-21T10:57:00.003-08:00

So I leave the driveway in the War Wagon to meet the wife at the potential new pediatrician's office.

Take a left turn onto the road, fiddle with the heaters and radio for a second, look up...and notice a pickup truck with a plowing attachment barreling out of the driveway of one of our neighbors.

I'm twenty-five yards way, doing thirty or so on what looks like a plowed and sanded road, only to hit the brakes and find out that the hard-packed snow underneath the plowed part does not support my current speed in my current vehicle configuration (front wheel drive, albeit with brand new snow tires.) Even with the old "lock the wheels, release, steer, repeat" technique, I can see that I'm headed for the passenger-side door of the plow truck, and that a bumper-to-door interface is imminent.

So I turn the wheel, aim for the snow bank at the side of the road, and slice into it, bringing the minivan to a cushioned stop. Problem is, now I'm stuck in a ditch, and the plow driver has naught to offer but a shrug and a spit of tobacco juice. (In all fairness, it was pretty much my fault for going faster than road conditions allowed.)

An hour and a c-note later, the friendly neighborhood wrecker has pulled me out of the ditch, and the Grand Caravan's front doesn't have a scratch on it. Snow banks are great decelerators when you hit them at an angle.

*sigh*

All things considered, it was better than t-boning the plow truck, since all that got dented was my pride. Still, that $100 could have bought a nice big bag of Happy Juice at the NH Liquor Outlet over by the grocery store. Chalk it up to the learning curve, I suppose.

the story of christmas, 2007.

2007-12-20T13:46:00.003-08:00

Infant found in Manger--Police and Social Services Investigating

Carpenter and underage mother arrested

(AP) Bethlehem

In the early morning hours, police and Social Services were alerted by a concerned citizen who discovered a family living in a stable.

When Social Services workers and police officers arrived at the scene, they found an infant, which had been wrapped in cloth strips and placed in a manger by his 14-year-old mother, a Mary H. of Nazareth.

During the arrest of the mother, a man later identified as Joseph H., also of Nazareth, tried to interfere with the work of the officials. Joseph, supported by three shepherds and three unidentified foreign nationals, tried to prevent the removal of the child, but was stopped by police officers, who Tasered him into compliance.

Also arrested were the three unknown foreign nationals, who identified themselves as "wise men" from "a Middle Eastern country." Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are looking for clues regarding the identity of the three foreigners, who appear to be in the country illegally. A police spokesman said that the three carried no identification of any kind, but that immigration officials confiscated undisclosed amounts of gold and possible illicit substances under federal asset forfeiture provisions. The suspects resisted arrest and told police that God had directed them to go home and avoid all contact with authorities. The confiscated chemicals were sent to a police laboratory for further analysis.

Police declined to identify the current location of the infant. A fast resolution of the case seems to be doubtful. Upon further questioning, a Social Services official commented:

"The father is middle-aged, and the mother definitely still a minor. We are checking with the authorities in Nazareth as to the nature of their relationship."

Mary H. is in the Bethlehem County Hospital for mental and psychological examinations. The District Attorney has announced that she will have to face neglect and child endangerment charges at the least. Her mental condition is questionable, as she claims to still be a virgin, and that the child's father is God Himself.

The chief of psychiatry at Bethlehem County released the following statement:

"It's not my place to question religious belief, but when that belief leads to the endangerment of a newborn, these people have to be classified as dangerous. The fact that drugs were involved--probably distributed by the foreigners present at the scene--does not inspire confidence in the innocence of the suspects. I am however confident that all people involved have the potential to take their place as responsible members of society again in a few years, given the right treatment."

Finally, the statements of the shepherds to the police suggest that "a tall man in a white nightgown with wings on his back" ordered them to go to the stable and celebrate the birth of the child. A spokesman of the Drug Enforcement Agency stated that "this was just about the dumbest cover story ever put forward by those doped-up bearded hippie types."

high-speed (sort of) internets.

2007-12-20T03:40:00.003-08:00

Well, we have satellite Internet now, after having to pay the installer $225 extra for a custom install (digging a hole by the tree line and putting a hundred pounds of concrete and a pole into it).

The good thing is that the speed beats dial-up by a fair margin, and pulling web pages no longer feels like a masochistic exercise in patience.

The bad things are:

Cost. $60 a month, plus $300 for the standard install, plus the aforementioned $225 for the custom install because the line of sight to the satellite is poor from the side of the house.
Latency. Because the signal has to travel up into low-earth orbit twice, there's a built in latency that makes it impossible to play, say, first-person shooters online. Scratch anything that requires fast reaction times, in fact. World of Warcraft is playable, but only just so--last night, I initially got 8000ms (!) latency, but it slowly improves after a few minutes to where your actions and spells only have a lag of a second or two.
Bandwidth restrictions. This one's a biggie. Hughesnet has a "Fair Access Policy" that limits the amount of data you can download within any given 24-hour period. For our price plan, that's 200MB. Exceed the quota, and they switch you to a speed that makes dial-up feel like broadband, and you stay there for 24 hours. We maxed that out just testing stuff and downloading one lousy video card driver package from ATI yesterday afternoon. I have no idea how much bandwidth World of Warcraft uses with two clients running, but we'll find out tonight. I may have to upgrade our plan from Basic to "Pro Plus", which bumps the download threshold to 425MB, and the download speed to 1.5Mbps. For big downloads, they have you use the 3-6AM timeslot, when the data moved doesn't count towards your quota. The FAP is teh suck, but unfortunately, they're the only broadband game in town. Being out in the sticks does carry some sacrifices with it, I suppose, but we do miss our old, fast, reliable DSL line. Alas, it may have the unintended positive side effect of forcing me to use the Internet for essential stuff only, rather than waste a morning playing Wikipedia Safari.

The roof may not be as expensive as originally quoted. I'm having a few more roofing companies come out to look at the repairs needed, to get some different opinions. Asking a roofer whether you need a new roof is like asking a barber whether you need a haircut, so I want to follow some of the excellent advice you folks in Blogland have tossed out, and make sure I'm not being taken. The good news is that keeping the roof clear of ice dams has stopped all the leaks save the one in Quinn's room, which is rather substantial.

The really good news: booze is cheaper in NH than in TN, and the NH state liquor stores are open on Sundays.

warning: sex may result in pregnancy.

2007-12-20T03:18:00.003-08:00

"It was a shock for both of us, so unexpected," said Jamie Lynn Spears of her pregnancy. "I was in complete and total shock and so was he."

I'm a bit ashamed for even mentioning anyone connected to Britney ("Leave her alone!') on my blog, since I cannot for the life of me fathom the reason for America's fascination with her, but the above quote by Britney's freshly impregnated 16-year-old sister deserves some mention for its airheaded ignorance.

You see, when a boy and a girl have sex without adequate birth control, then there's a pretty good chance that the girl will get pregnant. Alas, that information is taught in Biology and Sex Ed, two subjects that get pretty short shrift in the schools of the region where Britney's mom parked her million-dollar quadruple-wide luxury trailer.

Robin and I sometimes joke that sex education in her native Western North Carolina consists of the father telling his daughter, "If you come home pregnant, I'll fucking kill you." It's amusing to see that the Fundies on the Right use the exact same approach to teach kids about sex that the touchy-feelies on the left use to teach kids about guns: don't mention it, pretend it doesn't exist, and tell them to not even think about the subject until they're twenty-one.

When you have a culture that connects sex with shame and guilt to such a degree that teenagers won't carry condoms with them because "they don't want to look like they were planning to have sex", you can't be surprised when you end up with the highest teenage pregnancy rates in the Western world.

Oh, yeah...little Jamie Lynn wants to raise her child in her native Louisiana, to make sure "it has a normal childhood".

Yeah, good luck with that. Little hint: don't go to your big sister for parenting advice.

about that roof.

2007-12-18T02:53:00.003-08:00

So we had the builders out here yesterday to evaluate the roof and find the source of the water leak.

It turns out the roof was put onto this house by intoxicated simians with no knowledge of physics and/or static design. Our roof pitch is insufficient for the snow to slide off (the builder said it's such a low pitch that it might as well be a flat roof), and there's so little insulation under the roof that the bottom layer of snow melts very quickly. We had 20-degree weather yesterday, and there was a layer of running water under the snow. It melts merrily, flows to the edge of the roof, freezes into a nice crust of ice, and the water running up behind it just sort of pools behind the ice and then finds nooks and crannies to yield to gravity and come down into the house.

The source of the troubles is one spot on the roof where the roofing nails have popped up due to ice pressure, and the pooling water goes right down the nail holes and into the plywood of the wall below.

I asked the roofer what he'd do if it was his place, and he said, "build a roof on top of the old one with sufficient and uniform pitch to it." They measured out the roof, talked the details out with me, and gave me an estimate for the work that would be required.

Sixteen thousand dollars, give or take.

They're planning to extend the peak of the roof by about six feet, build a new shingled roof on top of the new structure, and insulate the old roof below. Work can start in January, since they don't need to take the old roof down, and nothing will be exposed to the elements.

We could have the old roof repaired for quite a bit less than that, but the problem would only resurface, since the issue with the roof is basically built-in, and I want to only spend the money once for doing it right, instead of spending less more often for half-assed work.

So, that's basically it. The two minor leaks at least have stopped, but Quinn's room has water dripping down in two more spots, and is basically uninhabitable for a toddler. His room is right below the junction of the upper and lower roofs, the spot where the water comes into the plywood, so it's taking the brunt of the damage. Today, I'll be relocating him into Lyra's room temporarily, and she'll have her crib in our bedroom again until that room has a proper roof over it once more.

I'm trying not to get too awfully cranked up about it. We can pursue action against the inspector who signed off on the sale, and the seller who almost certainly failed to disclose the water problems (the roof has signs of being repaired before in the troublesome spot), but I'm not holding my breath waiting for a stream of dollars.

On the plus side, the house is warm and dry except for one room, the fridge is full, and the holidays are around the corner, so all is well. When I used to go to Barnes and Noble in Knoxville with Quinn, I couldn't pry him away from the wooden train tracks in the kiddie book section, so this Christmas, he's getting a train play table of his own. I'll have to put it together clandestinely, and the size of it doesn't lend itself to wrapping, but I'm looking forward to seeing his face when he sees what Santa crammed down the chimney for him.

best spot in the house.

2007-12-17T11:57:00.003-08:00

Dachshunds have an innate ability to seek out the warmest and most comfortable spot in any given dwelling, and then claim it as their own.

We'll have to watch out, lest we have the smell of singed fur wafting through the place...there's a roaring fire going in that wood stove, and it radiates quite a bit of heat.

(some) trouble in paradise.

2007-12-17T11:54:00.003-08:00

So we bought a nice place.

Trouble is, we have water dripping in three different rooms. Two water leaks are in the kitchen and living room, respectively, and one is in Quinn's room. That one's fairly major...paint coming off the ceiling in a nice dangling stripe, and water dripping down at a steady rate from the crack visible through the putty.

Now, one unknown roof leak could be coincidence. Two unknown roof leaks are more in the realm of the unlikely. Three different ones, however, are firmly in "Failure to Disclose" territory. We're currently getting an estimate from a roofing company for roof repair or replacement, and after that it's time to get a lawyer, I'm afraid. It's a metal roof, and I haven't the faintest clue as to replacement cost for the entire building. The same company is going to slap a new roof onto our garage for $2700-ish, so extrapolating from that, I'd guess it would cost ten grand to redo the whole house. Let's hope they can patch what's leaking, so we can delay the big cash outlay for a little while.

Nothing gives me the warm and fuzzies like spending close to two hundred grand on a house, burning up a few more grand to move the entire kit 'n kaboodle, and then having to look at a roof replacement not three weeks after move-in date.

The house itself is everything we wanted--spacious, on a good plot, and lots of big rooms. The roof issue, however, is knocking a bit off the gilding.

Ah, well...gotta roll with the punches at this point. We still own the place in Knoxville, but moving everything back to the way it was is not an option.

We had a Nor'Easter yesterday, and the snow in the yard is still two feet in some spots. The doggies flat refuse to go outside into the cold, even though the driveway is plowed. They stealthily try to find spots in the house for their business, so I had to physically throw them out of the house this morning and leave them in the snow for a little while.

I'm sure I'll look back onto this with a laugh come summer...but right now, I feel like washing down a large valium with some bourbon.

winter wonderland.

2007-12-14T07:51:00.003-08:00

Here are some pictures of the new Munchkin Wrangler Central, as it appeared this morning.

This is the front of the house:

Here's one side, by the hot tub room:

This is another shot of the side, looking past the hot tub room towards the forward edge of the property. There are fifty yards of trees between the edge of the house and the dirt road that leads past the property.

Here's the back of it. The hot tub room is slightly to the right of center, and the structure all the way to the right is a storage shed for tools and firewood.

Lots of floor and storage space, two independent propane furnaces, two big cast-iron wood stoves, a garage and tool shop, and ten-point-something acres around it (mostly stretching out behind the house.)

Oh, yeah...here's our driveway in its current state. Guess I ought to get off the computer and shovel some snow.

alas, no (fast) intarwebz yet.

2007-12-14T04:33:00.003-08:00

The installer for Hughesnet showed up last night for a site survey, but he won't be able to do the install until Wednesday morning. In the meantime, there's dial-up.

Strangely enough, I've discovered that I really don't need to spend a ton of time online. I download my email and then read and reply to it offline, and my blogroll check via Google Reader takes all of five minutes. My blog posts are done offline through Windows Live Writer, which is a pretty handy program. All in all, I really only need to connect whenever I want to look up something specific (like movie times for our date night tonight--we're going out to dinner and to see "The Golden Compass"), so there's really no pressing need to be connected all the time.

That, of course, makes me wonder as to how I have managed to waste away entire mornings on the Internet with the old DSL connection before...

The windshield on the Munchkin Mover has a three-foot crack in it. It took some damage from debris on the way up to NH, a little star-shaped crack in the lower right corner. When I went out for some odds and ends yesterday, the temperature difference (12 degrees outside, heater at full blast inside) must have encouraged that crack to expand violently. I looked down for a moment to fiddle with the heater or radio, and when I looked up again, the crack had suddenly expanded clean across the lower half of the windshield, right to left, roughly following the temperature line of the front defrosting vent. It'll be replaced on Monday morning, to the tune of $210...just another item on the "Holy Shit, That Was Expensive" list that has been this move.

teh intarwebz are coming.

2007-12-11T05:17:00.003-08:00

Not until Thursday afternoon, unfortunately. Until then, we continue to suck watermelons through straws via dial-up.

My personal web page is now defunct, since we canceled our DSL service in K-town. I have the whole thing backed up locally, so as soon as we have our new service up and running, I'll transfer it over.

Walked into L.L. Bean yesterday, saw that the cheapest jacket I liked was $199, walked right back out, and went to WallyWorld. Got two new winter jackets (including a kick-ass canvas jacket that looks very Firefly) for a little over $50. Hooray for Asian clothing sweatshops, I say. We need full sets of winter tires on both our vehicles, which is just going to be another item on the long list of expenses for this move, so I don't need to be spending two bills on a jacket when I can get two perfectly adequate ones right down the street for a quarter of that.

So I hear that somewhere in the U.S. of A., a guy walked into a mall and offed eight people before eating his gun. Somewhere else, a guy shot some folks in a church, and then got center-punched by a member of the congregation at church #2 before making it more than fifty feet into the building. Hmmm....I wonder if there's a lesson there somewhere.

I've said it before, but it bears repeating: the only thing that will stop an armed attacker on the spot is a person with a gun of their own. Gun haters realize this as well, which is why they rarely ever suggest disarming the police. They, too, rely on the gun to protect themselves from harm--they just feel all high and mighty because they outsource the task.

The number of casualties at the site of an attempted mass shooting is usually determined by whether the gun used to stop the killer is already at the site, or whether it must be carried there in the holster of a police officer.

this planet is defective.

2007-12-09T18:29:00.003-08:00

This white glop covers us and freezes our innards! You didn't tell us this planet's axis tilts away from the sun! We demand you bring this planet up to standards!

(Kudos to Navigator Neb...err, anyone who can identify the reference.)

Everything's going fine. The house is coming together, and looks almost like an inhabitable dwelling now. Dogs are still somewhat confused by the snow, which spawned the above reference.

Oh, for those of you who know the area--we're in Enfield, close to Lebanon in the Upper Valley. When everything's squared away, I might even throw a little shindig for anyone within driving range who's interested in a meet-and-greet. With beer. And bourbon.

proof of life.

2007-12-08T13:53:00.003-08:00

I was going to compose a lengthy blog entry about the epic suck that was this move, but then I realized that every move sucks. "Oh, we moved north, and it sucked big rocks off the ground" is like writing "oh, I had a root canal, and it wasn't any fun."

In that spirit, I'll just leave you with some quick vignettes of a 27-foot moving truck with attached car chuffing up the inclines through Virginia and Pennsylvania at thirty miles an hour, two hotel stays with cranky kids and stressed-out adults, a night-time arrival at the destination and a moving truck with hitched car getting stuck on an icy uphill driveway, and a $500 expense for a professional team of movers to empty the truck for us. Next time we move, I'd just as soon burn all our stuff and buy everything new. The cost for the moving truck, unpacking crew, and the fuel costs on the way up (which probably total up to the cost of the rental itself--I haven't had the heart to add up all the fuel receipts yet) could have paid for a bunch of new furniture. The sight of a JH-sized "Super Mover" 27-foot U-Haul truck will cause me to flinch for the rest of my life.

And now I'll move on to other things.

I ordered satellite Internet for the new ranch, but the installer hasn't called us back to schedule an appointment yet, so I guess it'll be a few more days for fast Intarwebz. In the meantime, I'm dialed in through AOHell all 1990s style, through the phone line. We pay just about all of our bills online, so we needed some sort of rudimentary emergency Internet until the satellite folks slap that dish onto the side of the house.

We're still unpacking, and the house is still in disarray, but we're slowly restoring order out of the chaos. The area is concentrated awesome, even with the snow and the icy roads. It's very small-town New England, complete with village General Store. Lebanon is only twenty minutes away, which is just close enough to be convenient, and just far enough for us to be off the beaten track a little. Quinn loves the new place--lots more room to play, and Christmas trees right outside his window!--and Lyra doesn't care one way or the other as long as someone feeds her a bottle and plays Super Baby with her.

That's it for now--tons more work to do, and two kids to entertain. More later, when we get the satellite Internets.

how sad.

2007-11-30T14:25:00.003-08:00

Evel Knievel, dead at 69.

I wonder if they're going to do something cool with the casket, like shoot it over the Grand Canyon or something.

loading up the iron pig.

2007-11-30T03:25:00.003-08:00

I picked up the U-Haul moving truck yesterday evening.

It's a freaking pig. Huge, scuffed, with 150,000 miles on the odometer, and the handling characteristics of a dead sperm whale on a pair of roller skates. The cargo box is 24 feet long, but it looks bigger, like we could park Robin's Neon in there and still get all the furniture in behind it. Right now, that monster is parked on our two-car slab in front of the house, with the trailer hitch about four feet from our front door, and the nose of the truck sticks out into the street a good three feet. With all our junk in it, and Robin's car hitched to the back, I'll be shocked if we get more than eight miles to the gallon or go faster than 55 miles per hour.

Today, we'll be packing up the rest of the house, minus the bare essentials for the last night in our old abode. I have to return the DSL equipment to the Frontiernet office, so at some point today I'll have to pull the plug on Munchkin Wrangler Central, and box up the computers. We'll be offline for at least a week, since that's how long it'll take to have new service established at the new place.

The good news is that I've been in touch with an ISP up there that does wireless Ethernet, and it looks like we'll be able to tap into their network. All the bandwidth of DSL, and none of the latency or expense of satellite...that'd be the best of both worlds.

So, this thing is going offline for the big move as of today. If all goes well, I'll be posting again from the new place within a week.

(Oh, and CrankyProf? Damn you all to hell...I've had an endless loop of the Ballad of the Green Berets with your alternate "Flying Baby" lyrics playing in my head since yesterday.)

de-christianized?

2007-11-29T09:03:00.003-08:00

One of the folks commenting on my blog post about the current discontent in France said something that I'd like to address in a separate post. He claimed that Europeans were de-Christianized.

In reality, that's about the opposite of the true situation. You see, Europe is overwhelmingly Christian, at least on paper. Most European countries have something the US lacks (and that many evangelicals would love to see), namely an establishment of Christianity as the official state religion, codified into law.

Take Germany as an example. In Germany, you're sorted into Catholic or Protestant (Lutheran), depending on the professed faith of your parents (who are either Catholic or Lutheran depending on the faith of their parents, and so on.) The state takes "church tax" out of your paycheck, which goes to the church of your denomination directly. You can opt out of church tax by leaving the church altogether, but that requires some paperwork and an official declaration, so it's a bit of a hassle.

Most Germans are what I call "socially religious". Church membership is impressed upon you from birth, church taxes are withheld automatically, and most Germans don't think church to be a big deal. They merely congregate there whenever there's an official family occasion, like a christening, marriage, or funeral, but on the whole, Germans (and most Europeans) stay out of church for the rest of the year. Church is more a tradition and social convention than something into which you invest active participation and thought.

As a result, Christianity is not only the dominant faith in Europe , but also a stagnating faith. Almost everyone belongs to one of the Big Two denominations on paper, but the whole thing is just something to enjoy some tradition and ritual when the family gets a new addition. You see, the clergy get paid through the church tax, and they get the same monthly check whether they hold a good sermon, a bad sermon, or no sermon at all. This stagnation of religion is despite the official status of it, and probably because of the financial support of the state for it.

Contrast this with the United States, which has no form of direct state support for religion whatsoever, and the picture is a little different. In the US, churches are competing for congregations in a free market situation, and as a result, American Christians have far more choice, and far more active religious lives, than their European "paper Christian" counterparts.

It seems like the best way to have a faith stagnate is to intertwine it with government, rely on the state as a revenue intermediary, and then have the clergy get complacent because they no longer need to attract and hold a congregation. Looks like having an officially declared "Christian nation" isn't all it's cracked up to be.

lordy, not again.

2007-11-28T06:17:00.003-08:00

Another day, another genius arrested for trying to pass a million-dollar bill as legal tender.

What really slays me about this particular incident is the picture of the million-dollar bill in question:

There's not just one, but three marks from a counterfeit detector pen on that thing. Someone actually had to use the detector pen to ascertain the counterfeit nature of the bill.

I'm starting to think that we need to look into those Soylent Green factories, 'cause that's all some folks are good for. In this case, the folks on both sides of that bank counter would make fine candidates.

score: citizen 1, robot revenuer 1.

2007-11-27T05:46:00.003-08:00

I'm not a fan of the revenuers. That includes the red-light cameras at certain local intersections, which are not there for public safety, but for revenue generation.

However, I believe that you have to pick your battles, and that this particular battle turned out to be a really dumb one to fight.

On the minus side:

--Mr. Clark is charged with a felony, which will mean the permanent loss of his voting and Second Amendment rights. (No more guns, ever, and therefore no legal way to defend yourself or your family for the rest of your life.)

--The incident is likely to cost him a fair amount of money. There's the legal costs, the restitution he'll be ordered to pay (the shot-up camera), the $500-plus hunting rifle that's now KPD property, and the loss of income that'll result from Mr. Clark having to go to jail and/or losing his job as a result. There's also the reluctance of employers to hire folks with felony records, which may severely curb Mr. Clark's income potential for the rest of his life.

On the plus side:

One robot camera out of commission for a few days. The article notes that a replacement will be installed within a day or two.

Sometimes,a principled stand involves the risk of arrest and felony conviction. There are scenarios where I would gladly chance those. Seeing a red light camera out of commission for three days is not one of them.

Oh, and all the political/philosophical aspects aside: as a gun owner who considers himself responsible, I have to be appalled at the non-existent safety-mindedness of Mr. Clark. This is not about "Nerf World" and "safety Nazis", but about the judgment of someone who would shoot four .30-06 rounds through a thin metal box at an intersection which is ringed by businesses, residential properties, and a busy Interstate. Can you be 100% sure of your backstop in that kind of location?

ugliest bride ever.

2007-11-27T04:00:00.003-08:00

Here's a picture of Haider al-Bahadli, terrorist suspect and Jihadi Master of Disguise.

He was busted in Baghdad by U.S. troops, who thought his "wedding convoy" a little suspicious. They stopped the convoy, and knew something wasn't quite right when the "groom" refused to unveil the face of his bride.

On second thought, can you blame him?

Either way, I wish the new couple the best of luck. Haider al-Bahadli's reputation among the Jihadist community may just get a little dented over the worldwide publication of pictures depicting the fearsome warrior in a lace dress.

news from surrender-monkey land.

2007-11-27T02:34:00.003-08:00

The immigrant youths are rioting in the suburbs of Paris again, showing their host nation how truly grateful they are for the hospitality and all the free government stuff.

The reason for the latest riots?

Two immigrant kids ride an unregistered motorcycle at top speed, without helmets, and ignoring traffic rules. They run a red light, and crash into a police car that was inconveniently occupying the same intersection through which they had intended to zoom. End result: two dead kids, one dented police car.

Now the other immigrant youth are torching cars and throwing rocks at police because they feel that the police, rather than stupidity, killed their two buddies. Apparently, the infrastructure is to blame as well, because the rioters torched not only police cars and a police station, but also a library, a kindergarten, and a bunch of stores.

The French aren't exactly strangers to violent pogroms, and the current immigrant trend of pooping into (and torching) one's own nest may just have a severe backlash in a few years. Then again, the demographics in Europe are shifting to a point where it may just be the native French who will be at the receiving end when that happens.

the vw beetle of the skies.

2007-11-26T12:03:00.003-08:00

You know you're beyond help when you geek out over something like this:

That is a screenshot of Flight Simulator X, specifically the virtual cockpit of a meticulously recreated Cessna 150L built in 1971. A bunch of French guys spent about 2,000 hours combined on the creation of that little two-seater, and the end result looks pretty much exactly like a well-used 150 with thirty-five years of flight school service and pleasure flights on its back. If you download the large version of the picture, you can see that the original dashboard is faded to a dirty gray in some spots, and that the 1970s salmon-colored trim is ripped near the top of the dash. Everything works like it does in a real 150--every switch and toggle. Even the key in the ignition has a well-worn Cessna factory fob that looks like the key's been changing hands frequently for a few decades. The key fob and the microphone wire even swing with the bank angle of the plane. That's attention to detail.

I guess I'm getting old. Tooling around the pattern in that beat-to-shit little C150, with its basic VFR instrumentation and complete lack of modern avionics amenities is more fun to me these days than loading up some combat simulator where you can strap on an F/A-18 and blot enemy fighters from the sky.

Oh, for those of you who have FS9 or FS X: that little Cessna 150 is freeware, available here.

t-5 days.

2007-11-26T11:25:00.003-08:00

I'll be picking up the moving truck on Friday, and then we're rolling north on Saturday and Sunday. There's much packing to be done yet, but my brother is flying in for unpaid slave labor...err, a family visit on Wednesday, and he'll be a big help.

One fly in the ointment for us is the limited availability of high-speed Internet. We're used to our DSL connection, and out at our new place, the only options are dial-up or satellite Internet. I do have some dusty old 56k modems around, but I'd rather not revert to the computing Pleistocene. Satellite is fine and dandy for bandwidth, but it sucks for latency (big deal for World of Warcraft and Battlefield 2), and it comes with installation fees and monthly plans that are measured in "buckets of precious metals".

I was already resigned to having to dial into the Internets again like it's the frakkin' 1990s, but apparently there's a startup company in the area that provides wireless ethernet. The current owner of the place says that his neighbor has it (described as mysterious "waves from the sky" that are "not satellite"), so chances are good that we'll be able to tap into it as well. I dashed off an inquiry to the company in question, and their rate plans do not require metric tons of cash. We'll see.

Push comes to shove, we'll be back on dial-up, and chalk it up as a sacrifice in exchange for privacy, living space, and ten acres of Ours.

can't pick your family.

2007-11-23T05:30:00.003-08:00

The Piece of Human Garbage Award for the month of November goes to one Mr. Stephen Gerard, from Nashua, NH.

Stephen's brother is serving in Iraq. In his brother's absence, Stephen pocketed a few items from the home while he was over to help his sister-in-law clean. One of the pocketed items was his brother's military ID.

Stephen used the military ID to make a dozen or so withdrawals from two different bank accounts. One was an account set up for families of military personnel, which he cleaned out to the tune of $1,012.82. The other was an account set up by the family for his 1-year-old niece, for another $325.

He also took jewelry from his sister-in-law to sell at local pawnshops, again using his brother's military identification for ID.

Let's hope Stephen's brother comes home safe and soon from Iraq, so he can have a word with his sibling, and maybe test the hypothesis that "blood is thicker than water".

this i believe.

2007-11-21T08:11:00.003-08:00

I believe that profit is not a dirty word, and "making money" is not a low or dishonorable motivation. The desire to make a buck is what has driven progress throughout history. I believe that commerce, the voluntary exchange of goods and values, is the best motivator for peaceful cooperation, and that the restriction of commerce promotes strife and poverty.

I believe that my life is my own. I am no one's property or sacrificial animal. I have a right to exist for my own sake, and I don't have to be ashamed of it. I do not exist to be numbered, counted, categorized, stamped, herded, and milked. I am not a cog in a machine, a sheep in a herd, or a number on a census.

I believe that taxation is equal to forced labor. I believe there is no moral or practical difference between taking the wages of a day or a week from a person to pay for a schoolhouse, and ordering them at gunpoint to spend a day or a week building that schoolhouse directly.

I believe that property rights are the basis for all other rights. If I am not free to dispose of the fruits of my labor as I see fit, all other rights are meaningless. Those who deny property rights cannot claim to be defenders of individual rights.

I believe that the term "individual rights" is a tautology. Rights can only ever be individual.

I believe that there is only one proper role for government, and that is the protection of individual rights. I also believe that no government in history has ever limited itself to that role.

I believe that my neighbor has the right to worship God, Allah, Vishnu, Odin, the Great Pumpkin, or any other deity. I have the right to worship all of those gods, or none of them, and neither of us has the right to force our beliefs on the other. That includes trying to make me live by the tenets of your faith under the guise of "majority rights"--one man's pork dinner, bourbon, or steak is another man's abomination, sin, or blasphemy. Worry about your own standing with your deity, not mine.

I believe that a crime without a victim is no crime at all. If an action doesn't violate another's person or property, no crime has been committed.

I believe that thoughts can never be a crime, nor can they be an excuse for a more severe punishment. I believe that beating a person because you want their wallet is every bit as despicable as beating them because you don't like the color of their skin.

I believe that no group has rights beyond those of any of its individual members. There is no magic or alchemy that gives a mob special rights that trump the rights of the individual.

I believe that democracy and majority rule are not automatic mandates for anyone. Without a properly constrained government, fifty-one percent of the tribe can vote themselves the right to pee in the cornflakes of the other forty-nine percent. A tyranny of the majority is still a tyranny.

I believe that any economic system that isn't centered around rational self-interest is fatally flawed. No amount of altruism or appeals to charity will motivate a man like the prospect of making money for himself.

I believe that forced charity is no charity at all, and forced virtue cannot claim credit for itself anymore than a eunuch can claim credit for chastity.

I believe that it is not my right or obligation to raise and educate your children, nor is it your right or obligation to raise and educate mine.

I believe that it is none of my business what goes on in my neighbor's bedroom, nor is it any of his business what goes on in mine, as long as no one's right are violated. Bugger a goat for all I care, as long as it is above the age of consent.

I believe that you cannot have a right to anything that necessitates a financial obligation on the part of someone else. You have a right to life, liberty, and honestly acquired property, not to any sort of monetary or material thing. The former merely requires your fellow citizens to leave you alone; the latter requires them to work for you free of charge.

I believe that it is the height of ignorance to judge an individual not by their actions, but by their ancestry, gender, nationality, religion, dietary preferences, or the melanin content of their skin.

I believe that emotions are not substitutes for facts when it comes to describing and understanding reality. Wishing something to be something other than what it is won't make it so, no matter how many people wish for it.

I believe that the most effective way to ruin something is to put the government in charge of it. I also believe that the most effective way to corrupt a religion is to mix it with government.

I believe that the desire to become President should automatically be a disqualifying factor.

I believe that anyone in favor of "free" government services has no understanding of economics.

I believe that patriotism isn't measured by flags or bumper stickers, but by your willingness to defend the rights of someone with whom you disagree completely and profoundly.

I believe that freedom of speech especially extends to unpopular or repulsive speech. Popular and uncontroversial speech does not need protection; dissent does.

I believe that the IQ of a crowd is the IQ of its least intelligent member, divided by half. I do not believe in the wisdom of the masses--intelligence is not an additive quality, but force is, and the threat or application of force is the only tool available to any crowd.

I believe that I am the only person qualified to run my life, that I have the absolute right to be my own master, and that no amount of laws and Constitutions ever written can grant me that right or take it away.

This I believe.

gag me with a spoon.

2007-11-20T10:56:00.003-08:00

SCOTUS is going to hear D.C. vs. Heller.

This will be the first time in seventy years the Supreme Court has considered a Second Amendment issue, and the decision in this case could have interesting implications for gun laws nationwide.

anyone have irwin mainway's number?

2007-11-20T09:04:00.003-08:00

The holiday season is upon us, and with it the inevitable chorus of quavering voices from the consumer safety folks. I greatly enjoy their "Ten Most Dangerous Toys" list every year, as it serves as an excellent guide for holiday gifts.

I can't read articles about toy safety anymore without channeling Mr. Irwin Mainway, president of Mainway Toys, and his fantastic line of hazardous toys. My all-time favorites are his "Johnny Space Commander Helmet" (a plastic bag and a rubber band), Johnny Combat Action costume (with real M-1 Garand rifle), the "Invisible Pedestrian" Halloween costume, and the Johnny Human Torch costume (a bag of oily rags and a lighter.)

Here's one of the old Irwin Mainway appearances on SNL, back when the show was funny.

Consumer Reporter: Good evening, and welcome to the holiday edition of "Consumer Probe". Our topic tonight is unsafe toys for children. For instance, this little bow and arrow set. [ holds up ] Pull the rubber suctions off, and the arrows become deadly missiles.

[ cut to full shot, showing Irwin Mainway seated to Joan's right ]

We have with us tonight, Mr. Irwin Mainway, President of Mainway Toys. Uh, Mr. Mainway, your company manufactures the following so-called harmless playthings: Pretty Peggy Ear-Piercing Set, Mr. Skin-Grafter, General Tron's Secret Police Confession Kit, and Doggie Dentist. And what about this innocent rubber doll, which you market under the name Johnny Switchblade? [ holds up doll ] Press his head, and two sharp knives spring from his arms. [ demonstrates ] Mr. Mainway, I'm afraid this is, by no means, a very safe toy.

Irwin Mainway: Okay, Miss, I wanna correct you, alright. The full name of this product, as it appears in stores all over the county, is Johnny Switchblade: Adventure Punk. I mean, nothing goes wrong.. little girls buy 'em, you know, they play games, they make up stories, nobody gets hurt. I mean, so Barbie takes a knife once in a while, or Ken gets cut. You know, there's no harm in that. I mean, as far as I can see, you know?

Consumer Reporter: Alright. Fine. Fine. Well, we'd like to show you another one of Mr. Mainway's products. It retails for $1.98, and it's called Bag O' Glass. [ holds up bag of glass ] Mr. Mainway, this is simply a bag of jagged, dangerous, glass bits.

Irwin Mainway: Yeah, right, it's you know, it's glass, it's broken glass, you know? It sells very well, as a matter of fact, you know? It's just broken glass, you know?

Consumer Reporter: [ laughs ] I don't understand. I mean, children could seriously cut themselves on any one of these pieces!

Irwin Mainway: Yeah, well, look - you know, the average kid, he picks up, you know, broken glass anywhere, you know? The beach, the street, garbage cans, parking lots, all over the place in any big city. We're just packaging what the kids want! I mean, it's a creative toy, you know? If you hold this up, you know, you see colors, every color of the rainbow! I mean, it teaches him about light refraction, you know? Prisms, and that stuff! You know what I mean?

Consumer Reporter: So, you don't feel that this product is dangerous?

Irwin Mainway: No! Look, we put a label on every bag that says, "Kid! Be careful - broken glass!" I mean, we sell a lot of products in the "Bag O'" line.. like Bag O' Glass, Bag O' Nails, Bag O' Bugs, Bag O' Vipers, Bag O' Sulfuric Acid. They're decent toys, you know what I mean?

Consumer Reporter: Well, I guess we could say that all of your toys are really unsafe and should rightfully be banned from the market. I guess I would just like to know what happened to the good ol' teddy bear.

Irwin Mainway: Hold on a minute, sister. I mean, we make a teddy bear. It's right here. [ picks up giant teddy bear ] It's got a nice little feature here, you see? I'll hold it up here. We call it a Teddy Chainsaw Bear. [ revs chainsaw in teddy bear's stomach ] I mean, a kid plays with saws, he can cut logs with it, you know what I mean.

Consumer Reporter: Well, this is certainly a very sad situation. One of the precious joys of Christmas warped by a ruthless profiteer like yourself.

Irwin Mainway: Well, that's just your opinion, you know what I mean?

Consumer Reporter: Well, I just don't understand why you can't make harmless toys like these alphabet blocks. [ points to blocks ]

Irwin Mainway: C'mon, this is harmless? Alright, okay, you call this harmless? [ holds block in hand ] I mean.. [ plays with block and fakes injury ] Aagghh!! I got a splinter in here, look at that! This is wood! This is unsanded wood, it's rough!

Consumer Reporter: Alright, that's enough of this ridiculous display. [ holds toy phone ] Here is another creative toy, safe enough for a baby!

Irwin Mainway: [ grabs phone ] You say it's safe, I mean, look at this cord.. the kid is on the phone - "Hello? Hello?" - then.. [ twists cord around his neck, screams, and falls backward in chair ] You know what I mean? It's an example! You see my point, a dangerous toy like that?

Consumer Reporter: Well, let's try this one. What about this little foam play ball? I mean, even you, Mr. Mainway, can't find anything dangerous about this. Huh?

Irwin Mainway: [ takes ball, bounces it on table, then shoves it in his throat and feigns choking ]

Consumer Reporter: That's all the time we have for "Consumer Probe" this week.

[ show fades black ]

on naming weapons.

2007-11-19T16:52:00.003-08:00

JPG over at Expert Witness has a good piece up on the habit of some folks to name their weapons, and why he doesn't.

I've never given a name to any of my guns, because I've never given a name to any of my hammers or screwdrivers. They're tools, plain and simple. They may be more interesting, more important, and more fun than most of my other tools, but they're still mechanical devices designed for a specific purpose. It bothers me just a little when people name their guns, because it completely plays into the hoplophobe's mindset of the gun as a device with some sort of imbued and independent spirit.

For some reason, I don't mind the naming thing with swords. A sword is both more personal and more unique than a firearm. When the sword reigned supreme as the ultimate personal weapon, no two of them were ever alike, so I guess you could say that a sword has more unique attributes than the firearm. Mass-produced handguns, however customized, don't really strike me as having much of a unique character, however attached their owners may be to them.

In the end, however, even the most unique sword is merely a tool as well, just an inert piece of metal. It's the spirit, skill, and intent of the user that turns a gun or a sword into a weapon. To speak with Robert Heinlein, "there are no dangerous weapons, only dangerous men."

(Edit: Naming a gun "Vera", however, is totally cool and awesome.)

oh, the huge manatee.

2007-11-16T07:30:00.003-08:00

I got word that Neal Boortz just read my essay "Why the Gun is Civilization" on the air during his nationally syndicated radio program...and attributed it to "Major Caudill."

*le sigh*

discworld, eh?

2007-11-15T19:34:00.003-08:00

Quite a few of the folks on my blogroll seem to be fond of Terry Pratchett's "Discworld" books. To my everlasting shame, I've never actually gotten around to those.

I'm currently finishing up Stephen King's Dark Tower opus, but will be in need of another multi-volume saga when I'm finished. All you Pratchett fans--why is it imperative that I read those books? Give me your best one-sentence salespitch to reel me in.

saudi justice.

2007-11-15T19:12:00.003-08:00

A Saudi woman is gang-raped by seven of her countrymen.

The case goes to trial. The woman's rapists get two to ten years in prison.

The woman gets two hundred lashes and six months in prison...for violating the country's sex segregation laws, by being in the car of a man who wasn't a relative.

Why are these people our "allies" again?

I swear, that black shit in the ground has given wealth and influence to a dynasty and culture whose adherents would otherwise still live in tents and slurp goat eye soup. Somebody please invent a car that runs on nuclear fusion, so we can tell the Saudis--and the rest of the Middle East--to go hump some opposite-sex camels (wouldn't want to violate sex segregation laws!), and get their embassies off our soil.

These folks dabbled in algebra when most of Europe was still bashing each other's skulls in over the leftover scraps of the Roman Empire. Somewhere, somehow, their culture has taken a hard U-turn since then.

notes from a weekday.

2007-11-14T18:41:00.003-08:00

I didn't want to leave the house today, but Quinn kept bugging me to "go to the store, daddy?" all morning, so I finally caved in and saddled up the War Wagon just before lunch.

We went to the neighborhood grocery store, where I picked up some alibi Diet Rite, and some sandwich components. In the cheese aisle, where I was browsing for sliced Muenster, Quinn gazed at the variety of cheeses of all kinds, and kept repeating "Cheese!" in a hushed, reverent sort of tone.

After the tenth awed "Cheese!", I nodded and said, "Yeah. What a friend we have in cheeses!"

The older lady over by the yogurt section shot me a scandalized glance, but I think I heard her chuckle as we moved off with our sliced Muenster.

Other activities for the day: keeping the kids fed and content, making lunch for Quinn and myself, cleaning up the kitchen, and using the brief hour of "I can't believe they're both napping at the same time!" to practice ILS approaches with the Baron 58 in "pea soup" meteorological conditions. That's about a typical weekday for me.

mad mothers.

2007-11-13T11:47:00.003-08:00

I've been noticing increasingly outlandish campaigns by MADD over the last few years, and I've come to the firm conclusion that the Mothers Against Drunk Driving have morphed into the new American Temperance Society.

I read about a recent court case where two parents let their son have a party for his sixteenth birthday at their house. Knowing that the kids would most likely drink clandestinely at a different house otherwise, the parents let the guests drink beer at their house. They collected all the car keys from the guests upon arrival, and the party commenced, roughly half the teenagers present having some beer in the course of the evening. Everyone was picked up at the end of the evening, and there were no accidents or drunk driving arrests.

Well, somebody told their parents about this event, someone called the cops on the parents, and they were charged with Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor, thirty charges. The parents were convicted and sentenced to two years in jail each.

Now, whether you think they did a smart thing or a dumb thing by letting those kids have beer in a supervised and controlled setting, think about the implications of that punishment for a moment. Here you have two adults who will go to jail for two years, most likely lose their house and livelihoods as a result, and two teenagers who will be separated from their parents and forced to live with relatives or in foster care. Now, if the original reason for the law was the avoidance of harm to children, can such a punishment truly said to be in their interest?

There was a "Point/Counterpoint" talk on one of the news networks, where an advocate for the family squared off against a representative from MADD. The MADD guy (huh? when did he become a mother?) basically parroted that it was a just sentence, because "they broke the law". His entire argument was centered around that mantra, and he repeated it as much as he could. He tried to back up his argument with the anecdote of a kid from the same high school as those partygoers, who had died recently in a drunk-driving accident, and therefore there was some sort of message that needed to be sent.

From where I'm sitting, it looks like the parents did their level best to prevent drunk driving, and they succeeded--none of the kids got behind the wheel of a car, whether they had been drinking or not. The absolute best way to increase the drunk driving fatalities among teenagers is to forbid them from drinking altogether, thereby assuring they meet in out-of-the-way places without supervision, and then get killed on the way home.

It's funny how many conservatives can get bent out of shape about the liberal approach to guns and gun safety education. That approach is "Don't touch it, don't even think about it, and pretend it doesn't exist until you're twenty-one." Well, many of the conservatives use the very same approach with alcohol and sex...they know it makes no sense to introduce the thrill of the forbidden and couple it with a lack of education when it comes to guns, but they're shocked and dismayed when the same approach results in the US having the leading rates of youth drunk driving deaths and teenage pregnancies in the industrialized world.

Anyway, MADD is no longer against drunk driving, they're against all forms of alcohol consumption that could conceivably result in someone driving while intoxicated--which means they're against alcohol consumption, period. If they were for the prevention of drunk driving, they wouldn't applaud two parents having their lives destroyed and getting locked up with drug dealers and rapists for two years--and their kids having to go into foster care--because they told themselves, "Hey, the kids are going to have beer anyway...why don't we make sure they do it without harming themselves or others?"

intangibles.

2007-11-12T04:34:00.003-08:00

When I put my little "Five Airplanes" thingie together, I started thinking about what really made my particular choices stand out among all the other excellent aircraft I could have picked. Then I came to the conclusion that the same thing that makes these particular human-made tools remarkable is also the thing that makes any great human-made object remarkable, and that's intangibles.

Every once in a while, an engineer or artist manages to create something that is far more than merely the sum of its parts, something that performs far better than the addition of its specifications on a sheet of paper may suggest. Aviation is full of such creations, for example. There's no specific list of features that made the Douglas DC-3 the legend it is, but rather the way those features add up to something above and beyond sterile numbers about performance, cargo capacity, or range. A well-designed piece of machinery has much in common with a good musical symphony—you can dissect them into numbers and notes, but when you hear the thrumming of a DC-3s Cyclone or Twin Wasp engines, or the opening motif of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, you realize that you're witness to something significant.

Almost every one of us has favorites among our selection of tools, and most of the time, we can't precisely put our finger on the exact reason why we prefer our favorites over any other tool for a particular job. The more vital the task, the more attached we are to the tool in question, and there are few issues more vital and personal than self-defense. Therefore, people tend to get very attached to their choice of sidearm, for example, and that's the main factor behind the endless "brand war" discussions we see on the discussion boards dedicated to guns and self-defense.

A person's preference in personal sidearms is unassailable. You cannot convince a man of the inferiority of his pistol by dragging out sterile data if he's been carrying that pistol through thick and thin, war and peace, calm and danger, for the last ten or twenty or thirty years. Their reason for picking that particular gun might be insufficient for you, and your personal preference may beat theirs on paper when it comes to empirical factors like capacity, weight, or loading speed, but you cannot overcome intangibles with mere numbers.

Take my personal preference as an example. I've often talked about the virtues of my carry gun, the Smith & Wesson K-frame with a three-inch barrel. In a toe-to-toe battle of statistics, any Glock fan could beat me soundly with sheer numbers. A Glock 19, for example, is lighter, holds two and a half times more ammunition, and is much faster to reload than my S&W Model 13. On paper, the Glock 19 is the superior self-defense weapon, beating the Model 13 in nearly every category. So why do I carry the Smith instead of a Glock 19?

Why, intangibles, of course.

The M13 has a heft to it that's lacking in the Glock. It has just the right amount of weight—heavy enough to absorb recoil and make follow-up shots easy, and light enough to not be a burden on the belt. Yeah, the Glock is lighter, but the Smith is light enough, striking just the right balance between shooting and carrying comfort. It doesn't need to weigh twelve ounces, because it's not a pocket gun. (On a side note, if you can tell the difference between a 25-ounce gun and a 30-ounce gun on your belt, you need a better belt and holster, not a lighter gun.) Now, how do you quantify the "proper" weight for a gun? The simple answer is that you can't, because "proper" in this case depends on the purpose of the gun, and the opinion of the person who has to carry it. To me, a three-inch K-frame on the belt is just right, but to someone else, a fifteen-ounce J-frame in the front pocket is just right. Can you argue who's correct, armed with just a spec sheet with numbers on it? Of course you can't.

The M13 has other intangibles that make it superior to the Glock in my mind. It's more reliable—not hugely so, since the Glock is a very reliable design as well—but enough to make me trust it just a smidge more. It's more adaptable to my hand, and balances better because it's less top-heavy. It's easier to verify as loaded—all I have to do is to glance at the back of the cylinder. It's a self-contained system—there are no magazines to lug around, and no need to spend another $200 on a sufficient stash of them. It lets me keep all my brass, every last piece, and I don't have to bend down and spend fifteen minutes picking up empties every time I go to the range. It's less ammunition-sensitive—I don't have to spend any time trying to find a load that feeds well, and I can load and unload it a hundred times a day without having to worry about bullet setback and marred brass or bullets. It holds less rounds than the Glock, but I'm a better shot with it because it makes me place those fewer rounds more judiciously—with the Glock, I always have the thought of "I got plenty more" in the back of my head, and it's easier to get sloppy with shot placement. It's more monolithic in construction—you can't put it out of battery by pushing the muzzle into an assailant, and it makes a better impact weapon in a pinch.

All of these factors put together add up to something that I don't get with any other carry gun, and that's something you can't really express with cold, hard data. The M13 on my belt gives me the warm-and-fuzzies in a way the Glock doesn't, and you will not be able to talk me out of one in exchange for the other by talking about capacity, weight, reloading speed, or anything else to which you can attach numbers.

The next time you read a discussion about Glock vs. 1911, pistol vs. revolver, Ford vs. Chevy, Piper vs. Cessna, New England vs. Dixie, or any other attempt to quantify intangibles and determine that "A is better than B", look at it as if they're trying to establish whether Beethoven's Fifth or Mozart's Symphony No.40 are the better compositions. Could there be a bigger waste of time?

a da vinci code.

2007-11-10T14:49:00.003-08:00

Apparently, if you put Da Vinci's The Last Supper on a turntable and play it backwards, there's a hidden musical message or something. "Kill Your Parents", or "The Earth is a Sphere", perhaps.

Proof positive that people can read hidden patterns and messages into anything if they look at it long enough (and if they want to find something badly enough.)

five airplanes.

2007-11-10T06:19:00.003-08:00

Edited and improved! Now with pictures!

I like airplanes. Since there's a "Five Airplanes" meme going around, I'm powerless to resist it. So, here are my five picks.

They're not in any order, though. There's a pure fighter, an attack jet, a piston-powered attack plane, a medium transport, and a light taildragger, so they all served a distinct purpose, and as such would be hard to measure up against each other in a "better than" contest. They're also largely planes that hardly ever make a "Top Five" list, except for the first one on the list.

Supermarine Spitfire

The sexiest fighter ever is the Supermarine Spitfire. There can be no argument about this; anyone who doesn't think that the Spitfire is to fighter aircraft what the Mona Lisa is to paintings simply has all of their taste in their mouth. It also had the capabilities to match its looks, which made it a supermodel with a punch. Fast, extremely maneuverable, and eminently adaptable, the various evolutions of the Spitfire were always at the top of the heap of piston-powered fighters in WWII, and with a good pilot behind the funny little ring-shaped stick, more than a match for anything the Jerries and Japs could put into the sky.

Douglas A-4 Skyhawk

The little attack jet known as the "Scooter" or "Bantam Bomber" hardly ever makes any "Top Ten" lists, but it's one of those designs they got just right for the intended purpose. Small, simple, agile, and robust, the A-4 was much loved by its pilots. A quarter the cost of an F-4 Phantom II, and with a wingspan so small that folding wings were not required for carrier use, the A-4 is a lot of capability in a well-engineered and balanced little package. A Skyhawk was the first jet airplane model I ever put together as a wee lad, and I've had an affinity for the A-4 ever since.

Douglas DC-3/C-47

Sure, it's slow and lumbering, it doesn't carry bombs, and it can't shoot down enemy fighters, but the DC-3 brought the bullets and the other stuff necessary for fighting a war. The hero of the early airlines, the DC-3 was the first passenger plane to make a profit on passengers alone. The DC-3 revolutionized air travel in the 1930s, and it delivered the goods for the proper Hitler-and-Tojo ass-kicking less than a decade later. The old "Gooney Bird" may not be sexy, but she's a great aircraft by any definition of the term.

Piper J-3 Cub

The Model T of aviation, the little taildragger served as a trainer for more pilots than any other aircraft. Clad in olive drab paint, it served with distinction as a messenger, reconnaissance, and light transport plane in WWII. The Cub's STOL capabilities are unmatched, and there's simply no better fixed-wing airplane for flying in the weeds. Cubs soldier on as pleasure aircraft, and there's still a remarkable number of them delivering the goods up in Alaska, where its STOL capabilities make it popular with bush pilots.

Grumman G-21 "Goose"

The Grumman G-21 started out intended as a "flying yacht" commuter plane for wealthy Long Island businessmen in the 1930s. World War II intervened, and the little seaplane was put to use as a naval patrol and SAR plane. In British service, it acquired its nickname "Goose". The G-21 can haul a fair bit of cargo almost anywhere, not being constrained by availability of airstrips, and many ex-military Gooses were happily snatched up by civilian operators, especially in Alaska and Canada. The Goose is a sturdy "land anywhere" utility plane that has no equal to this day when it comes to sheer fuctionality.

Those are my picks. They are, of course, entirely subjective, but I tried to think of the kind of airplane that was simply a superior tool for the job at hand at the time, not just the best-looking one.

hours of entertainment!

2007-11-10T05:48:00.003-08:00

In the wake of the latest Chinese toy recall ("Aqua Beads! Now with 150% more Date Rape Drugs!"), I'm fairly certain that if I had a buck for every stoner who rushed to WalMart to look for remaining Aqua Beads stock after hearing the news, I could probably buy some swank solid gold bathroom fixtures for the new house.

november 10, 1775.

2007-11-10T05:25:00.003-08:00

Happy birthday, United States Marine Corps!

all the cool kids are doing it, part XVIII

2007-11-09T05:07:00.003-08:00

Your Inner European is Dutch!

Open minded and tolerant.
You're up for just about anything.

Who's Your Inner European?

I have to admit to a strong affinity there. Lovely country, free-spirited culture, and friendly people. If I were to relocate to Europe again, I'd probably live in the Netherlands, albeit close enough to the border to be close to the family in Germany.

what’s so great about local rule?

2007-11-08T05:20:00.003-08:00

One of the most pervasive beliefs in conservative circles is the concept of "States' rights", and by extension, that of "local control". The idea here is that power, political and otherwise, ought to lie with the states, and the communities within those states. The Feds, nosy and pushy bastards they are, seem to make everything their business, and over the years, they've perverted the Commerce Clause and exploited the power of the purse to take control away from the states and communities.

One thing I won't dispute here, and that's the tendency of the federal government to usurp powers that were not intended for it by the framers of the Constitution. The Commerce Clause in particular has been "the clause for the cause" of unlimited federal involvement, as nowadays you are held to influence interstate commerce merely by growing your own plants in the backyard and selling them right on your curb to residents of your town. Government is only good at few things, but among those are self-justification and expansion, and the Hydra that is our Federal government has had more than two hundred years to grow some new heads.

That said, I have a bit of a problem with the whole concept of "States' rights". First of all, States (or any governments at any level) have no rights. States have powers. In a Constitutional Republic like ours, those powers are enumerated in the Constitution. The Tenth Amendment reads: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."

The federal government has, at least in theory, a very specific range of powers granted to it by the Constitution. It's essentially a "You May" list addressed to the Feds, and if a power is not listed on that parchment as having been delegated to it, the government may not engage in it, because it's not authorized by the States and the people to exercise it. (The Bill of Rights, as an addition to the Constitution, is a "You May Not" list, enumerating a bunch of things the government may not ever do.) Both those documents are a restriction on government, not on private citizens.

Politicians on both sides of the aisle routinely mistake the Constitution as a "You May" list addressed to the citizens, and that misconception is shared by the population at large, which is why even a Supreme Court justice can publically state that 'there is no Constitutional right to an abortion' without being laughed off the bench. Technically, he is correct, but conceptually, he's completely off the mark—citizen rights are not limited by the Constitution at all, only government powers are, and there's not a thing on that parchment about the government having the power to either prohibit or allow abortions. (I bet someone could pull some reasoning out of the hat in order to make abortion subject to the Commerce Clause, since damn near everything else falls under it these days.)

So far, so good. If the Feds don't have the power, then the States have it, or the people respectively, right?

The problem here is that states, counties, or even towns are no wiser than the federal government, and that a state legislature, county sheriff, or city council can—and will—trample an individual's rights just as effectively as a federal government, and maybe even more so. Local governments have given us Eminent Domain abuses (remember that it was Kelo vs. City of New London, not Kelo vs. The United States of America), slavery, denial of civil rights through Jim Crow laws, wholesale population disarmament in places like D.C. and Chicago, and a host of other abrogations of individual freedom. In many cities, the Good Ol' Boys' Club runs the show, and it's virtually impossible to get even into local government without being a member. The same holds true for counties and states, and it makes me wonder why people put so much faith into local government when they have such distrust of the federal bureaucracy. Government is a toxic mix of fiscal irresponsibility, self-interest, power lust, incompetence, and mediocrity. The question is this: if you don't trust one government to run your life, why trust any government to run your life? They're all the same in concept and execution.

Now, one thing many folks on the Right and Left have in common (as much as they hate to admit any commonalities) is the belief that a local government can effectively legislate itself whatever kind of society it wants, and that the Constitution and its Amendments only apply to the federal government. In other words, the Feds may not infringe on the right to keep and bear arms, but if a locality decides that it wants to ban guns, that ought to be its right. Conversely, if a locality wants to establish school prayer, ban abortion, or bar non-Christians from public office, then that too should be its right.

Fortunately, Article Six of the Constitution specifies that it (the Constitution) is the supreme law of the land, and that states and localities are only free to pass laws that do not conflict with the Constitution. In other words, if our Constitution prohibits an infringement on the freedom of speech or the right to keep and bear arms, and a state or city passes a law that infringes on those rights, the Constitution takes precedence, and the local law is null and void. (Don't ask me how the gun bans in D.C. and Chicago have managed to remain in place without being challenged all the way to SCOTUS and dismissed by the Nine Bench-Wraiths…then again, I have a good idea as to why that is. See "government" and "toxic mix" above.)

The supremacy of the federal Constitution makes sense—it's the only thing that makes sense. If the Constitution exists to limit government and protect the rights of the individual citizen, then it makes no sense at all to say that "States rights" or local rule can trump it. Every last one of us (except the folks in D.C.) is resident of a state and a city or town, and if those entities can override and contradict the Constitution willy-nilly, then the parchment is completely worthless. It would be like signing a lease for a house, and then violating the terms of the lease at will, claiming that the contract only applies to the house as a whole, and not to the individual rooms therein.

Conversely, if you trust your neighbors, townsfolk, or same-staters to run your life, what difference does it make to trust the folks in Washington as well? After all, the states are all represented in both House and Senate. Some of your neighbors sit in the House on behalf of you, and two of them sit in the Senate to represent your state. If you object to federal dominion just because you only get a 2% say on the federal level, why is it that you agree with yet another neighbor having the same power just because he drives to the Capitol in Nashville, Augusta, Atlanta, or Concord instead of Washington?

No, friends and neighbors, a few hundred career civil servants in your State Capitol or City Hall can step on your rights and take your stuff just as efficiently as a few hundred in Washington, D.C., and the only difference between those two groups is the accent. In the end, they're all after the same things—staying in office, serving their own interests at the public expense, and taking money out of your pocket to give it to someone else in exchange for votes and influence.

new hampshire bound.

2007-11-07T14:21:00.003-08:00

I've been sitting on some news for a while. Until today, I couldn't make it public, but Robin finally gave her notice at work today, so now I can blab.

In a few weeks, we'll load up a moving truck, and drive about a thousand miles north. Robin accepted a position in New Hampshire, and we purchased a new house there.

There are many reasons for the move--much better pay for Robin, more agreeable climate (yes, we both like our winters cold and snowy), and a much more convenient location for trips to and from Germany. The main reason, however, is our living situation.

We have a little two-bedroom starter home in the 'burbs of K-town. When I moved into this place with Robin five years ago, it was just the two of us and two dachsies, and the space was sufficient--not opulent, but workable. Since then, the family has grown in size by 100%, and the same two bedrooms and 1300 square feet are shared by two adults, two kids, and four dachshunds. Add all the stuff a couple accumulates over the years, consider the room required for kids to play, and the little brick house in the 'burbs is popping at the seams. We're at least one bedroom short, and that extra bedroom would just cover the adults and kids, with no room for guests or an office.

In addition, we're on a street where the houses are built elbow-to-elbow, with just enough space between the units for a tall guy to stretch his arms and just barely miss touching brick with his fingertips. The backyard is fenced, but with the neighbors right on top of us, there's really no privacy to speak of, unless we have the doors closed and the blinds drawn.

So, when Robin got a job offer in New Hampshire, we went house shopping, and she took a few days to see some places in person. We found a house we really liked, and made an offer on it. They accepted, the bank gave us the thumbs-up, and everything's signed. Barring any last-minute issues, we'll be taking possession of our new house shortly after Thanksgiving.

The new house has more than twice the square footage of our current one, close to 3,000 square feet, and it comes with over ten acres of land, on the outskirts of a village of 4,000 or so. It's close enough to work for Robin (a thirty-minute commute), and far enough away from everything else for us to not bother (or be bothered by) anyone. We'll have enough space for kids, dogs, and guests, and I can finally set up my own backyard shooting range. There's even a trail and a little campsite on the property, which will be nice in the summer and fall. Robin can finally have her vegetable patch, and we may even start keeping a chicken coop.

I'm not looking forward to the move. Hauling furniture is not my favorite thing in the world, and the two kids and four dogs will require numerous potty and feeding breaks along the way. We're both looking forward to the new place, however, and that'll serve as a good motivator for the journey. In addition, Robin's mom and my brother will be riding with us to help with the move, which will make things easier on us.

So, yeah, we're excited. The best thing about the place--other than the whole backyard range thing--is the fact that I'll be able to step out onto the front porch in my boxer briefs with a gun in one hand, and a glass of bourbon in the other, and nobody will be around to care...or call the SWAT team on me.

Not that I would ever do such thing, mind you. (Well, maybe once, just to celebrate our new solitude.)

do you bite your thumb at me, matey?

2007-11-06T19:16:00.003-08:00

Anyone out there who's a.) handy with Photoshop, and b.) interested in getting in at the ground level of my groundbreaking "Romeo and Juliet" production?

To recap, I noted a while ago that nobody's ever done a buccaneer-themed version of Romeo and Juliet. Therefore, I came up with the concept of a Shakespeare adaptation featuring pirates and ninjas. Romeo is the son of a pirate, and Juliet is the daughter of a ninja. That's a recipe for high drama in my book.

"In fair Sarasota, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where Ninja blood makes Pirate hands unclean."

The fight scenes between the Montague pirate crew and the Capulet ninja clan will be like nothing ever seen on stage. We're talking flintlock pistols belching, shuriken flying, and cutlass clashing with katana.

To that end, I need a weathered-looking playbill that has a katana crossed with a cutlass. It should look like it was inked on parchment by some Elizabethan advertising guy working for the Globe. That would be awesome--and by awesome, I mean totally sweet.

Now, another question is...can we work in werewolves, too?

quinn and pals.

2007-11-05T17:51:00.003-08:00

Quinn likes to go on errands with daddy. All I have to do is announce that we're going to the store, and he'll dash off to his room to get ready.

"Getting ready" entails grabbing a big armful of stuffed critters off the bed, and then waiting at the front door for daddy to catch up. Leaving the house without his fuzzy pals is unthinkable. There have been days where he's been content with just one or two of them in addition to the ever-present Schmusetuch, but on most days his stuffed posse needs to be at least three strong.

And don't think he'll leave them in the car once we're at our destination...they all have to ride in the shopping cart with him.

Here he is, ready to roll with his pals.

guilty gun pleasures.

2007-11-04T07:26:00.003-08:00

Here's my guilty gun pleasure: a ratty old Hi-Standard Double Nine.

It's a nine-shot .22 double action revolver, styled to look like a single-action sixgun. The frame is alloy, and the cylinder swings out for loading and unloading. This particular model was acquired as a bonus on a trade a few years back. (Note the faux pearl factory stocks, which drive up the Blue Book price a whole ten dollars.)

It's not the prettiest gun in the world. The double-action feature is kind of pointless, since the pull weight is well north of twenty pounds, and probably closer to thirty. Fortunately, the grip and hammer shape are well-suited for single-action shooting. Despite its homeliness and lack of dollar value, it's actually a ton of fun to shoot in that fashion. It sits in the hand and points just like most single-action revolvers. It's a dandy plinker with regular .22LR ammo, and it'll also shoot .22 Shorts and CBs. With the primer-only Colibris, it even turns into a respectable indoor gallery gun.

Book value of this thing is around a hundred bucks, but the fun I've had out of it adds up to many times that value. I suspect it'll end up in Quinn's or Lyra's possession in the future...it's not like the recoil of the .22LR is likely to wear that ugly little thing out any time soon.

aviation trivia.

2007-11-02T04:08:00.003-07:00

Arniotis Karamanlakis was a Greek aviation pioneer. He holds two claims to fame--the first private aviator in Greece (he purchased a Bleriot XI), and the first aviation-related fatality in Greece.

keep your village away from my kid.

2007-11-01T16:41:00.003-07:00

Over at Roberta X's blog, there's a good piece up on the morality of taking from others to pay for what you can't afford, even if it is your child's life on the line.

Keep your village away from my child, I say.

I love my children more than anything. I'd do anything to save their lives if they were in danger, up to and including giving up my own if necessary. To tell you the honest truth, if one of them was so sick that our own money and all our insurance couldn't pay for a lifesaving treatment, there's a microscopic chance I may even violate my own libertarian ethics and steal to get the money.

But in the highly unlikely event that it ever happens, you can be damn sure I'll have the decency to do the stealing myself, instead of using Uncle Sugar as an intermediary, and then feeling all entitled to the loot. At least I'd run the risk myself.

Theft is theft, even if it's "for the children", and no amount of fancy apologist language about "social contracts" and "fairness" can make it not so.

better sell some property, fred.

2007-10-31T14:59:00.003-07:00

This just in:

Crazy Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church was found liable in a civil lawsuit brought forth by the family of Marine Lance Corporal Matthew Snyder, whose funeral was picketed by Phelps' inbred bunch of bigots. The jury in federal court ordered Westboro Baptist to pay 2.9 million dollars in compensatory damages for invasion of privacy and infliction of emotional distress.

Freedom of speech does not shield you from the consequences of that speech, and that's one of the reasons we have civil courts. That judgment will do more damage to Westboro Baptist than all the ass-beatings in the world, and it sets precedent for many more. I have a feeling that Westboro's picketing days are coming to an end.

Update: The jury has awarded an additional eight million dollars in punitive damages, for a grand total of $10.9 million. I'd say that'll make a dent in Fred's fuel budget.

separation of goods.

2007-10-31T14:27:00.003-07:00

Here's a photo from a German newspaper. Apparently, this car was spotted curbside in Berlin.

The writing on the door reads, "Here's your share of the car. Your ex."

("Deine" is the female possessive, so it was an ex-girlfriend or -wife who took revenge here.)

give them nothing.

2007-10-29T13:25:00.003-07:00

A long time ago, I had a discussion with my former mother-in-law about my desire to carry a gun for protection. She was very much opposed to the concept, to put it mildly. When I asked her what her plans were if she ever got robbed at gun- or knifepoint, she replied that she'd try and talk it out with her attacker, or just give them what they want.

"Everybody wants to be respected," she said. "We're all just human beings."

I told her that she was nurturing a very dangerous misconception, one that could very well get her hurt or killed someday.

There are people in this world to whom you're not a human being. They don't want to be respected by you. They don't care about you--they're not even really aware of you. They only care about the food you represent, the money that's in your pocket. You're not a person to them, but an obstacle. You're just in the way of the reward, like a wrapper around a candy bar, and these people are willing to discard you just like that wrapper in order to get what they want.

If you don't believe that, if you are one of the people who think that "everyone wants to be valued and respected", you are deluding yourself, to put it mildly. There are literally hundreds of surveillance camera videos out on the Internet that show criminals injuring or killing people for the transgression of not handing over the money or opening the safe fast enough. For those of you who think that "if you give them what they want, they'll go away", there are almost as many videos out there of people getting hurt or killed after handing over the goods, simply because they're now witnesses to a crime that allows for a lengthy jail term. Leaving you alive greatly increases the chance of getting caught, you see, and the extra ten years for shooting you don't enter the thug's mind. Besides, few people ever commit a crime expecting to get caught.

Whenever I see the camera footage of some poor convenience store clerk getting shot at point-blank range just because the robber is angry at the lack of cash in the drawer, or the fast food manager being shot as he is lying prone in front of his safe after the robbers have already removed the cash, I get angry. I feel anger at the thought of these low-lifes, people who have never known another way of making a living than to take what they want from others by force. I feel anger at the sight of someone casually taking another's life over a few hundred bucks--taking a husband from his wife, a son from his parents, or a father from his children, just because they're in the way. Can you imagine your life ending tonight, with you taking your last breaths on the dingy linoleum floor of some convenience store, just because you had the bad luck of drawing third shift? Can you imagine what it would be like to have everything taken from you in a few moments--your history, your knowledge, your hopes, your dreams, your consciousness--all over a few pieces of paper? If you can, don't you, too, feel white hot anger when you think of the person who would do such a thing to you without a second thought just so they can get a fix, pay the rent, and get a new game for the Playstation?

It's mind-boggling to me that there are people who perpetuate the dangerous myth that you can rely on the humanity and reason of a person who is already threatening to kill you over the contents of your wallet, an entirely inhumane and unreasonable act in itself.

"Violence begets violence", they say, as if that's somehow a bad thing. In the words of the late Jeff Cooper, I would certainly hope that it does. That's the whole point of self-defense: when reason doesn't work anymore, then naked force is the only thing that's left other than abject surrender. It would be a great and awesome world where the majority of criminals are the ones who end up in the body bag, and not their victims. Appeasement doesn't stop the bully or the thug, and neither does submission. What stops them is the knowledge that they're likely to bite off more than they can chew, which is why they invariably pick their targets among those who are perceived as meek or soft.

Think about it for a second, and pretend you're someone who makes a living by sticking guns in people's faces. Which kind of society would encourage you to keep doing what you're doing--one where you know people are being told to "give them what they want and don't resist", or one where people refuse to go quietly into that good night, and where they will fight back with anything that comes to hand?

No, the appropriate response to violence is not submission. Submission encourages the thugs, and it gives them absolutely no incentive to consider a career change. When you preach submission, you only guarantee more of the behavior that takes advantage of that submission. The only appropriate response to violence is white-hot anger. When someone sticks a gun in your face and threatens to kill you over the contents of your wallet or your register, your response ought to be rage. The very thought of some low-life thug threatening to snuff you out and make your children orphans for no reason other than the money you carry ought to make you furious.

And then you need to put that fury to good use. Yield nothing, not an inch, not a penny, not a hair on your head, without fighting for it tooth and nail. Do your level best to ensure that if someone has to end up in a body bag this hour, it won't be your body in that bag. And even if it should happen to be your turn to take your seat in Valhalla, you might as well put your best effort into making sure that you arrive there with your attacker in a firm headlock.

he must have stumbled.

2007-10-29T10:06:00.003-07:00

In Salem, Oregon, a rapist attacked a 22-year-old woman on crutches. A car full of good Samaritans stopped when they saw what was happening, and proceeded to, uhm, intervene.

The article says that the good guys "pulled [the rapist] off the woman and held him until police arrived."

From his booking photo it looks like they did a bit more than just "pull him off" his intended victim.

(Nelson voice) "Ha ha!"

not so fast, charlie brown.

2007-10-29T04:04:00.003-07:00

Today: a blog entry about sports. In other news, pigs have been spotted in the pattern at McGhee-Tyson.

Is it just me, or does the new dominance of the Red Sox feel wrong somehow, like Charlie Brown finally being allowed to kick that football?

Don't get me wrong--if I were a baseball fan, I'd be rooting for the Red Sox. Boston was my first port of call in this country, and my first place of residence. The only true baseball cap I own is navy blue and has a red "B" on it. After eighty-odd years of "close, but no cigar", the Red Sox deserve to collect a few World Series rings to make up for the long drought.

However, to me, it has always felt like the role of the underdog was pretty much a part of the psyche in Boston when it came to the Red Sox. In the course of eighty-six years, being the scrappy kid had become almost a matter of pride in Beantown. The Sox were Boston's Charlie Brown, and everyone opened the paper every year to watch Lucy pull that football at the last moment. Now the cheapest tickets at Fenway Park are $20, and they're sold out well in advance, where not too long ago you could show up on game day and pay less for the ticket than you did for parking. Like this editorial points out, it would be a shame if the Red Sox turned into New York Yankees with a New England accent in the next few years, with all the attendant hubris.

watch the skies, jamal.

2007-10-26T18:11:00.003-07:00

Yemen releases USS Cole bomber from jail.

The U.S. Department of Justice may be "dismayed", at least officially, but you can bet your ass that the CIA doesn't share those feelings. Starting today, Mr. Jamal al-Badawi is going to have to check the sky for Predator drones and Hellfire missiles when he crosses the street to get a bite of khlav kalash from the vendor.

it boggles the mind, part xvii.

2007-10-26T17:38:00.003-07:00

This just in:

A third of Americans believe in ghosts. A fifth of the population believes in the existence of spells and witchcraft, and almost half believes in ESP.

How about leprechauns? Or unicorns, perhaps? Do you believe in those, too?

Morons.

We routinely split atoms, we've sent men to the moon, and we have increased the human lifespan almost threefold in just two centuries just through the power of reason and logic...and a huge chunk of the population still believes in invisible, unmeasurable, unprovable ghosts and spirits.

what's not a felony these days?

2007-10-26T09:22:00.003-07:00

In my admittedly idealistic view, there ought to be only two felonies: laying a hand on someone, and messing with someone's stuff. That's the entirety of the penal code in my perfect society--lots of paper saved, and those two offenses cover everything from murder to rape to thievery of all kinds.

Unfortunately, our society has embarked on a quest to brand as many citizens with the mark of the felon as possible. All manners of things are now felonies, and the list grows longer every day. It's a felony to grow the wrong kind of plant in your yard, to affix the wrong kind of metal bit to the end of your rifle, to buy too many cigarettes in North Carolina if you're a resident of Tennessee, and a myriad of other ridiculous things.

The problem with that, as I've already mentioned on numerous occasions, is that the status of "felon" has some serious negative repercussions for a person. A convicted felon loses, among other things, his or her constitutional right to own a firearm. (I'm not exactly sure why we take away the legal guns from felons, but not their right to worship as they please, or their right not to be placed in double jeopardy, or their right to free speech. Looks like the Brady Bunch is right when they claim that the Second Amendment is somehow more dangerous than the other ones, and deserves to be subject to special restrictions.) Convicted felons also lose their right to vote, and the stigma of a felony record has a way of crippling a person economically, since many employers in all but the most menial career fields will shy away from hiring a felon.

So, once you brand someone with the big "F" on their forehead, you deprive them of the legal right to self-defense, the right to vote, and the unhindered ability to work for a living to the best of their qualifications. That's a pretty severe punishment, and it ought to be reserved for some pretty serious crime. Hell, I'd settle for actual crime, and not the kinds of victimless crimes that are crowding the penal codes at present. A man stealing another's property--that's a crime. A man screwing a metal bit with some holes in it to the muzzle of his rifle, or growing funny tobacco in his garden--that's not a crime, because you can't point out a victim.

Here's the danger inherent in expanding the Big Catalog of Felonies willy-nilly. If I want to disarm folks and then take away their ability to vote against my policies, I don't need to try and take on the Second Amendment head-on. All I have to do is expand the definition of "felon" enough, and I can take the legal right to self-defense--and the right to vote--from anyone. And the great thing about that scheme is that the same law-and-order crowd that would fight me tooth and nail if I did attack the Sacred Second directly will actually assist me with glee.

why do they do that?, part 1

2007-10-25T18:21:00.003-07:00

Interesting bit of retail psychology:

Abercrombie & Fitch's stores play loud dance music, and their stores are underlit. This is done so that parents won't come in, and hand off the credit card to their kids instead. It's an ingenious way to remove parental spending restrictions.

squeee.

2007-10-25T17:17:00.003-07:00

The sprogs have developed a new (and apparently highly amusing) form of communication in the ultrasonic frequency range.

The dogs are on the couch with their paws over their ears.

thirty-six years old today.

2007-10-25T12:38:00.003-07:00

And you know how I know that I'm getting old?

For the last two or three hours, these two neighborhood kids have been driving their cars up and down our quiet, residential cul-de-sac. One's a moderately riced-up Honda, the other's a Chevy Cavalier with a busted ("gutsy-sounding") muffler. Every once in a while, they'll goose it and dash to the end of the street at top speed...on a street where lots of kids live and play. If I went to fetch the mail, and Quinn dashed out of the house behind me, he'd get turned into road pizza before those teenage morons would be able to brake their shitboxes, and then I'd be going to jail for a very long time.

Anyhow, I know I'm getting old because I've had an almost irrepressible urge to step out into the street, make them stand on the brakes, and then yell, "Slow the fuck down, sport, this is a neighborhood."

what the fuck is wrong with people?

2007-10-24T17:35:00.003-07:00

Once again, I find it necessary to use this space for a public service announcement:

If anyone--God, the devil, the neighbor's cat, whoever--tells you to kill your children, the only proper and correct response is, "Go fuck yourself."

how un-american.

2007-10-24T04:48:00.003-07:00

There's a sort of mass email going around in conservative circles, one of those "send it on" propaganda pieces that pop up every once in a while.

It shows this picture:

On one of the gun boards I frequent, someone posted the above picture, which shows Barack Obama not putting his hand on his heart during recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. The poster also included his own assessment of the situation, which is reproduced here verbatim:

"Barack Hussein Obama's photo (that's his real name)......the article said he REFUSED TO NOT ONLY PUT HIS HAND ON HIS HEART DURING THE PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE, BUT REFUSED TO SAY THE PLEDGE.....how in the hell can a man like this expect to be our next Commander-in-Chief????"

He titled his post "The future of our beloved freedoms???"

I don't usually wade into this kind of discussion before my first cup of tea in the morning, but I just had to respond to that.

Saying the Pledge and putting your hand on your heart are not indicators for patriotism. Those gestures are easily done, and they cost the person doing them absolutely nothing.

A true measure of one's patriotism is the degree to which one respects the Constitution. While it's likely that Obama is no better than any of the people in that picture who do have their hands on their hearts, it's also pretty damn likely that they're no more patriotic than he is, seeing how at least one of them has voted for stuff that amounts to wiping your butt with the Constitution.

The Devil can cite Scripture for his own purpose, the saying goes. Well, the biggest Statist would-be tyrant can say the Pledge of Allegiance, put a flag pin on their lapel, and wrap themselves in the flag. (Witness the picture as evidence--that's Senator Clinton in the center.)

External gestures have precisely zilch to do with patriotism, especially when they're done at no cost to the person performing them. Just hanging Old Glory out in front of your house doesn't make you a patriot, respecting and defending the Constitution does.

I'm not saying that saying the Pledge of Allegiance or flying Old Glory are un-patriotic actions. I'm merely saying that they're not patriotic actions by themselves. A person who performs them without trying to incorporate the principles for which they stand is no better than a person who buys a Silver Star at the surplus store, pins it on his jacket, and expects the credit and recognition that is owed to the legitimate recipient.

Quote:

Barack Hussein Obama's photo (that's his real name)

Yes, we get it. Obama sounds almost like Osama, hence they must be the same. And Hussein is a raghead name, ergo he's a Muslim, regardless of what Christian church he professes to attend. Thanks for pointing that out to us unenlightened folk.

Of all the reasons why I won't vote for the guy, his name is probably the least important one.

Good heavens, man. "The future of our beloved freedoms"? Where was your indignation when they nullified the Fourth Amendment in the name of the War on Drugs? Where was it when they nullified the Fifth through Eighth Amendments in the name of the War on Terror?

But one of the Presidential contenders won't put his hand on his heart while saying the Pledge, and you're all over that...and his un-American name!

If you want to know why the future is looking grim for our freedoms, there's your answer right there.

an explosive flavor sensation.

2007-10-23T06:26:00.003-07:00

Via Tam, we learn of the interesting localized varieties of McDonald's franchises in other countries.

In the Middle East, they offer a McArabia. I wonder what their commercial jingle sounds like?

"Two Semtex patties, shrapnel sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun..."

hymn to the fallen.

2007-10-22T11:51:00.003-07:00

Two years ago, U.S. Navy Lieutenant Michael Murphy made the ultimate sacrifice for his country in the mountains of Afghanistan.

He was the leader of a SEAL team that came under fire from a group of forty Taliban insurgents. Three of the four team members lost their lives in the firefight, including LT Murphy, who exposed himself to enemy fire while calling in support on the radio. He managed to finish his call before he was killed, ending the transmission with "thank you" despite being hit twice in the back during the radio call.

Today, LT Murphy's parents and brother are receiving his Medal of Honor from the President.

The term is greatly overused these days, so I don't use it often, but in this case it's justified:

There goes a hero.

The President of the United States in the name of The Congress takes pride in presenting the MEDAL OF HONOR posthumously to

LIEUTENANT
MICHAEL P. MURPHY
UNITED STATES NAVY

For service as set forth in the following CITATION:

FOR CONSPICUOUS GALLANTRY AND INTREPIDITY AT THE RISK OF HIS LIFE ABOVE AND BEYOND THE CALL OF DUTY AS THE LEADER OF A SPECIAL RECONNAISSANCE ELEMENT WITH NAVAL SPECIAL WARFARE TASK UNIT AFGHANISTAN ON 27 AND 28 JUNE 2005. WHILE LEADING A MISSION TO LOCATE A HIGH-LEVEL ANTI-COALITION MILITIA LEADER, LIEUTENANT MURPHY DEMONSTRATED EXTRAORDINARY HEROISM IN THE FACE OF GRAVE DANGER IN THE VICINITY OF ASADABAD, KONAR PROVINCE, AFGHANISTAN. ON 28 JUNE 2005, OPERATING IN AN EXTREMELY RUGGED ENEMY-CONTROLLED AREA, LIEUTENANT MURPHY’S TEAM WAS DISCOVERED BY ANTI-COALITION MILITIA SYMPATHIZERS, WHO REVEALED THEIR POSITION TO TALIBAN FIGHTERS. AS A RESULT, BETWEEN 30 AND 40 ENEMY FIGHTERS BESIEGED HIS FOUR-MEMBER TEAM. DEMONSTRATING EXCEPTIONAL RESOLVE, LIEUTENANT MURPHY VALIANTLY LED HIS MEN IN ENGAGING THE LARGE ENEMY FORCE. THE ENSUING FIERCE FIREFIGHT RESULTED IN NUMEROUS ENEMY CASUALTIES, AS WELL AS THE WOUNDING OF ALL FOUR MEMBERS OF THE TEAM. IGNORING HIS OWN WOUNDS AND DEMONSTRATING EXCEPTIONAL COMPOSURE, LIEUTENANT MURPHY CONTINUED TO LEAD AND ENCOURAGE HIS MEN. WHEN THE PRIMARY COMMUNICATOR FELL MORTALLY WOUNDED, LIEUTENANT MURPHY REPEATEDLY ATTEMPTED TO CALL FOR ASSISTANCE FOR HIS BELEAGUERED TEAMMATES. REALIZING THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF COMMUNICATING IN THE EXTREME TERRAIN, AND IN THE FACE OF ALMOST CERTAIN DEATH, HE FOUGHT HIS WAY INTO OPEN TERRAIN TO GAIN A BETTER POSITION TO TRANSMIT A CALL. THIS DELIBERATE, HEROIC ACT DEPRIVED HIM OF COVER, EXPOSING HIM TO DIRECT ENEMY FIRE. FINALLY ACHIEVING CONTACT WITH HIS HEADQUARTERS, LIEUTENANT MURPHY MAINTAINED HIS EXPOSED POSITION WHILE HE PROVIDED HIS LOCATION AND REQUESTED IMMEDIATE SUPPORT FOR HIS TEAM. IN HIS FINAL ACT OF BRAVERY, HE CONTINUED TO ENGAGE THE ENEMY UNTIL HE WAS MORTALLY WOUNDED, GALLANTLY GIVING HIS LIFE FOR HIS COUNTRY AND FOR THE CAUSE OF FREEDOM. BY HIS SELFLESS LEADERSHIP, COURAGEOUS ACTIONS, AND EXTRAORDINARY DEVOTION TO DUTY, LIEUTENANT MURPHY REFLECTED GREAT CREDIT UPON HIMSELF AND UPHELD THE HIGHEST TRADITIONS OF THE UNITED STATES NAVAL SERVICE.
SIGNED GEORGE W. BUSH

a quiz for you naval experts.

2007-10-22T11:46:00.003-07:00

Try and answer this one without looking it up.

Of all the commissioned ships currently afloat in the United States Navy, there are only two that have actually sunk an enemy warship with their shipboard weaponry (not aircraft).

What are their names and hull numbers?

hot for teacher.

2007-10-20T11:10:00.003-07:00

Picture the following scenario:

In the cubicle farm at the office, a group of female coworkers are looking at a web page featuring news of an arrest. A local teacher has been busted for repeatedly having sex with a 14-year-old female student--in his home, in the supply closet at school, and even in his station wagon while the girl's cheerleader friend was driving them all over town.

There's a picture of the offender, too. He's a handsome guy, obviously in shape. The women gathered around the screen in the cubicle guffaw and give each other knowing glances.

"Not too shabby," says one.

"Where were those teachers when I was fourteen?" says another.

"Yeah," says a third. "They're going to fire the poor guy. That's going to cause a lot of broken hearts at that school. Imagine all those girls who didn't get their turn. They're going to beat up the little idiot who turned him in."

There's a link to another story at the bottom of the web page, and somebody follows it. It's one of those "Related News" articles, and this one gives details on another recent arrest. Another teacher arrested for having sex with students--only this one is a woman teacher, and she was caught sleeping with a 15-year-old male student.

Immediately, the mood changes.

"Look at that fuckin' perv," one of the women says.

"Yeah. They oughta just drag her out into the street and hang her from the nearest streetlight."

"Sicko. If that had been my son, I'd make sure she never gets to see her trial date."

---

Do you think this is far-fetched?

I was reading this article on CNN about the huge number of teachers cited for sex abuse in the last few decades. Ninety percent of the offenders are male.

Now, I've noticed an enormous double standard among male coworkers and acquaintances when it comes to female and male educators having sex with their students. The same crowd that advocates very creative and gruesome punishments for the male variety usually has a completely different attitude towards the female variety, especially when the female teacher in question is attractive.

I've debated the issue with people, both online and in real life, and it never ceases to amaze me how much of a double standard people can embrace without even recognizing it. When the Debra LaFave case was in the news, one guy told me that he'd high-five his son if he made the news for having had sex with her. When I asked him whether he'd also high-five his daughter if she made the news for screwing her English teacher, his expression darkened considerably.

"That's different," he said. "I'd kill the son-of-a-bitch myself."

One thing I didn't ask, because it hadn't entered my mind at that point, was to point out his own hypocrisy in a more daring fashion by asking him if he'd high-five his son for having sex with his attractive male gym teacher...but I believe I already know the answer to that, anyway.

can i get those back, please?

2007-10-18T19:58:00.003-07:00

Random shot of a toddler with size 7T feet wearing adult size 9 shoes. Five minutes later, he completed the stylish outfit with a purple-and-blue pair of swim trunks, worn as headgear. Alas, I was on the phone with the real estate agent, so I wasn't able to grab the camera to document the fashion statement.

Boy, do I have an album together already for the day he brings home his first date.

it's more like a spa visit.

2007-10-18T19:00:00.003-07:00

The very same crowd that insists on obeying an "absolute morality" routinely engages in some pretty breathtaking semantic masturbation when it comes to the subject of torture.

Take waterboarding, for example. The logic of the Bush administration and its cheerleaders seems to be as follows:

a.) The CIA uses waterboarding to extract information from enemy combatants.

b.) We don't torture, because we're the good guys (see "absolute morality" above). Therefore, waterboarding is not torture.

Now, I don't know about you, but if you strapped me to a board, tilted me head-down, wrapped my face in cloth or cellophane, and then ran water down my head until my body was convinced that I'm drowning, I'd call that "torture". I bet that the same technique, if used by the jihadists on American captives, would readily be labeled "torture" by most anyone who claims that it isn't torture when the sameself jihadists are the ones strapped to the board. (Yeah, they do far worse to our guys, but that's not the point here.)

I don't have patience for semantic games, and it's a bit insulting for the Bushbots to just stretch the definition of the term "torture". If you use that technique for interrogation, then come flat out and say, "if we catch your jihadist ass trying to cause harm to Americans, you better believe we'll torture you to get you to sing." But don't piss on our collective legs and tell us it's raining, when everyone with half a brain can see that the stream is yellow.

In light of the ongoing efforts of the administration to insist that the sky isn't blue if a blue sky violates the Constitution, I do get a good chuckle out of Conservatives when they accuse Liberals of "twisting language" and practicing "relative morality".

Now, whether torture is proper and necessary under such circumstances is a debate for another time. However, regardless of your position on the use of it to prevent terrorists from harming us and ours, it doesn't do us any good to engage in semantic games.

From the article about the testimony of the new candidate for AG, I'm not getting my hopes up about this guy being any better than Spineless Alberto. I mean, the whole thing reads like a conversation with the Girlfriend With No Opinion Of Her Own.

"I don't know, do you think it is? 'Cause if you do, I totally think it is, too."

out with the old, in with the new.

2007-10-17T08:50:00.003-07:00

In the most recent issue of S.W.A.T. magazine, Clint Smith reviews Aimpoint's latest offerings in the combat optics sector. He muses that "in a world of changing technology, one area that has seen quantum leaps forward over the last few decades is visual acquisition systems for weapons."

He's absolutely right, of course. Twenty years ago, electronic sights were new-fangled gizmos with some utility, but the old pros preferred (and preached the use of) iron sights for serious applications.

These days, everyone who's anyone in the business of professional violence has some sort of advanced combat optic on their rifle, and iron sights are mostly relegated to backup or emergency use. It's still important to be able to use iron sight, of course, but the latest generation of optical sights has made the rifleman far more effective. As the saying goes, if you can't see it, you can't hit it, and a rifleman these days has many excellent optics from which to choose, tools that make him or her drastically more efficient by several orders of magnitude. An infantry squad with iron sight-equipped rifle would be at a distinct disadvantage against a squad equipped with ACOGs, ELCANs, Aimpoints, or Leupold CQ/Ts on their rifles.

I thought about the article for a while, and then realized that this technological trend extends to other applications as well. Small, inexpensive electronics are now attainable to the regular guy on the street that make any super-expensive industrial-grade stuff from twenty-five years ago look completely ancient by comparison.

Take civil aviation as another example.

This is the cockpit of a Beech Baron 58 equipped with analog "steam" gauges. You have your avionics on the left side, your engine gauges in the center, and the radio/AP stack to the right. It's fairly easy to keep an eye on things once you're used to the layout. With steam gauges, the Baron feels and flies like a nice light twin.

This is the cockpit of the same plane equipped with the Garmin G1000 "glass cockpit" integrated EFIS. All the information of the steam gauges in the previous cockpit shot is consolidated on two 12-inch flat panel TFT displays, with an integrated communications panel between them. The left panel serves as the PFD (primary flight display), and the right panel serves as a MFD (multi-function display). On the left screen, the pilot can view all the information related to aircraft attitude, speed, heading, and vertical speed, without having to scan multiple steam gauges. On the right screen, the pilot has access to all engine- and fuel-related information, along with a moving map. With the G1000 avionics suite, the Baron feels and flies like a miniaturized airliner.

Aircraft equipped with the G1000 system also retain some steam gauges as backup (and primary) instrumentation in the event of a system failure. The whole thing is designed for redundancy--if one display fails, the other automatically switches to PFD mode, and the system is designed to run off a secondary power source in case the aircraft's alternator and primary battery go "kablooie".

Once you're used to flying with a glass cockpit, it's hard to go back to steam gauges. The difference in situational awareness and functionality is quite substantial. With the G1000 and its competing products, civil light aircraft now have flight information and navigation systems that were reserved to modern airliners just a few years ago, and unavailable at any price just two decades ago.

Of course, in both the shooting and flying communities, there are always the grumpy holdouts that pooh-pooh the newfangled gizmos. There are lots of rifle shooters that use (and preach the use of) iron sights as the only "true rifleman's sight", and there are doubtlessly many pilots that eschew the new glass cockpits in favor of the tried-and-true steam gauges. ("If it was good enough for Lindbergh, it's good enough for me!")

Alas, time and technology march on, and the newfangled technology of today is going to be the mainstream of tomorrow, even in fields that have more than their share of traditionalists.

what a bunch of yahoos.

2007-10-16T19:25:00.003-07:00

So there's this Chinese journalist who posted on a site called Democracy Forum about his government cracking down on democracy activists.

The Chinese authorities contacted Yahoo! (apparently, the journalist had used a Yahoo! address), and the guys over at the Yahoo datacenter couldn't drop to their knees fast enough to service the Chinese secret police. They turned over the journalist's "e-mail account, his computer address, his log-on history and the contents of several weeks of his e-mail."

The Chinese journalist, a fellow named Shi, was then arrested by Chinese authorities, and sentenced to ten years in prison.

That in itself is not red hot news (it happened over a year ago), but now it turns out that the Yahoo folks lied to Congress about their prior knowledge of the nature of the investigation.

Makes me feel less than enthusiastic about using any of the services offered by Yahoo, it does.

On a side note: you know what I find absolutely shameful? There are countries like China and Burma where people get jailed for decades, or shot outright, for demanding the right to a fair and proper vote...and our voter turnout hovers at just over 50% if you average every election since 1960. Austria has a 92% voter turnout on average, Germany sits at 86%, and even 76% of the UK's subjects get off the couch on Election Day.

(Makes you laugh about W talking about a "mandate", or the Libtards blabbing about how "Gore won the popular vote"...a little over half of the vote at 50% turnout means that a quarter of the voting-age population voted for you, which doesn't exactly mean you have half the nation in your corner, to put it carefully.)

Now, you can argue that the system is rigged, anyway--it certainly feels like every two years or so we're being presented with two platters full of steaming poop and then asked, "Which one would you like to eat?" However, the only thing that separates a citizen from a non-citizen in the civil rights department is the right to vote, and those who won't vote are no different from those who can't.

i'll have the triple bypass burrito, please.

2007-10-15T20:20:00.003-07:00

Now, I'm not a health Nazi, and I think people ought to be able to stuff their faces with whatever they want (as long as I don't have to pay for their HoverRounds and triple bypass operations), but a thousand-calorie burrito for breakfast strikes me as a bit excessive. But, hey, whatever floats your boat.

Ah, Hardees. At least they're honest about their food. Mickey D's and Burger King pretend to have healthy choices on the menu just because you can choose "light" dressing for your fried chicken salad, or get the sprogs a 2% milk with their fat-fried Happy Meal. Hardee's, on the other hand, just said "fuck it", and started cranking out calorie and fat bombs in a refreshingly unapologetic manner. Home of the Monster Thickburger...and now the Country Breakfast Burrito, loaded with almost a thousand calories and sixty grams of fat. The ingredient list: two egg omelets, bacon, sausage, ham, cheddar, hash browns, and a healthy drenching of sausage gravy.

God bless America.

I wonder how many calories and fat grams you'd consume if you had one of those puppies for breakfast along with a large coffee with extra cream and sugar, and then went for the Monster Thickburger with curly fries and a 20-ounce non-diet soda for lunch.

almost halfway to a year.

2007-10-15T19:40:00.003-07:00

Little Miss Lyra is five months old today. Time flies when you're juggling an infant and a toddler all day.

(Not literally, mind you.)

Isn't she a most serious baby? I swear, that kid has the most focused and intense gaze of any infant I've seen.

in the lair of the swine-people.

2007-10-14T15:32:00.003-07:00

I had to venture out of the house today to get a birthday present for my niece.

Since I didn't want to drive clear across town to the Toys-R-Us, I had to bite the bullet and head over to the Lair of the Swine-People, which is always a dangerous undertaking on a Sunday afternoon.

Now, those creatures are not only fat, slow, and stupid, but also terribly unaware of their surroundings, grazing the aisles at speeds that can be measured in geological epochs. They usually don't bother anything that's not a.) junk food, b.) rhinestone-studded, or c.) emblazoned with NASCAR or college football symbology, but I did feel safer knowing that my trusty sixgun is always loaded with 158-grainers, which have the necessary sectional density to penetrate to the vitals in the event of being caught between a charging sow and the pork rind display.

I did manage to procure three packs of Barbie "Fashion Fever" outfit ensembles. On the way out, I took the route least likely to contain any concentrations of Swine-People: from the exercise equipment over to the books, and then through the vegetables & fruit aisle of the grocery section.

engineering trivia.

2007-10-13T20:11:00.003-07:00

Those Germans engineer some interesting stuff.

The most exotic use for a Wankel engine (itself an exotic German-invented combustion engine) is the seat belt pre-tensioning system in the New Beetle and some Mercedes-Benz models. When the deceleration sensor in the car detects a potential crash, it triggers small explosive charges. The expanding gas from those charges is piped through tiny Wankel engines, which then rotate to take up the slack in the seatbelts.

This is why Germans keep losing wars--they go overboard with the engineering. The German design philosophy seems to be, "Why use three simple parts for the job, if you can use eighteen complicated ones?"

what would tolkien roll?

2007-10-12T08:24:00.003-07:00

I'm currently downloading a free trial version of the Lord of the Rings Online MMORPG.

When I asked Robin (who's a big World of Warcraft fan) whether she'd want to give LOTRO a try, she replied, "not at all." Now, this was a bit surprising, as she loves Tolkien's work. When I asked her why, she replied something along the lines of,

"I'm sure it's gorgeous and exciting, but the first time a Level 2 hobbit or elf walks up to my character and says 'R U A GURL IRL?', or 'how u mine for fish lol", it'll completely destroy the immersion and suspension of disbelief for me."

Maybe some things are better left on paper, after all.

color me un-surprised.

2007-10-10T17:43:00.003-07:00

A few years back, I posted this picture. It shows the ex-Soviet Varyag, ex-Riga, a Kusnetsov-class 65,000 ton multirole aircraft carrier, under tow in the Black Sea on its way to its new Chinese owners.

When the Soviet Union broke up, Varyag was transferred to the ownership of the Ukraine, who lacked the money and desire to finish construction (the hull is structurally complete, but she lacks engines, a rudder, and all her electronics.) The Ukrainians put the hull up for auction, and in 1998, a Chinese company bought the Varyag for $20 million, in order to "turn her into a floating hotel and casino in Macau."

Riiiiight. That's exactly what I thought, back when I read the news article that came with that picture a few years ago.

Turns out the Varyag never made it to Macau, and she's not been turned into a casino, either. She's currently dry-docked in a People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) shipyard in Dalian, where the hull has been sandblasted and painted PLAN gray. The only official statement from China issued on the Varyag is that she's being "maintained for military purposes." She's now the Shi-Lang, PLAN pennant number 83. (Admiral Shi-Lang was the Chinese commander that conquered Taiwan in 1681.)

I'm shocked, I tell you. Shocked.

Now, what exactly they're going to do with that hull is still a mystery. They're certainly taking notes for their own carrier program. They're probably going to use her as a training vessel for carrier air operations. Maybe someday we'll even see her sporting new Chinese-made electronics, weapons systems, and propulsion.

I'm not one of those folks who think we're in danger of being invaded by a billion Chinamen any time soon (we are, after all, their biggest trading partner), but I think that things are going to get pretty interesting in that region a few years hence. Taiwan just developed a domestic line of ship-to-ship missiles, and I doubt that the Japanese Navy would let their shiny new Aegis cruisers gather dust at the dock if and when the Chinese start asserting regional dominance.

i r smart.

2007-10-10T08:52:00.003-07:00

Am-I-Dumb.com - Intelligence Test

Yeah, baby. IQ like a zip code.

Must be from that time I was cat-sitting for Werner Heisenberg. He was a bit annoying, though....called every hour and asked, "Where is my cat, and how fast is it going?"

i gots the sniffles.

2007-10-09T18:31:00.003-07:00

Is it medically advisable to wash down Sudafed with bourbon-and-coke?

And on a related note, I so don't enjoy having my name logged at the drug store for insisting on the pseudoephedrine goodness of Sudafed, instead of the less effective crap they pass off as antihistamine these days.

But hey, if it only shuts down one meth lab, right?

put some real shoes on those feet.

2007-10-09T16:49:00.003-07:00

I stopped by the grocery store tonight to pick up some milk.

Walking around, I usually pay attention to the folks around me, and tonight something struck me as interesting. The majority of people in the store were wearing rudimentary footwear--flip-flops, Crocs, open-backed sandals, and the like.

I realized that I neither own, nor wear in public, any type of footwear that does not enable me to break into a run. Some people might call it "paranoia", but I don't feel good about intentionally handicapping my gait in emergency situations. Sure, life in the suburbs is generally quiet and peaceful, but there may just be an urgent matter that requires you to run towards--or from--something at top speed, a situation where tripping over your flip-flops may be a bad thing.

Then again, half the customers at the grocery store tonight were in such shape as to render the point moot, since they'd not be able to exceed the natural speed limit of their flip-flops anyway.