Showing posts with label Second Amendment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Second Amendment. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
David Weigel, Wrong but Brave Journalist...
At last, a trained journo chooses to be responsible about a publicity murderer-
"I'm simply not comfortable printing the name of the killer. More than most of his spree-murder peers, he made it very clear that he wanted to be loved and worshiped, saying as much in a self-pitying manifesto and a series of mopey vlogs. Let's forget the guy and leave him for the worms."
Although we disagree about a lot of things, THANK YOU Mr. Weigel for not printing the killer's name, and adding insult and degradation. That's the only practical way to deter them.
Everyone knows the next one is watching, and the way other media outlets persist in rewarding publicity killers is so irresponsible that it suggests they want more of them .
I wish he ran CNN, or at least could convince his employers to stop encouraging these useless losers- because the sidebar to his Slate article is full of killer-building stories.
One of which is the most next killer encouraging story I have ever seen, from the New York Post- a cover and skimpy clothing pictures of a woman the trash loser blamed for his acts. Not only is her life wrecked, but copiers will see their power to use our trained, expert journos' "news" "judgement" to embarrass and injure the targets of their perverse wrath.
Beyond shameful, if they had the ability to feel shame.
Thursday, May 22, 2014
Chipotle? Gun owners used to have some self-respect.
"armed to the jowls..."
This is seriously funny and NOT anti commentary, in the Guardian forsooth.
"There was no apparently interest in reporting that, while many people say "kill me" after eating Chipotle, most gun deaths are caused by people who do, in fact, kill themselves."
Monday, January 06, 2014
The Easternmost Explication of the Second Amendment...
So, a little while ago I went to Eastport, Maine. It bills itself as the first place in the United States to see the sun each day, and it certainly is the closest to where God sets his watch. Well worth the trip, TheGirl and I made lobster pigs of ourselves at the Eastport Chowder House, which we closed down. Friendly real Yankees. Then watched a gorgeous Sunrise.
Eastport is a pretty little town, once a busy port but now they have tourists in the summer and the rest of the year just take in each others' washing. A pleasant, tasty breakfast at the Liberty Cafe and walking over the town. We ended up in front of the Peavey Memorial Library.
Before which stands, as one might expect,
a cannon.
Being from down South and always interested in artillery displayed, I thought I'd wander over to see if it was a trophy from Tredegar, or a Yankee veteran.
I was surprised to see that it was neither. Aside from a Boston founder's name and an 1836 date, the tube was devoid of any marks of State or National ownership.
And that got me thinking. Uh oh...
Our master's latest push to disarm his subjects concentrates on what he calls "weapons of war", which have "no business on our streets". Funny, that "our", coming from a man who will never again walk a street unguarded. And the Government's weapons of war seemed to be perfectly fine on the streets of Ludlow and Detroit, and for special occasions like Katrina and Kent State. Not to mention Libya and Syria. Or just riding around in ordinary police cars.
But I riot. Back on the line, weapons of war.
When our Republic was new, a bronze muzzle loading cannon was the most deadly weapon there was. Unlike an infantry musket, cavalry horse, or M-4, there was and is no use for artillery other than killing people and smashing their buildings.
This six pounder was the cutting edge and definition of a "weapon of war".
In pretty much every time in every culture with a coast, the ship of war is the most complex, expensive, and deadly thing a society's brains and technology can combine to make. Salaminia, Sao Martinho, Victory, Gloire, Freidrich der Grosse, Nimitz- all embodiments of the top end of an entire country's ability to do violence.
And in 1836 the killing end of the warship was artillery just like this.
What does this have to do with the Second Amendment?
Our Betters assert that the Second Amendment does not apply to "weapons of war" and they always advert to artillery as an example. They read the initial clause to mean that although "weapons of war" are not the arms referred to in the Amendment and are not protected to the people, the Amendment's purpose is to insure that State and Federal reserve forces are able to have, um, "weapons of war". Go figure.
'Ware riot again. Anyway, in 1836 the Second Amendment was 45 years old. Quite a few of the men who adopted and ratified it were still around. I'll submit that they knew what it meant.
And in 1836, someone- some private citizen- maybe a few yards away at America's oldest ship chandler- (still in business today, with a lovely line of yellow leather gloves) laid down gold and bought this pure "weapon of war".
In fact, anyone with the cash could have gone into any big port in the country and bought just as good a warship as the Navy's best. The seas were infested with pirates, armed ships were ordinary components of commercial voyages. You didn't need permission, or registration, or anything else but the money or credit.
Commercially produced ships of the era were fully war capable. Golden Hind was private property. Before 1600 or so, national navies were largely formed of commandeered private ships and their civilian crews. American, British, and French privateers- privately owned and operated ships of war- were very active in the World Wars of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. On occasion East Indiamen and Mail Packets fought and captured Naval vessels.
A quarter of a century into this gun's life was the apotheosis of the cash and carry weapon of war. An insurgent organisation used its money and credit to buy high tech ships of war on individual private account, and then swept the seas clear of the second largest commercial fleet on the planet.
And when the dust settled, the United States' position was not that John Laird
shouldn't have sold warships to private individuals, but that the yard shouldn't have sold them to known representatives of active belligerents knowing that the buyers would use them as "weapons of war" in violation of local neutrality law.
I don't know when it became unlawful in the United States for an individual to just put down money and buy a navy for himself, if in fact it is. I know the various neutrality acts interfered with the ability of nations to buy warships, and applied the Alabama Claims' rules to sales to those acting for governments. And I know that British, French, and American shipyards supplied most of the warships, and nearly all the capital warships, to much of the world on a straight up cash and carry basis until after 1914. After 1918, the cut price sale, loan, or gift of surplus ships in government hands as a tool of policy killed the business.
Private possession and sale of artillery in the United States wasn't Federally regulated until 1968 (thanks Tam), which means that when this gun was 131 years old an American could still buy and own a destroyer, battleship, or aircraft carrier for his own use if he could find one for sale.
And I suspect he still can, if the artillery and torpedoes are properly NFA registered.
So no matter what the bien pensants assert, there's no indication from our past that the Second Amendment is meant to confine "weapons of war" to government possession.
This little cannon proves it.
Eastport is a pretty little town, once a busy port but now they have tourists in the summer and the rest of the year just take in each others' washing. A pleasant, tasty breakfast at the Liberty Cafe and walking over the town. We ended up in front of the Peavey Memorial Library.
Before which stands, as one might expect,
a cannon.
Being from down South and always interested in artillery displayed, I thought I'd wander over to see if it was a trophy from Tredegar, or a Yankee veteran.
I was surprised to see that it was neither. Aside from a Boston founder's name and an 1836 date, the tube was devoid of any marks of State or National ownership.
And that got me thinking. Uh oh...
Our master's latest push to disarm his subjects concentrates on what he calls "weapons of war", which have "no business on our streets". Funny, that "our", coming from a man who will never again walk a street unguarded. And the Government's weapons of war seemed to be perfectly fine on the streets of Ludlow and Detroit, and for special occasions like Katrina and Kent State. Not to mention Libya and Syria. Or just riding around in ordinary police cars.
But I riot. Back on the line, weapons of war.
When our Republic was new, a bronze muzzle loading cannon was the most deadly weapon there was. Unlike an infantry musket, cavalry horse, or M-4, there was and is no use for artillery other than killing people and smashing their buildings.
This six pounder was the cutting edge and definition of a "weapon of war".
In pretty much every time in every culture with a coast, the ship of war is the most complex, expensive, and deadly thing a society's brains and technology can combine to make. Salaminia, Sao Martinho, Victory, Gloire, Freidrich der Grosse, Nimitz- all embodiments of the top end of an entire country's ability to do violence.
And in 1836 the killing end of the warship was artillery just like this.
What does this have to do with the Second Amendment?
Our Betters assert that the Second Amendment does not apply to "weapons of war" and they always advert to artillery as an example. They read the initial clause to mean that although "weapons of war" are not the arms referred to in the Amendment and are not protected to the people, the Amendment's purpose is to insure that State and Federal reserve forces are able to have, um, "weapons of war". Go figure.
'Ware riot again. Anyway, in 1836 the Second Amendment was 45 years old. Quite a few of the men who adopted and ratified it were still around. I'll submit that they knew what it meant.
And in 1836, someone- some private citizen- maybe a few yards away at America's oldest ship chandler- (still in business today, with a lovely line of yellow leather gloves) laid down gold and bought this pure "weapon of war".
In fact, anyone with the cash could have gone into any big port in the country and bought just as good a warship as the Navy's best. The seas were infested with pirates, armed ships were ordinary components of commercial voyages. You didn't need permission, or registration, or anything else but the money or credit.
Commercially produced ships of the era were fully war capable. Golden Hind was private property. Before 1600 or so, national navies were largely formed of commandeered private ships and their civilian crews. American, British, and French privateers- privately owned and operated ships of war- were very active in the World Wars of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. On occasion East Indiamen and Mail Packets fought and captured Naval vessels.
A quarter of a century into this gun's life was the apotheosis of the cash and carry weapon of war. An insurgent organisation used its money and credit to buy high tech ships of war on individual private account, and then swept the seas clear of the second largest commercial fleet on the planet.
And when the dust settled, the United States' position was not that John Laird
shouldn't have sold warships to private individuals, but that the yard shouldn't have sold them to known representatives of active belligerents knowing that the buyers would use them as "weapons of war" in violation of local neutrality law.
I don't know when it became unlawful in the United States for an individual to just put down money and buy a navy for himself, if in fact it is. I know the various neutrality acts interfered with the ability of nations to buy warships, and applied the Alabama Claims' rules to sales to those acting for governments. And I know that British, French, and American shipyards supplied most of the warships, and nearly all the capital warships, to much of the world on a straight up cash and carry basis until after 1914. After 1918, the cut price sale, loan, or gift of surplus ships in government hands as a tool of policy killed the business.
Private possession and sale of artillery in the United States wasn't Federally regulated until 1968 (thanks Tam), which means that when this gun was 131 years old an American could still buy and own a destroyer, battleship, or aircraft carrier for his own use if he could find one for sale.
And I suspect he still can, if the artillery and torpedoes are properly NFA registered.
So no matter what the bien pensants assert, there's no indication from our past that the Second Amendment is meant to confine "weapons of war" to government possession.
This little cannon proves it.
Monday, February 14, 2011
The Humpty Dumpty Was The First Journalism Professor...
A few thousand Egyptians use violence to overthrow an elected President. Some Generals then send the elected government home. Our masters in the media , in THE ONLY STORY OF THE WEEK, tell us this is a triumph of democracy.
56% of the most highly informed and educated voters in the oldest republic on the planet make a choice in a highly contested, single issue, free and open election, and they tell us THAT is all about deception, framing, and false consciousness.
I'm sure American journos would say that too, but I suspect that we don't need to know. Look, King Tut!
My favourite quote by a loser: Martine Brunschwig-Graf, MP, said: "Women in Switzerland have only had the vote for 40 years and they aren't engaging in politics yet, even when the issue concerns them."
`I don't know what you mean by "glory,"' Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. `Of course you don't -- till I tell you. I meant "there's a nice knock-down argument for you!"'
`But "glory" doesn't mean "a nice knock-down argument,"' Alice objected.
`When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'
`The question is,' said Alice, `whether you can make words mean so many different things.'
`The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master - - that's all.'
56% of the most highly informed and educated voters in the oldest republic on the planet make a choice in a highly contested, single issue, free and open election, and they tell us THAT is all about deception, framing, and false consciousness.
I'm sure American journos would say that too, but I suspect that we don't need to know. Look, King Tut!
My favourite quote by a loser: Martine Brunschwig-Graf, MP, said: "Women in Switzerland have only had the vote for 40 years and they aren't engaging in politics yet, even when the issue concerns them."
`I don't know what you mean by "glory,"' Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. `Of course you don't -- till I tell you. I meant "there's a nice knock-down argument for you!"'
`But "glory" doesn't mean "a nice knock-down argument,"' Alice objected.
`When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'
`The question is,' said Alice, `whether you can make words mean so many different things.'
`The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master - - that's all.'
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
No one I've seen talk about McDonald has said...
THANK YOU GEORGE W BUSH!!!!!
THIS is why I voted for him twice.
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
The Danish Resistance Museum...
While in Copenhagen, I visited the Danish Resistance Museum. Denmark had an interesting path under the Nazi Germans.
First, it wasn't officially an enemy country. Unlike Poland or the Netherlands, it wasn't invaded and conquered. The Germans rolled in and the small Danish army and more significant navy couldn't do much- though there was some fighting. The Germans announced that they had no desire to conquer Denmark, just to pass through on their way to Norway.
So the deal was that Denmark remained sovereign and neutral in the war. The Germans just occupied the country and enforced their idea of neutrality.
That pretty much worked for a while. Up until Stalingrad, the Germans looked like winners and in any case what could the Danes do? They were an agricultural country, the Germans bought everything available, and did nothing that interfered with ordinary Danes.
Eventually things changed. The Germans demanded more, the Danes got stroppy, and the occupation took hold.
The most famous bit of Danish resistance had to do with Jewish Danes. Everyone knows the untrue but lovely story of King Christian and the yellow star, and that the Danes deported their Jews to Sweden instead of letting the Germans have them. Brave, and the Danes had specific forewarning, few Jews, local administration in place, and a permeable neutral border.
Eventually the resistance became significant. But Copenhagen- unlike Lyon, or Karbala today- never became a place where an occupation soldier was unable to walk around alone in reasonable safety.
The Museum is small, but does a good job of covering all aspects of this history. It doesn't shy away from the accommodation era, or the divisions within Denmark during the occupation. The one thing that seems entirely absent is anything about the King's role during the war.
A couple of things struck my gun nut/second amendment sides.
If you are going to resist, and be in a position where you have to shoot your way out of a raid, reliability matters!
That malfunction led to the capture of the pistol's user.
The museum has an exhibition of home made weapons- here's a Sten gun:
Gun banners take note.
Even an improvised torpedo!
And, as usual in museums these days,
Thursday, March 12, 2009
NPR Journos Finally Notice Old Story, Get It Wrong...
So this morning K called me to tell me that NPR had a story in which their experts decided that the gun industry was not just recession proof, but recession driven! That's right, the trained gatekeepers of information noticed that S&W and Ruger stocks went up, and decided that since there's a recession, that must have caused it!
Tomorrow, NPR finds out that wet streets cause rain!
(To be fair, she told me that at the very end there was a line about "And maybe Obama has something to do with it.")
I haven't heard the piece, still looking and will post a link if I find it.
This has been a story in the internets for well over nine months, and we in the 2A world know exactly what drives it. The failure to see it is a pure example of the Pauline Kael effect. As I said, no one at NPR is, or will admit he is, or admit he knows someone who, came home from the gun show/ Wal Mart/ gun shop/ rural general store, or international ship unloading port and said, "#$%^&*, I can't believe how people are buying ammunition, magazines, and AR receivers."
Because admitting that you know even know someone who doesn't mean a shiny paper thing when he says magazine is probably career death at NPR.
There's some agenda going on here too, though. Remember, TheOne told those bitter, clingy gun nuts that he was no threat! All the Journalistic Experts agreed! Guns are a dead issue, it's Hope and Change and Stimulating the Economy!
The idea that there are enough Americans- and remember, gun nuts are Lower Middle Class Community College graduates at best- to keep the vast, shadowy, evil Gun Industry bucking a nationwide economic trend is scary! That must mean that huge numbers of people- dumb people, who should listen to the experts- don't believe what those experts are telling them!
Not only that, but they disbelieve to the extent that they are spending their about to be laid off paychecks directly and specifically on that disbelief.
It is, of course, a mistaken disbelief- those millians of "ordinary" Americans can't be right that TheOne was lying.
No! Get back on that mental reservation!
Tomorrow, NPR finds out that wet streets cause rain!
(To be fair, she told me that at the very end there was a line about "And maybe Obama has something to do with it.")
I haven't heard the piece, still looking and will post a link if I find it.
This has been a story in the internets for well over nine months, and we in the 2A world know exactly what drives it. The failure to see it is a pure example of the Pauline Kael effect. As I said, no one at NPR is, or will admit he is, or admit he knows someone who, came home from the gun show/ Wal Mart/ gun shop/ rural general store, or international ship unloading port and said, "#$%^&*, I can't believe how people are buying ammunition, magazines, and AR receivers."
Because admitting that you know even know someone who doesn't mean a shiny paper thing when he says magazine is probably career death at NPR.
There's some agenda going on here too, though. Remember, TheOne told those bitter, clingy gun nuts that he was no threat! All the Journalistic Experts agreed! Guns are a dead issue, it's Hope and Change and Stimulating the Economy!
The idea that there are enough Americans- and remember, gun nuts are Lower Middle Class Community College graduates at best- to keep the vast, shadowy, evil Gun Industry bucking a nationwide economic trend is scary! That must mean that huge numbers of people- dumb people, who should listen to the experts- don't believe what those experts are telling them!
Not only that, but they disbelieve to the extent that they are spending their about to be laid off paychecks directly and specifically on that disbelief.
It is, of course, a mistaken disbelief- those millians of "ordinary" Americans can't be right that TheOne was lying.
No! Get back on that mental reservation!
Saturday, January 31, 2009
A back to America experience..
So, Saturday afternoon I was on my way back from my first day's hunting after returning from England.
About a mile after I turned off the freeway, going along a flat stretch of the state divided four lane (I almost wrote dual carriageway!), I looked over to my left. There was a good sized level hay field, cut short. I the middle of the field, say 70 yards from the highway, was a pond. On the far side of the pond, the spoil from its excavation had been piled into a berm.
And on posts in front of the berm were targets.
Between the pond and the road there were a car or two and three or four full size pickup trucks. And around the rides, the shooters were getting ready.
I had a thought, so I u-turned and drove back, leaving the shoulder and driving across the field to the unloading spot. There were maybe eight shooters, one grey haired and the others in their twenties, men and women. They had ground sheets down, I noticed a .22 or two lying there. When I dismounted and came around a truck, all the shooters but one were lined up abreast, facing me and a camera tripod where the last was setting the camera for a timed picture. They all smiled at me and the camera. As the photographer ran to join his chums, I looked down the line- they all (I think) had battle rifles, mostly ARs "tricked out" with rail farms, coloured stocks, etc. Most if not all had pistols, too.
After the snap, I told them-
"I don't want to interrupt your day, but I thought I'd tell you that I just returned from England. The only pistols and battle rifles in the whole country belong to the army and police, and no one touches them except by the orders of a superior.
There are sixty million people on that island, and not a single one of them- not the Queen herself- can do what you are doing now, taking your own modern rifles and handguns out of your own houses into a field for an afternoon's shooting.
In your big, gas hog pickup trucks.
In plain sight of public road, and no one calls the police, because its not anything special.
This right here tells me I'm back in America.
I love this country."
Well of course they grinned, thumbs upped, laughed, and naturally invited me to shoot some too. Alas I couldn't stop, even though I had an M1 and a bandolier in the truck!
The whole thing was a sacrament of liberty.
As I later tried to explain to my quasi- lefty, slightly anti gun friend ScienceGirl. I told her about the experience, and her reaction was, "You did WHAT? You're even braver than I thought you were."
(This is someone who rode jumpers on the USET, yet thinks I'm brave to the point of madness for hunting. Go figure.)
Staghounds- "What brave, I just told them what I thought."
SG- "You drove into somebody else's field. Down South. And confronted a bunch of strangers with GUNS."
Sh- "So?"
SG- "They might have shot you!"
Sh- "Why? They were in no danger."
SG- "You were trespassing!"
Sh- "You can't shoot someone for trespassing, that's murder!"
SG- "They might have, they were just a bunch of
rednecks." (SG's from the Party of Tolerance tm)
Sh- "These were recreational shooters. There was probably no more law abiding, and gun law knowledgeable, group of people in the whole county that day."
SG- "Well, I still think you're crazy."
Sh- " But as yet undiagnosed by a licensed professional. When you're a member of a persecuted minority, and you run across other members of your persecuted minority, there's a bonding connection. I knew perfectly well that I'd be made welcome. Responsible shooters love to meet others, and also to expose what we do to strangers.
(Then I remembered. For liberals, it's always 1955, even if their parents were still in Country Day School then. And SG is from Conn.)
"Follow along with me now, back in 1955 in Greenwich and Weston , there were lots of secret Jews. Don't you think that they felt good when they bumped into one another and realised, "Hey, you are one too. I'm not alone!"
SG- "Or gay people."
S- "Exactly."
SG- "I still think you're crazy. This wasn't Aspetuck, it was rednecks down South, with guns."
There's that tolerance again...
A good day hunting, too- the coyote had crossed into unhunted territory, and the staff were stopping hounds. As I often do, I went a bit farther- and saw the creature loop back into the country!
Definitely the hunted one, too- he was getting it!
By the time hounds could be laid on whatever scent he left was gone, though. Still, good to be right. The blind pig must be happy about his acorns, too.
About a mile after I turned off the freeway, going along a flat stretch of the state divided four lane (I almost wrote dual carriageway!), I looked over to my left. There was a good sized level hay field, cut short. I the middle of the field, say 70 yards from the highway, was a pond. On the far side of the pond, the spoil from its excavation had been piled into a berm.
And on posts in front of the berm were targets.
Between the pond and the road there were a car or two and three or four full size pickup trucks. And around the rides, the shooters were getting ready.
I had a thought, so I u-turned and drove back, leaving the shoulder and driving across the field to the unloading spot. There were maybe eight shooters, one grey haired and the others in their twenties, men and women. They had ground sheets down, I noticed a .22 or two lying there. When I dismounted and came around a truck, all the shooters but one were lined up abreast, facing me and a camera tripod where the last was setting the camera for a timed picture. They all smiled at me and the camera. As the photographer ran to join his chums, I looked down the line- they all (I think) had battle rifles, mostly ARs "tricked out" with rail farms, coloured stocks, etc. Most if not all had pistols, too.
After the snap, I told them-
"I don't want to interrupt your day, but I thought I'd tell you that I just returned from England. The only pistols and battle rifles in the whole country belong to the army and police, and no one touches them except by the orders of a superior.
There are sixty million people on that island, and not a single one of them- not the Queen herself- can do what you are doing now, taking your own modern rifles and handguns out of your own houses into a field for an afternoon's shooting.
In your big, gas hog pickup trucks.
In plain sight of public road, and no one calls the police, because its not anything special.
This right here tells me I'm back in America.
I love this country."
Well of course they grinned, thumbs upped, laughed, and naturally invited me to shoot some too. Alas I couldn't stop, even though I had an M1 and a bandolier in the truck!
The whole thing was a sacrament of liberty.
As I later tried to explain to my quasi- lefty, slightly anti gun friend ScienceGirl. I told her about the experience, and her reaction was, "You did WHAT? You're even braver than I thought you were."
(This is someone who rode jumpers on the USET, yet thinks I'm brave to the point of madness for hunting. Go figure.)
Staghounds- "What brave, I just told them what I thought."
SG- "You drove into somebody else's field. Down South. And confronted a bunch of strangers with GUNS."
Sh- "So?"
SG- "They might have shot you!"
Sh- "Why? They were in no danger."
SG- "You were trespassing!"
Sh- "You can't shoot someone for trespassing, that's murder!"
SG- "They might have, they were just a bunch of
rednecks." (SG's from the Party of Tolerance tm)
Sh- "These were recreational shooters. There was probably no more law abiding, and gun law knowledgeable, group of people in the whole county that day."
SG- "Well, I still think you're crazy."
Sh- " But as yet undiagnosed by a licensed professional. When you're a member of a persecuted minority, and you run across other members of your persecuted minority, there's a bonding connection. I knew perfectly well that I'd be made welcome. Responsible shooters love to meet others, and also to expose what we do to strangers.
(Then I remembered. For liberals, it's always 1955, even if their parents were still in Country Day School then. And SG is from Conn.)
"Follow along with me now, back in 1955 in Greenwich and Weston , there were lots of secret Jews. Don't you think that they felt good when they bumped into one another and realised, "Hey, you are one too. I'm not alone!"
SG- "Or gay people."
S- "Exactly."
SG- "I still think you're crazy. This wasn't Aspetuck, it was rednecks down South, with guns."
There's that tolerance again...
A good day hunting, too- the coyote had crossed into unhunted territory, and the staff were stopping hounds. As I often do, I went a bit farther- and saw the creature loop back into the country!
Definitely the hunted one, too- he was getting it!
By the time hounds could be laid on whatever scent he left was gone, though. Still, good to be right. The blind pig must be happy about his acorns, too.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Thank Goodness Britain Has VERY STRICT Gun Control!
Mainly applied to the police. Looks as though this loser was cranking off his gauge in downtown London for five hours before they got permission to stop him.
Thursday, March 06, 2008
North Carolina School Shooting...
ELIZABETH CITY, N.C. — A campus security officer is dead and several Elizabeth City State University officials are in jail charged with murder following a bizarre incident at the college campus yesterday.
The News & Observer of Raleigh reported in Wednesday's editions that an armed man burst into a classroom Friday, threatening to kill students. According to several people who were in the room, as he ranted at them and waved a gun around, the students and teacher responded in a way the gunman did not expect.
Assistant professor Jingbin Wang, whose American foreign policy class was held hostage. "I was not prepared to die at that moment," Wang said Tuesday of the moment the gunman entered the room. "I know from the study of history that it is better to resist than to submit. My ancestors were driven from their homes by warlords and communists, but I'm an American. And Liviu Librescuwas on the cover of every magazine in the country- I just followed his example."
"Professor Wang was incredible", said George Hanover, one of the students. "While he was telling us to line up against the wall, he just launched himself at the guy, and it was on. One of the students grabbed a chair and hit him, and Lizzie grabbed onto him and dragged him down. It was like United 93, we just pounded on him until we got the gun away."
The attacker died from his injuries.
Unknown to the students, they had been unknowing participants in an "emergency response drill". The man who attacked them was a campus security officer, ordered to assault the students in the "drill". The gun was only a red plastic model, but Wang and others said they didn't have time to examine it as they were being attacked.
Following a brief investigation, ECSU Chancellor Willie J. Gilchrist, Anthony Brown, vice chancellor of student affairs, and Samuel Beamon, director of public safety, were arrested. Each was charged with eleven counts of aggravated assault, eleven counts of conspiracy to commit aggravated assault, and one count of murder, listing the security officer as the victim. No students were charged.
"Look here, in North Carolina, when you go into a room full of innocent people and tell them you're going to kill them, I HOPE they resist", said Sheriff Andy Taylor. "None of those people did anything wrong. They were placed in reasonable fear of imminent death, and did what the law allows and human nature demands. The days of lining up like sheep are over. With people like Adam Walburger and LaShanda Quantrell being all over the news, people know what to do now. I'm proud of them."
District Attorney Mike Notnifong explained the charges. "Entering the classroom and threatening the students with what appeared to be a weapon is aggravated assault, a felony. All three of the defendants conspired together to make that happen, and ordered their employee to commit the crime. Even if no one had been hurt, they would have been charged, as would the security officer if he had lived.
In North Carolina, when someone is killed during the perpetration of a felony, the person committing the underlying felony is criminally responsible for the death as a murder. It's called the felony murder doctrine. Usually it's applied to robbers and burglars who kill their victims, but it has been used to convict accomplices when a co conspirator was killed by a resisting victim, too.
Look, this was incredibly foreseeable. Just a week ago, the NIU attacker was beaten to death by resisting students. The defendants knowingly and intentionally put twelve people in peril, and one died. These defendants killed him, and if a jury agrees they will do life in prison."
Just a dream... But they SHOULD charge the people who did and ordered this.
Seriously, click on the Gilchrist and Beamon links- in light of this incident, their previous sayings are hilarious.
And sorry, Miss C- you were wrong. Too much Rosa Parks and M.L. King, not enough Peter Salem and Nat Turner.
The News & Observer of Raleigh reported in Wednesday's editions that an armed man burst into a classroom Friday, threatening to kill students. According to several people who were in the room, as he ranted at them and waved a gun around, the students and teacher responded in a way the gunman did not expect.
Assistant professor Jingbin Wang, whose American foreign policy class was held hostage. "I was not prepared to die at that moment," Wang said Tuesday of the moment the gunman entered the room. "I know from the study of history that it is better to resist than to submit. My ancestors were driven from their homes by warlords and communists, but I'm an American. And Liviu Librescuwas on the cover of every magazine in the country- I just followed his example."
"Professor Wang was incredible", said George Hanover, one of the students. "While he was telling us to line up against the wall, he just launched himself at the guy, and it was on. One of the students grabbed a chair and hit him, and Lizzie grabbed onto him and dragged him down. It was like United 93, we just pounded on him until we got the gun away."
The attacker died from his injuries.
Unknown to the students, they had been unknowing participants in an "emergency response drill". The man who attacked them was a campus security officer, ordered to assault the students in the "drill". The gun was only a red plastic model, but Wang and others said they didn't have time to examine it as they were being attacked.
Following a brief investigation, ECSU Chancellor Willie J. Gilchrist, Anthony Brown, vice chancellor of student affairs, and Samuel Beamon, director of public safety, were arrested. Each was charged with eleven counts of aggravated assault, eleven counts of conspiracy to commit aggravated assault, and one count of murder, listing the security officer as the victim. No students were charged.
"Look here, in North Carolina, when you go into a room full of innocent people and tell them you're going to kill them, I HOPE they resist", said Sheriff Andy Taylor. "None of those people did anything wrong. They were placed in reasonable fear of imminent death, and did what the law allows and human nature demands. The days of lining up like sheep are over. With people like Adam Walburger and LaShanda Quantrell being all over the news, people know what to do now. I'm proud of them."
District Attorney Mike Notnifong explained the charges. "Entering the classroom and threatening the students with what appeared to be a weapon is aggravated assault, a felony. All three of the defendants conspired together to make that happen, and ordered their employee to commit the crime. Even if no one had been hurt, they would have been charged, as would the security officer if he had lived.
In North Carolina, when someone is killed during the perpetration of a felony, the person committing the underlying felony is criminally responsible for the death as a murder. It's called the felony murder doctrine. Usually it's applied to robbers and burglars who kill their victims, but it has been used to convict accomplices when a co conspirator was killed by a resisting victim, too.
Look, this was incredibly foreseeable. Just a week ago, the NIU attacker was beaten to death by resisting students. The defendants knowingly and intentionally put twelve people in peril, and one died. These defendants killed him, and if a jury agrees they will do life in prison."
Just a dream... But they SHOULD charge the people who did and ordered this.
Seriously, click on the Gilchrist and Beamon links- in light of this incident, their previous sayings are hilarious.
And sorry, Miss C- you were wrong. Too much Rosa Parks and M.L. King, not enough Peter Salem and Nat Turner.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
A book for children...
I had forgotten all about this book until I bumped into it by accident recently. But when I saw it, I well recalled reading it when I was quite young. It made a big impression.
On reading it now, I had some thoughts that of course would never have occurred to six year old me.
Starting with, shock. Actual, internal surprise. This would NEVER win the Newbery Medal today. Are you joking? It would never even be published. Only its Newbery keeps it in print.
If somehow it DID see the light of day, its author would be hounded out of the scribblers' guild. I cannot imagine any public or government school librarian permitting it to be added to the stacks. Other Newbery winners have been sanitized, but this entire book is thoughtcrime.
I've asked three librarians in different parts of the country to see if it was in inventory. The only one who said it was, after looking at it, expressed surprise at its presence.
The America of the time this book was published was a very different place. It was in its physical world- genuine poverty, segregation, sound(ish) money, no welfare, nationally engulfing war right off shore, men with neckties at the ball game, and the criminals always losing in the movies.
But that mental America must have been different from this one too. Some of those differences will scream at you when you imagine what would happen if this book magically appeared on the shelves at a school in Berkley or Westport. They are too obvious for even I, the Earl of Obvious, to point out. But there are a LOT of them.
That America was different from the way we have been taught, and are told, to imagine it as well. A couple of things from the book bring that home to me.
I won't talk about them here, for fear of spoilage. I've put most of the book in the post immediately preceding this one, and so that post- from March 4, 2008, is big- 40 pictures. Click on each picture to make it large enough to read. It will take a while to load if your machine is slow. I've left out the preface (which is for adults), most of the illustrations, and the last chapter. That's fair use, and if you want to discover what happens...
But if the owners ask me to take it down, I will.
I've got a couple of thoughts at the end of that post that might be not entirely obvious.
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
The Matchlock Gun, by Walter Edmonds
Thank you, Tam, for the link!! Haven't had so many visitors since I almost got blown up.
I had forgotten all about this book until I bumped into it by accident recently. But when I saw it, I well recalled reading it when I was quite young. It made a big impression.
On reading it now, I had some thoughts that of course would never have occurred to six year old me.
Starting with, shock. Actual, internal surprise. This would NEVER win the Newbery Medal today. Are you joking? It would never even be published. Only its Newbery keeps it in print.
If somehow it DID see the light of day, its author would be hounded out of the scribblers' guild. I cannot imagine any public or government school librarian permitting it to be added to the stacks. Other Newbery winners have been sanitized, but this entire book is thoughtcrime.
I've asked three librarians in different parts of the country to see if it was in inventory. The only one who said it was, after looking at it, expressed surprise at its presence.
The America of the time this book was published was a very different place. It was in its physical world- genuine poverty, segregation, sound(ish) money, no welfare, nationally engulfing war right off shore, men with neckties at the ball game, and the criminals always losing in the movies.
But that mental America must have been different from this one too. Some of those differences will scream at you when you imagine what would happen if this book magically appeared on the shelves at a school in Berkley or Westport. They are too obvious for even I, the Earl of Obvious, to point out. But there are a LOT of them.
That America was different from the way we have been taught, and are told, to imagine it as well. A couple of things from the book bring that home to me.
I won't talk about them here, for fear of spoilage. I've put most of the book in this post, and so it is big- 40 pictures. Click on each picture to make it large enough to read. It will take a while to load if your machine is slow. I've left out the preface (which is for adults), most of the illustrations, and the last chapter. That's fair use, and if you want to discover what happens...
But if the owners ask me to take it down, I will.
I've got a couple of thoughts at the end of that post that might be not entirely obvious.
Click on each picture to make it large enough to read.
It's a shame that we live in a world where every single bit of this story is subversive of the established theology.
One thing I like about this book is the author's spare, relaxed style. The book is full of incident, yet it feels like he's describing the making of a sandwich or some other fairly ordinary event. There's not the slightest attempt at hyperbole. The people, all of them, just cope.
Perhaps that's why the lessons and points of the book were so effective for me as a child. They aren't presented didactically, but are part of the background. Many modern books for children (like many old ones) are preachments, and that's just not so effective. With me, anyway.
One of the things most subversive of orthodoxy is partly what this book presents, but mainly the fact that it presented it in 1941.
We're told that women in those dim, pre-Friedan days were kept barefoot and pregnant. That they were the household skivvies of men, prevented from any contribution or decision making. And further, that the eeeeeeeevil patriarchy reinforced that outlook at every turn.
But look at the Gertrude children are shown in 1941! Talk about a strong, independent, intelligent, capable woman. She even refuses her husband's command to go to the brick house, and he just accepts it! It's almost as if she's a respected equal!
Current feminist thinking often pretends that girls (and boys) back in the bad old days weren't shown powerful examples of women. That's a lie, and this book is a demonstration.
This book is still under copyright, and I encourage you to buy it. Even if you are profoundly cheap. Certainly everyone who can read the second amendment and has a child whom he or she knows ought to think about it as a present. You might want to discuss aspects of it with them, but it should be in the nursery.
Something just occurred to me- I wonder if new versions ARE altered? Don't see how they could be, but the bien pensants are clever. I'll have to buy one and see.
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