Red sails in the sunset . . . .

I like Geek's postcard to DiFi.

Ding, dong, the witch is dead. The 1994 AWB sunsets.

Oddly enough, as I've shopped for these dreaded weapons during these ten years, prices spiked on the pre-ban weapons early, but the free(er) market reacted. Rule-beating weapons (no flash hider or bayonet lug, some domestic parts) otherwise identical to the banned weapons appeared promptly and prices quickly settled down, even to levels below those for the pre-bans.

Without realizing it, the proponents of the AWB energized a domestic industry in weapons that used to be strictly imports. Of course they didn't anticipate this unintended consequence. Will they learn from it?

So what will happen to prices? Up, or down? Supply increased during the ban, as companies set themselves up to manufacture domestically what the AWB would not allow them to import, and that capacity isn't going away. It was more affordable for me to get an FAL during the ban than before it. With the AWB sunsetting, some products will be legitimate to import again, so overall supply increases.

On the other side of the price curve, will demand increase simply because a law changes?

My prognostication: many people who get their news from the major press have assumed that these weapons have been unavailable for the last ten years, and now that the ban is over, they'll buy. Prices will spike, but this time the domestic manufacturing capacity will ramp up to absorb it faster than when the ban was imposed (easier to add a shift to machines already tooled up, than to set the tooling up in the first place). Prices won't spike as high and will fall sooner for end items.

Meanwhile, owners of post-ban guns will want to refit theirs with post-post-ban features. Many of these are bolt-on, such as stocks and bayonets. That capacity is there, in fact the products themselves are, since they were removed from complete weapons or parts kits to make post-ban weapons in the first place, as well as third-party firms making domestic parts for rule-beaters.

What separates the clueless con-man from the professional

Note to those who aspire to professional con-man status:

If you're going to hack together a smoking-gun memo backdated before about 1990, use the Courier font. It probably monospaces and it does not kern or ligate.

Ligate, you ask? Quick and dirty: typesetting allows the joining of an "f" and an "i" for example. Another thing typewriters can't do. I don't have the time to scan all of the subject forgeries for ligatures (I have a day job, dammit) but it's another thing to look for, y'all.

Further: Hugh Hewitt's drive-time show last Friday night reminded me of what the cost was, to Michael Gartner, when the NBC fraud of exploding gas tanks in pickup trucks was discovered. Mr Gartner had to find a new job---not in internet time, of course, but the internet didn't move as fast then as it does now. The 48-hour estimate from Instapundit reader John Steele sounds sluggish in comparison.

What we celebrate defines us

In my mailbox this morning:

CES is tasked with 5 personnel for
Saturday's Patriot Day Observance.

Somebody has taken to calling 11 September Patriot Day. This is wrong, folks. "Patriot Day" or "Patriot's Day" is taken. It's 19 April.

Y'know, shot heard 'round the world and all that? Battle of Lexington and Concord, Paul Revere's midnight ride? Or maybe that has become politically incorrect, and now we are directed to celebrate victimhood, to commemorate the times we get struck, instead of celebrating a moment when we fought back.

Quick hits

I'm not done exercising, by a long way. Next week will be hell, but I'll sleep in my own bed. I can see the cardboard sign: "Will do ATP-45(b) plots and VLSTRACK 3.1 fans for food."

Toad has a date for surgery, to knit the roof of his mouth together. He can propel himself toward the cat food bowl.

Mlle Sklodovska is making progress with physical therapy to improve her balance and posture. But she's not getting what she needs in the G&T department. Barbaloot checked out some books on how we need to handle her, and I'm reading the best she found.

Boy is calming down a bit, but Mlle Sklodovska's occupational therapist suggests we'll be sending him to her too.

Firstborn is, as Professor Henry Jones puts it, "becoming interesting."

Several friends from my days in the cable industry have surfaced again, wondering what I've been up to. I tell them I'm staying out. This is probably permanent. The package is going in for 179 days for next fiscal year, and Prairie AFB is asking me to transfer to AF Reserve and serve them as an Individual Mobilization Augmentee. As long as it remains more of a challenge than drudgery.

I'm in love I'm in love I'm in love with a . . .

The market is way ahead of me, or perhaps I'm waaay behind it. Since I no longer subscribe to Shotgun News, I wouldn't have known that a domestic manufacturer is assembling Galil clones. TCM and I took a road trip to an out-of-the-way dealer who had a V73-110 in the rack. Love at first sight, but love that must remain unfulfilled until I win either the race for the US Senate, or the Powerball.

Vulcan must chamber one in 6.5mm Grendel.

Things they need to add to MREs

Single-serving packets of Nutella.

Instead of the pitiful little index-card-sized alcohol towelette, how about a full-sized baby wipe?

Please add your own.

Quote for the day

Richard Posner guesting at Lessig Blog:

And of course once we decide that the way to prevent terrorism is to change our way of life, we create new incentives for people who want us to change our way of life to resort to terrorism.

I used to think, like many Libertarians, that if America behaved differently in the rest of the world, we would inspire no animus against us.

I thought that, in one version or another, with one or more qualifications, right up until shortly after I began this weblog.

No more.

Blogging will be light

Another TDY, this one to 17TWG territory on MGRS grid. Back next week.

Quote for the day

. . . in my mind, there was no failure, OK? I knew exactly upon 9/11 that there would be smoking memoranda found within weeks and that there would be somebody within the intelligence community who had been screaming their head off in the days and weeks and months up to that point.

Thomas P.M. Barnett, in interview by Brian Lamb of C-SPAN, airdate 30 May 2004. Transcript here.

I'll bite

At the request of Backcountry Conservative:

Fûz, Pennsylvania Air National Guard, 1981 to 1999; Wyoming Air National Guard 1999 to 2001; US Air Force October 2001 to present. Non-commissioned officer, NBC Defense.

Quote for the day

Can the people who destroyed the Alien franchise be trusted with the [Alien versus Predator] concept?

In a word: no.

Pool of Thought

I'm tired from wearing MOPP gear for the last two days, I've been drinking, I'm on a 33k6 connection, and I'm tired, but this fact shines through: this guy is good.

Product review as it were

Uncle Sugar owed me a few $$$ since my last TDY and I've been lusting in my heart for a hard-drive based MP3 player for some time. It was fate---kismet . . . .

The iRiver IHP120 was available at a nearby Best Buy (Aurora at Mississippi and Abilene), and the good Geek behind the counter saw me salivating over the display model and discreetly told me of an open-box special. The previous owner had graciously charged it up for me and left me with a few audio files of him muttering "hudda budda" into the microphone for many seconds, and depreciated ten percent from their list price. Done deal.

Now that I've figured out how to get this device to shuffle-play among multiple albums, I can fall asleep to more than one artist. The device has both line-in and microphone inputs (microphone included) so I can import files or record in analog from all of the valuable vinyl albums I still have. I would have bought the iPod but the iRiver has encoding on-board and supports all audio formats I know of so far.

The drawbacks arise from the user interface. I have used only the Rio R30S before this so I am not the conclusive expert on MP3 player user interfaces, but maybe the clumsy user interface is the reason the previous owner turned this thing back in and I got the open-box discount.

So badly Palm needs to license their OS and interface to these devices.

Overall 3 out of five stars, 4-plus of 5 for value for the money, 1 of 5 for user interface, 4 of 5 for feature-to-weight ratio. It's scarcely more discommodating than the 64MB Rio.

For a ride on a C-130, you need noise-cancelling headphones. I'll be using the IHP120 as a USB hard drive too, loading it up with NIMA map files (CADRG, DTED, ArcView).

Warning: read the fscking manual on how to load it with music and navigate the drive. Before you plug it in, I mean.

somebody bought me 2 martinis

so I'll be somewhat stream-of-consciousness. It's definitely autumn in southern Wisconsin, I smell of tobacco, and, well, there were those Tanqueray martinis.

Am preparing a product review of the iRiver IHP120 MP3 player-aka-20GB USB hard drive. Meanwhile, a good friend of mine, with whom I've been out of contact, has been on my mind because his last contact with me was one of those questions about "what is in your CD player RIGHT NOW?" and the answer is, well, a bit of everything I've loaded into the new gizmodified MP3 player so far.

That would be Reverend Horton Heat's Space Heater, two NIN's, two Devo's, an Acoustic Alchemy, a Billy Idol, a Fountains of Wayne, and so forth.

The good friend was my Best Man at my wedding. Since then, his marriage has gone south and he's not sure what to do. Please send him love.

I'm embarking on a change, though one not as heavy with consequence as his. I'm saying goodbye to a Wing full of people I've served well and proudly for five years plus; he's losing a wife. No comparison.

So answer me these questions three:

• what music are you hearing now?
  
• choose the name of the best friend you have now, excepting people you've married or people of your own blood. What is that person's first name?
  
• who's the last person you've said "goodbye" to?
  
• is that "goodbye" for the better or for the worse?
  

Post 'em in the comments. It's a Friday night. Or a Saturday morning. Whatever.

OPSEC observed here

I've been observing OPSEC at WUTT! since before the beginning. I think I've adhered to the rules as set down here, and continue to do so, because I might yet go back downrange.

Tip of the K-pot to Lt Smash:

1. Don't violate OPSEC. Never name your unit, be vague about your location and mission, and don't use anyone's real name.

2. Be careful what you say about your seniors. Don't write anything about a superior in your blog that you wouldn't want that person to read back to you.

which would it be?

If you could instantly acquire skill in one but only one musical instrument,
which would it be?

Forgive me Father . . .

. . . for it has been months without number since I've plugged the Carnival of the Vanities. Hosted at Smallest Minority. Please visit.

Another quote for the day

there is no evidence that plentiful networked information can replace killing power and inherent survivability, especially in close combat. Timely and useful information is critical, but it cannot substitute for firepower, mobility and armored protection.

Colonel Douglas Macgregor, PhD, USA (ret.), testifying before the House Armed Services Committee on July 15, 2004. Hat tip: LANDPOWERTRANSFORMATION@yahoogroups.com, August 2004

Quote for the day

Having the the FCC and Congress as foster-parents is at best like being a child-star and at worst like being raised by alcoholics. Either way, stunted growth is a likely outcome.

Tim Wu regarding the regulation of VoIP in its infancy. HT: BoingBoing

Just one more flavor of Kool-Aid to drink

WUTT! today officially endorses the FairTax.

We have in the past proposed many schemes that amount to tinkering with the income tax code. Guilty as charged---with half my tongue firmly in cheek and the other half counting on the building popular exasperation with the complexity and the social engineering aspects of the tax code, which
would eventually spill over into support of some other method of taxation.

From time to time I have doubted that the exasperation would build to the point that the taxed masses would seek redress or revolt, indeed that it was building at all. Such doubts are more pertinent in time of armed conflict.

We will still (flippantly at times) propose income-tax tinkering in these pages, if only to point out how divisive our current system can be, and how serious I am about throwing it aside.

Drink the Kool-Aid, noble Readers.

XM8 on FoxNews

FoxNews Channel just showed off the XM8 and a glimpse of the M307.

Is this the beginning of a press build for seeking funding?

AWB sunset countdown continues

"It's an uphill battle," Sarah Brady, one of the nation's leading gun-
control advocates, said in a telephone interview last week. "Our
streets are going to be filled with AK-47s and Uzis" unless Congress
extends the ban, she said.

So if I see a Bulgarian AK just laying there in the street on the 14th, I can just keep it?

Cool. I'll pass on the Uzi.

My salad days

I was clearing out a 22-gallon Rubbermaid tub in my crawlspace last night, weeding out old documents for which I had no use, and stacking the ones with social security numbers and such for the shredder. I came upon a few folders full of material from my monkey-wrenching days, if you will, when the American Civil Liberties Union pissed me off.

I had just subscribed. The first newsletter they sent me cited all of the wonderful work they did to protect civil liberties, with a page dedicated to each of the Amendments of the Bill of Rights that they worked to protect. The Second and Third were absent. I wrote them asking why, and they replied with their policy as it stood at the time.

This was about the same time that the ACLU's president spoke to a gathering of Libertarians (it might have been a national LP convention, I don't recall) and someone from the audience asked why their policy on RKBA matters was so, uh, wrong. She offered to seek a reexamination of the policy; the audience reacted very favorably.

I kept writing, asking if the policy would be reexamined, and I invited a few of my friends, namely, GOA, CCRKBA, JPFO, and most of the Usenet, to write or call with their support of the notion.

This is no hoax, it's the genuine article. I have a few others like it. The "burdensome flow of communications" effectively shut their offices down for a few weeks until they could sort through it. It was not my goal to shut them down, rather to encourage them to at least reexamine the conventional wisdom and not fear the prospect of an unpopular stand.

I was a younger man, more naive about how hypocrisy and cynicism can survive and even flourish in an organization dedicated to lofty goals (note well: not Ms Strossen I'm talking about here, but the organization she presided). Perhaps I've gained some wisdom and realism along with 20 pounds of body mass since then. And perhaps the ACLU has learned something---they and the Gun Lobby have worked together, on issues affecting conventionally-understood civil rights as well as RKBA, though gun rights definitely remain "not their bag."

But ACLU will have to contribute many thousands of lawyers' hours on some cases they wouldn't have touched in 1991 before I'll spend another dime on them. They know this clearly.

Oh by the way, did they ever change their national policy number 47? Apparently not.

Quote for the day

I also saw the classic [bumpersticker] If you think education is expensive, try ignorance. I don't think education is expensive. Education is a bargain, and an excellent investment. What I object to is the cost of schooling.

triticale, the wheat-rye guy

Clearly, what the folks who wrote that bumpersticker meant to say was that people should not complain about how much education costs or take action to reduce it. Their livelihood depends on an assumption that schools must be expensive to be any good; the more expensive, in fact, the better. The average bloke who shops around for education for his kids will make a horrible mess of them. Leave this matter to Us, citizen.

For inexpensive, and probably superior education, one must, however, buy that education from somebody other than the folks who wrote that bumpersticker aphorism.

Schaeffer versus Coors?

In the primary contest for the Republican nomination for US Senate, to replace Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell: as far as RKBA goes, Schaeffer looks better and is better known, Coors seems too much Owens's buddy for me to trust him on this.

But Schaeffer is beginning to really piss me off with attacks on Coors about reducing the drinking age. This line of attack reeks of Nanny-Statism, and it's out of character for a conservative, neo- or otherwise. I see the same freedom-dynamic behind both RKBA and right to booze. If Schaeffer's support for RKBA is not moored to a deeper philosophy of freedom, one that also sees a right to be stupid with liquor for example, that support can be knocked loose and he'd be no better at protecting RKBA than Bob Dole under pressure or if faced with a hard choice.

Your thoughts? Please leave a comment.

Why no discussion of the contenders for the Democrat Party's nomination? Well, what about them?

BTW, I'm aware of no Libertarian candidate at all. My copy of the LPCO newsletter did not mention one. If that spot's still open, well . . .

This is my yard

And it's covered in hail. My neighbor photographed it and sent it to a local TV station.

The old joke goes something like, "I got a snowmobile for my wife . . . "

Along the same lines, Roderick Long at Liberty and Power thinks he heard that Bill O'Reilly would be willing to hand himself over for decapitation if the holdouts in Fallujah surrender.

The punchline to both the joke and the O'Reilly story is: "Good trade."

Hat tip: Roderick Long at Liberty and Power.

Quote for the day

I've never understood why recrimination is considered pointless.

Sheldon Richman at Future of Freedom Foundation, speaking about blue-ribbon commissions in general and the 9/11 Commission report in particular. Hat tip to David Beito at Liberty and Power.

Sit, Toad, sit!

More on the tigerstripes

Prairie AFB received a visit from the Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force last week. All of us enlisted folk assembled in the gym to hear him. He's a talented speaker.

His last topic, after rotation lengths, force shaping, and pay and benefits, was the proposed new tiger stripe utility uniform. The CMSAF asked us our general opinion of the uniform, pros first and cons second. By an unscientific measure, the volume of the huahs, it appears that the tiger stripes are not only disliked, they're intensely disliked.

CMSAF went on with his pitch, though, as a seasoned senior NCO must. One point he raised was that the current BDUs cost too much over their lifecycles. Because we are expected to press and starch them, they are useless in real combat and they wear out prematurely. The new uniform will save Airmen and the Air Force money over the long run because we'll be putting less effort into maintaining them, and the AF will be replacing them less often (i.e. they can reduce uniform allowances?).

Hell, I could fix that problem in ten seconds.

INTERIM MESSAGE CHANGE 04--01 TO AIR FORCE INSTRUCTION 36-2903
EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY

1. All USAF activities will immediately read and heed the care label affixed to the Battle Dress Uniform and Desert Camouflage Uniform.
   
2. Specifically, all USAF activities will suspend the application of starch, sizing, or other fabric treatment not specifically authorized by the fabric care label affixed to the Battle Dress Uniform and Desert Camouflage Uniform. Pressing with a cool iron will be the only authorized and compliant method of maintaining the professional appearance of these uniforms.
   
3. Further, all USAF activities will cease to direct, require, or recommend Airmen to apply starch or sizing to BDU and DCU. Orders to the contrary shall be considered unlawful.
   
4. Any activities or functions which require Airmen to appear in creased or starched uniforms will direct Airmen to appear in blue uniforms appropriate to the weather and occasion. Commanders will weigh the need for professional appearance of their Airmen against the demands of the mission, and set the uniform accordingly.
   
5. All Airmen are reminded that the BDU and DCU are combat utility uniforms, intended for harsh service in possible contact with the enemy. As such they are a weapon system, whose use and maintenance is as critical as those for an aircraft, munition, or C2 system. Misuse and premature wear due to unauthorized maintenance practices will not be tolerated.
   
6. Commanders will use open-ranks inspections and surveillance with thermal imaging devices to ensure compliance. Inspectors General will note this aspect of uniform maintenance and appearance as a special interest item (SII).
   

All I'd need is CSAF's signature.

Welcome to readers from Seewhatyoushare

A seismic spike in WUTT's hit counter, attributable to readers coming here from the blogroll at Seewhatyoushare, a blog about the stuff that people don't know they are passing on peer-to-peer networks.

Welcome, and come back often.

The Cabinet Man Gets a Visit from the Friendly Local Constabulary

(What song is playing? “Good Things”, Sleater-Kinney)

Background: I shoot a lot. Nearly every weekend I'm at the range. My favorite weapons are my .308 MBRs and my various 7.62x39 semi-autos. Whenever I can get some ammo for these things at a good price, I'm quick to “buy in bulk”. I usually buy at gun shows, being careful to shop around and get the best prices. Anything gun-related in Maryland is expensive so I do my research and make sure I'm getting a better price than I can get at My Favorite Gun Shop.

One of the bargains out there right now is the imported 7.62x51 NATO ball ammo from Australia. It shoots very nicely in all my MBRs and I have a favorite gun-show vendor that gives me a break on anything I buy from them because (1) I'm a good customer (I buy a lot!!), (2) I'm reliable (I buy everything I ask them to bring down for me), and (3) I'm just plain handsome!! There was a gun show in Northern Virginia today and I phoned in my order after agreeing upon a great price on four cases (3200 rounds) of Aussie surplus. I cruised the show, borrowed their hand truck and loaded my trusty F350 with my prize.

When I got home – about 4:00 PM – I grabbed my four-wheeled dolly cart and stacked all four cases onto it, sparing my back and biceps. I wheeled the 250 pound load into my apartment and found a spot amongst the packing clutter to store it until I move back to CO in three weeks. I exited the apartment to tend to a flat tire I got this afternoon and I was running around outside investigating its failure. After finding a broken valve stem, I threw the tire into the back of the truck and headed back inside. Just as I entered the breezeway, I noticed a Montgomery County police car cruise past my truck and give it – and me – a long glance. I paid it little attention and went about my business.

Once inside, I glanced out the window and noticed that the patrolman was circling my truck and talking on his radio. Hmmmm... I had forgotten to get a ratchet strap out of the truck so I figured I'd get the strap and get this over with. I popped out the door at which point the patrolman asked if the truck was mine. I said 'yes' and he said, “Good, you saved me some work.”

He politely said that someone had called the police concerning some “questionable” items I removed from my truck and he was sent to make sure there were no potential threats to my neighbors. I had about two seconds to make a plan. My first thought was to put up my guard and play hard-ass. But in those two seconds, I decided not to do that. Instead, I grinned, nodded my head, and rolled my eyes. I said, “I know what caused the alarm” and motioned for him to follow me. I had put the cart just inside my door and I knew I could get thru this without dragging him through all the moving clutter.

The patrolman stood in my doorway and I pointed to the four green wooden ammo cases as I said, “Ammo.” I grabbed a case and spun it around to show the bright orange triangle that screamed “EXPLOSIVES”. I said, “I'm guessing that's what caused the alarm.” He nodded and asked what it was. I explained and he asked me if I minded popping open a case so he could confirm its contents if anyone asked. I didn't feel like getting into a 4th Amendment argument and figured, “what the hell”. My favorite gun show vendor had never accidentally given me hand grenades instead of NATO ball ammo so I took my chances. I cut open the tie wraps that held the latches closed and raised the lid. Whew!! No grenades. Just 800 rounds of 7.62x51. I opened one of the boxes and showed him the blister-packed ammo. He gave me a nod of approval and a quick smile that I suspect contained a small amount of relief. I gave him an (unnecessary) apology for scaring someone and he thanked me and went on his way. He never asked for my name (he didn't need to – he knew the truck was mine...) and I didn't get any lectures or questions I thought were founded in suspicion.

So, that was that. Part of me wanted to play hardball: deny the truck was mine, refuse to let him in, refuse to open the case, insist on a warrant, demand to know my accuser. Part of me just wanted to clear up a misunderstanding between an obviously reasonable cop and a cowering sheeple that got nervous as I unloaded ammo in the open, in broad daylight, while making no effort to be sneaky or covert. I chose the latter. Time may prove me wrong but I think I made the right choice. The cop had to believe I was on the up-and-up. I was polite but not obsequious. I was helpful but not to the point of looking desperate. I'm sure there's now a report somewhere with my name on it and a note that I had 3200 rounds of ammo stacked near my front door. Had he and I stood our ground and let his duty collide with my rights, that report would still have been made but it would say that I was uncooperative, guarded, suspicious, blah, blah, blah. Red Flag!! Instead, it might just say I was helpful and handled the situation with grace and humor. (Nah....)

But again, part of me wanted to play hardball. I'm getting ready to move and my apartment is a mass of boxes, including no fewer than 12 empty rifle boxes that were in plain site of the patrolman. I don't know if he saw them – I will assume he did. I'll be pondering this decision for many days as hindsight is always 20/20. If nothing comes of it, then I feel I made the right choice. The police can make my life miserable whether I had cooperated or not. While I drift more and more into the “question authority” mindset each day, I still hold out a small glimmer of hope for common sense from the Powers That Be, especially at the lower levels.

What would I do differently?? First, I would have torn off those damned orange stickers when I put the cases in the truck to begin with. (The heat index in Virginia had to be over 100 degrees today and I won't admit to having full use of foresight in that matter.) Without those stickers I'm sure the “concerned citizen” would have found little to be concerned about. I'll also be more discreet in the future when moving around cases of ammo. Second, I would have asked the patrolman to wait outside while I wheeled-out the cart of ammo. He wouldn't have had a chance to “glance around” and I could have accomplished the same task without being deemed uncooperative. A good friend of mine who's a military cop warned me to never let a policeman into my house without a warrant. I dropped the ball on that one. I'll do it much better next time. Hoping, of course, that there never is a next time.

What really gripes my ass is that there is some knucklehead in my apartment complex that probably thinks I'm a terrorist. (I can think of NOTHING that's further from the truth...) He/she has seen too many commercials asking citizens to narc-out their neighbors. They've read too many 1-800-123-TIPS signs. They've nothing better to do than to spy on their neighbors and call 9-1-1 when they wet their diaper. I'd love to pose a few questions to the sheeple that unleashed upon me one of Montgomery County's finest. First, if I was trafficking in explosives, why would I leave on the orange stickers?? Why would I move the stuff around in plain site, in the middle of the day?? Second, why didn't you just ask me what it was I had?? Moving the stuff around as I was, I was obviously not trying to hide anything. If you're curious, ask. Third, why don't you get a life?? Stop being a good little PATRIOT Act spy and try skipping the Two Minutes Hate every once in a while.

So that's the end of my rant. Hopefully I didn't screw up. Hopefully the cop is cool and he'll pass along that I am too. Hopefully the whole thing will come to nothing. I know that's a lot of hope but that's just me.

TCM

NOTAMS

It has come to my attention that my Air Force is lapsing into a groundless notion that addressing non-commissioned officers as "sir" and "ma'am" is somehow respectful.

For months I have failed to disabuse you of this notion. More than one non-commissioned officer struggled to become one. More than one non-commissioned officer struggled to prepare her Airmen to recognize rank, render each rank its proper respect, learn their own places, and aspire to higher rank themselves.

Every time you address an NCO as "sir" you are committing two offenses: you are showing disrespect to the place and the accomplishments of the NCO standing before you, and you are suggesting that you do not know, or do not attend to, the difference between brass and chevrons. This is one of the first things taught you when you stepped off the bus and into the Air Force; forgetting first-day material is not forgiveable.

I would argue that it constitutes a third offense, one to decorum and tradition. Some Airmen offer the rationale that "it couldn't hurt" to address an NCO as "sir" or "ma'am," that more politeness is better. I assure you it is not. Rather than being received as brownnosing, this careless form of address signals to the NCO that you literally don't know who you are talking to. Nor is it effective brownnosing to confuse an experienced, mature NCO---with humble beginnings just like your own---with a butterbar who's still finding his ass, or a squadron commander who probably knows your ass better than you do after a single glance at you.

If you want to go above and beyond, if you're convinced that more is better, then give General Jumper an extra five in the morning. Give up the cigarettes. Cut twenty seconds off your mile and a half. Finish your CDCs. Keep your genitals in your pants and keep your eyes open.

And call me Sergeant.

Quote for the day

So Teresa Heinz Kerry has been busted for telling a reporter to "shove it" after delivering a speech on the need for civility. Her mistake, in my opinion, was not to say "shove it," but to preach for civility.

Common Sense at Liberty and Power

One of Colorado's Native Sons Returns Home

(What's in the CD player??  "A Stare Like Yours", The Thermals)

Colorado, I'm coming home!!

After sixteen years in Maryland (12 + 4 = __), I've had it up to here.  (Take my word for it, the threshhold has been exceeded...)  I had some plans to partner with an old business associate at his existing company but, alas, it wasn't to be.  Too much uncommon ground as it related to salary, capitalization, and control.  He still needs a hand but he'll have to do more soul-searching before he'll be able to loosen the reins.  Most importantly, it would have left me stuck on the East coast.

So I took matters into my own hands.  Given the collective wise counsel-- and the occasional prodding -- of B-Mac, Axle, and Fuze (all CO locals), I "up and quit" my stint in the Golden Handcuffs, reserved me a rental truck, and set my sights on my former hometown of Colorado Springs.  I have yet to find a job or a house but I'm optimistic nonetheless.  I'm visiting next week, during which time I will (1) have a job interview, (2) find a humble abode for all the stuff that owns me, and (3) buy my very own piece of God's Country.

I know I'll feel -- and be treated -- like an outsider for a while.  Hopefully just a little while.  My CO friends tell me I've adopted a strange -- almost Pennsylvania-like -- accent, of which I'm not aware.  Getting rid of that will be difficult perhaps.  I spent nine years in ColoSpgs before I landed here in MD and my last serious visit was more than a bit disorienting.  I knew the road names but forgot where they went.  Landmarks I expected to be in a certain place were hidden or gone.  My favorite military surplus store jumped to the other side of the street and its emphasis on 'military' was lost somewhere along the way.  But I'll recover quickly, I'm sure.

I hope the job interview goes well.  It would be a nice change of pace from designing DSL modem software.  (DSL has paid the bills but it's as spiritually rewarding as watching paint dry.)  If the new job doesn't work out then I'll do my best to re-ignite my own engineering company, which, BTW, still exists as a CO corporation.  At least my attorney is convinced that it is, given that he bills me regularly for services that only he and The State deem warranted.

For me, the most exciting part is the land.  TCM's Hideout.  Even at 40-something, I have yet to carry a mortgage.  (I know, that's good and bad...)  I have never set down roots, due either to lack of ability or lack of desire.  Just as I have an uncontrollable "salmonic" urge to swim back upstream, I feel the need to have a place to call Mine.  I'll eventually get a Real Home Mortgage once the dust settles but for now,this piece of land I'm "jonesing" after will do just fine!!

So, sometime next month, there will be the white streak of El Puerqo Grande (my F350's moniker) and a rental truck headed West.  My ex-wife's former father-in-law has kindly offered to drive one of the vehicles.  He prefers EPG -- as do I.  It'll be an arm-wrestling match each morning.  I'd like to make the trip via motorcycle but that doesn't lend itself well to getting Stuff to CO.  So the motorcycles will be trailered and the Slow Crawl out I-70 will be my fate.

And, it can't happen soon enough.

Now I just need to find the closest rifle range to ColoSpgs.  :^)

It's all good!!

TCM

Two-tiered justice system, or a case of the rich raising the tide?

Two competing views could apply to Kobe Bryant's prosecution.

One: we have a two-tiered justice system. One tier serves the moneyed elite and delivers verdicts favorable to them, and the other handles the rest of us and dispenses justice to us in a way favorable to the State.

Other: the justice system we operate today commonly abuses defendants' rights and gets away with it. Only "celebrities" and the rich wield the resources---finances, name recognition, talented counsel---to fight back against them. If it weren't for them, fewer people would be aware of the abuses and they would be more widespread.

Of course neither view excludes the other.

What's your take? Put it in the comments.

Dennis Miller show

I actually watched one from start to finish, mainly because I knew Cathy Seipp would be there. It was worth the time.

• Cathy Seipp is hot.
  
• Lose the squirrel.
  
• The chimp made a martini. Cool.
  
• Damn, sometimes I miss private-sector business travel---the occasional martini bars, y'know? I could use the airline miles too.
  
• Dennis Miller was kinda cool too. More on that later.
  

A Cheerios ad running from local feed begged a hacking. More on that later too.

Friday muledeer blogging

Firstborn and I spotted this pair three weeks ago, along Colorado 86, between Castle Rock and Franktown. Since then I've kept a loaded Canon in the car. My patience paid off. Here they are again, last Thursday night, about a hundred meters east of Colorado 83, about a klick and a half from where we last saw them.


A friend at work says these are Boone and Crockett material. Both are at least 10-point, still in velvet.

Five of them were in the same spot this afternoon as I drove home. The camera sat at the house, empty.

RFC: blog personality sorter

After perusing the table of contents for the August 04 issue of Liberty, and comparing the obituaries for Ronald Reagan, I'm impressed with the diversity of thought. I liked Reagan, both in political deeds and political words, with some exceptions as always. I'll tolerate and hear those who speak ill of him, even want him to go to Hell. But that's not my point.

Liberty's editors and writers are polarized on Reagan, as they often are on many topics. As I scan the titles of the articles and their alternating love him/hate hims, it appears to me that I need to keep track of the writers with whom I agree and disagree, and why.

The blogosphere is infested with self-selecting quizzes that invite a reader to answer a series of questions about himself, and then return a profile that matches the reader to a famous philosopher, politician, fantasy figure, humorous character, and so forth. I'm a True Neutral Half-elf Ranger Druid by one quiz, John Stuart Mill by another, Jimmy (of the movie Pulp Fiction) by another, Boomhauer by yet another.

If libertarianism is not a single unified
philosophy but a kind of constellation of neighboring, competing philosophies, able to attract each other until we get within 1 AU and then mildly repel each other, we should start pigeonholing ourselves into them (visualize the name tags that say "HELLO! I'm Fûz and I'm a Consequentialist Jeffersonian"). A Quizilla based on Liberty Magazine's editorial staff would serve well as the sorting hat.

That way we know what to expect when we bump into one another at cocktail parties and blogger roundups, get past the bickering after the first round of drinks, and build a consensus for useful political action. The ones who want to keep on arguing can be dismissed as wankers.

Which regular Liberty writer am I?

We should be seeing a perp walk, not hearing sniffles about "quee r timing"

Americans have a traditional and healthy distrust of government. This distrust demands openness in the government's operations, so political consensus can be achieved and the will of the governed can operate.

One lonely area where we allow the government to be "closed" as it were, is in the area of national security. We allow our government to hold certain kinds of information secret because broad knowledge of that information can put us, the governed, in danger. We allow secrets to be kept from the majority of us for our benefit. This trust is tenuous. The makers and
keepers of these secrets have a unique duty to understand and earn the trust that allows us to keep them in the first place. A violation of this trust can shake the government to its foundations.

We cannot afford any incidents that are or would reasonably be construed to be politically motivated manipulation of state secrets.

The theft and destruction of these documents appears then to be two crimes: the theft and destruction of the documents per se, and the apparent manipulation of state secrets to achieve a political advantage.

The former simply makes us shrug and wonder idly whether Mr Berger's security clearance will be merely suspended, or fully withdrawn for cause; the latter should outrage us, regardless of our political preferences, for undermining the trust we place in our government to maintain the firewall between domestic party politics and national security.

We should be seeing his perp walk instead of an impromptu press conference, and we should be hearing ringing condemnation from his former boss instead of suggestions of suspicious timing of a leak.

A new lens

I readily admit that I view everything through ideological lenses. Some lenses wash out too much contrast, keeping me from seeing a difference that I either do not notice, or write off as a meaningless or even false distinction. After I begin missing too much, reality taps me on the shoulder and suggests that I try new lenses. It is not an option to remove the lenses entirely. No lenses, no filter, too much glare pours in.

Libertarianism has been my most trusted lens for perhaps fifteen years now. The prescription has needed adjustment from time to time, and now it seems that I need to do close-up work with one scrip, driving with another, so to speak. But it has done well for me, I haven't driven over a cliff or failed to heed a product's warnings or nutritional tables. The lens of libertarianism rarely leaves me feeling as if a large part of the real world is escaping my notice, nor that it shows me things that others dismiss as hallucination. It has withstood the tests of these 15 years. But it alone will not show me everything I need to see. I'm always open for others.

Im pleased to report that I've just found a new, very interesting lens and have not yet finished trying a pair and navigating with them. RKBA readers, stay with me, this isn't some maudlin fatherhood post. Gun content below.

William Strauss and Neil Howe's Generations. Hat tip to Jay Manifold writing at ChicagoBoyz.

I'm cheating by reading the closing chapter. It slices, it dices, it prognosticates:

• p. 403: "Boomers will force a dramatic turn in the politics of Social Security. In the 2010s, they will lay the terms for an entirely new intergenerational 'deal,' snapping the chain of ever-rising benefits that G.I.s insisted would never end." Yup, that's me.
  
• p. 405: "Unlike their G.I. fathers, Boomers will have little interest in a continued U.S.-Soviet rivalry." Written in 1991, dawgs.
  
• p. 406: "Great peril might arise if Boomers find themselves confronting old religious fundamentalists whose inner zeal matches their own." Are they talking about religious fundamentalists in the US, or elsewhere? On one side of the political fence, I see the hostility to domestic fundies, but a curious moral-relativistic baring of the nether cheeks to the foreign ones. On the other side of that fence, our Boomer President surrounded by Boomer and Silent staffers, unable to articulate in harmony exactly why the foreign fundamentalists are so bad and we must kill them. Is it a war against Terror, or a war against Islam, or against Islamic fundamentalism, or against a metastasizing Arabic imperialism concealing itself in Islamic fundamentalism? This has implications for how we fight them (and yes we must), so we better get all that cleared up and sing from one page of music, y'all.
  
  
• p. 407: "Make no mistake: Faced with crisis, this generation of onetime draft resisters will not hesitate, as elder warrior-priests, to conscript young soldiers to fight and die for righteous purpose." From where I sit, conscription is a non-starter. Only a minority of Boomers is calling for it, and many more Boomers are shouting it down.
  
  
• "It is easy to picture aging Boomers as noble, self-sacrificing patriarchs---but just as easy to see these righteous Old Aquarians as the worst nightmare that could ever happen to the world." Who floated the conjecture of torturing captured Al Qaeda members?
  
  
• p. 400: "A Boomer jury will resist making the community pick up the tab where it deems an individual to be at fault." Would be just if the evil-gun-marketing lawsuits would dry up and blow away. Real soon.
  

But this lens is not without its, er, chromatic aberrations. Some of what the lens tells me I will see, I don't believe. I'll give it time to prove itself, as all prognostications require:

• p. 399: "Like all Idealist generations entering midlife, Boomers will mount a relentless attack on all forms of subsance abuse. They will strike blow after blow against tobacco---taxing, restricting, and humiliating anyone involved in its production and use. The alcohol industry can expect its sternest challenge since Prohibition. The firearms industry will fare better thanks to the fact that the Boom will not dislike violence per se, just meaningless (read: '13er') violence." Emphasis in original. I can see the treatment of tobacco and ecstasy, but not alcohol. And bad evil guns? Pleeease.
  
• p. 398: "Boomer-run corporations will keep relentless focus on the 'bottom line'---not just profits, but principles about what companies should mean to their owners, employees, customers, and neighbors. . . Even well-performing companies will downsize staffs, defer dividends, or shift marketing strategies to achieve values-related goals." All of the values-based investing I've heard about has dried up, blown away, and been rolled over to, uh, tobacco.
  

Most important to me as I examine this nifty new lens, is how the writers who crafted it appear to have no political axe to grind. Had they sounded even slightly lefty or righty, I would have dismissed this book and returned it to the library at once. I haven't seen any bias of that sort yet and I will be watching.

Any other folks who have read this work or related ones (several other books are dedicated to specific generations) please comment or email me.

Two new InDenvers!

Go congratulate Walter and the Mrs for their twins, born today.

About damned time

The April 04 issue of Liberty is especially good, now that I have gotten to it.

Stephen Cox's and William Merritt's reflections on homosexual marriage frame my position perfectly. I wish I could link to them here, but I can't. Yet.

There's also a great article on how New Urban neighborhood design is associated with significant (up to five-fold) increases in crime. I was going to try to work that into one of my interests, the reform of water-wasteful residential development in the parched West. I want to write about how my proposed redesigns would either repeat this disaster, or be modified to avert it. But I can't. Yet.

Why not? Liberty's web presence has been, in a word, unusable. Their site carries selected articles from their April issue, of course. April of 2001. I can't link to their articles because the articles are not uploaded. I had given up checking it to see whether they had resumed the web edition.

For a long time I suspected that they prioritized their web content so low that they didn't maintain it. This suspicion was fueled in part by Liberty's editiorial positions on music ripping and Microsoft Windows, which lean strongly towards preservation of intellectual property, condemnation of music piracy, and championing the absolute right of Bill Gates to set whatever license terms please him for the use of his software. Why put your content on an URL if someone could read it without paying and, horrors, even copy it? There have also been disparaging comments about those pesky webloggers (though the most interesting reading in the magazine, Reflections, reads like a group blog comparable to VC or The Corner).

If intellectual property protection was the reason they had chosen to publish only in print, it was a poor one. No periodical that wants to be important, wants to be cited, wants the reputation for unique and incisive reporting, chooses not to publish an online edition. It was probably the question of affording a webmaster who wouldn't crater them.

At any rate, I can put all that conjecture aside.
Huzzah! Liberty Magazine finally is overhauling their web presence. I've cited her articles there in the past and will do much more in the future now that they will have URLs. Hat tip: Jacob Levy at Volokh Conspiracy.

They're worth the dead-tree subscription too. Go for it, you know you want to. And tell them you've chosen to subscribe now because their content is now accessible online. Network effects and all that.

* * * *

Why are you still here? Pick up the GD phone and subscribe!

Laid back Sunday

In the CD changer:

• Billy Idol's Greatest Hits
  
• Reverend Horton Heat, Space Heater
  
• Frank Zappa, Apostrophe/Overnight Sensation
  
• Fountains of Wayne, self-titled
  

* * * *
The Denver News Agency gave our household a complimentary Sunday Post yesterday (funny how they have the newspaper all planned out one day in advance, hard to call it news then, isn't it?) and it reminded me of how little indeed I miss reading a dead-tree newspaper. Scrolling through, er, paging through their Perspectives section and seeing a guest editorial promoting the scrapping of the Electoral College, plus eight or nine editorials about how primaries bring out the non-mainstream candidates, and I had had quite enough.

Barbaloot wants to do the crossword. That, I submit, an internet application cannot substitute.

* * * *
We capped the day with the last of the antelope from last year. It started out looking like this:


and it ended up looking like this:



A roast marinated in Italian salad dressing, liquid mesquite smoke, and molasses. On the side, eggplant splashed with rice vinegar, snowpeas, carrots sprinkled with ground ginger, red pepper, celery, and sesame seeds. Grilled to medium rare over Strickland propane.

253 of 300

. . . is my score today in competition with the M9 service pistol. Good thing I got that right contact lens replaced.

I've carried one in the discharge of my duties but had never fired one before. To date I've only been able to shoot the FATS version, with the inert-gas-operated slide to simulate recoil.

No, I don't like 'em. Too fat in the grip, can't hit any controls without changing my grip, and they have a bad, bad reputation for reliability.

Friday quick hits

On h0m0s3%ual marriage, I've posted some items on my Senate campaign blog. I don't have an animus towards such arrangements myself, and I am certain that with time, States will allow it and more of society will tolerate it. As I think I make clear over on the other blog, I am suspicious of many of the activists seeking to extend formal marriage to gays. Here's an alternative view that shares my Constitutional objections but not my suspicions regarding access to spousal benefits.

My limited experience with such arrangements is limited to three couples, two of whom I've gotten to know fairly well, though I remain in touch with only one today.

That relationship is badly broken, and kids are involved. I'm also confident, admittedly with limited knowledge of the relationship, that its failure was not traceable to the lack of a marriage license provided by the State.

* * * *

Much ado about the trial run of an in-flight-assembled b0mB on Northwest Airlines 327. I reassert: we have to make Uncle Sugar recognize that airline passengers are not an asset to be secured, managed, and protected but an asset to be trained, prepared, and informed, and most of all permitted to protect air travel. The biggest obstacle in the way of us protecting ourselves aboard commercial air is Uncle Sugar. First he can get out of the way, next he can actually offer help.

More on h0m0s3%ual marriage

One cause for activists on the political Right to seek a Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage is that the Defense of Marriage Act has not been tried in the Courts, and likely will fall. They say they must begin the long and arduous process of ratifying the amendment because the DOMA won't stand.

Eugene Volokh, UCLA Law School, on how the Defense of Marriage Act would fare in the Courts:

The Court did not clearly say or signal that DOMA was unconstitutional; the Court held that criminalizing sexual conduct [in Lawrence v. Texas] violated people's liberty, not that homosexual couples were entitled to equal access to the benefits flowing from marriage. And my sense is that most constitutional scholars (not all, but most) that have considered the issue believe DOMA would be upheld.

One step closer to the MP3-player-slash-language-trainer

I'll coin the term yoda to refer to a small device that one can clip
to oneself, and let it teach you something during times of stress. The foreign-language yoda I proposed isn't just already in development, it's in beta.

Hat tip: BoingBoing.

Quote for the day

The terrorists' motive, we dimly realize as we notice their targets (an office building in New York, a dance club in Bali, men standing in line to become policemen and protectors of their people). The fact that we would never call it genocide has little to do with our opponents' motives but much to do with their power. We can destroy them - if we wish to unleash our arsenal. Even restraining those lethal machines, our wars against the states that protect them are over in weeks. We have the ability to commit genocide; they do not. That is why we should be held to higher standards, but we shouldn't ignore their motives. We can become villains because of our power, but the terrorists are not victims because of their
impotency.

Ginny at ChicagoBoyz

Independence Day 2004

The Pundit Family were the guests of the Governor of Wyoming for fireworks at Cheyenne Frontier Park. For those of you familiar with the area, please enjoy.



M'selle Sklodovska, who normally dislikes loud noises so much that she wears earplugs for most busy restaurants, went without them for the fireworks display. She watched the display with slack-jawed wonder and applause.

Toad didn't seem to mind the racket either.

That racket, by the way, was not just from exploding fireworks. Thousands of cowboy boots were also thundering on the aluminum decks of the bleachers.

World has gone to hell while I was away

We flew the entire family to Buffalo recently to celebrate the inlaws' fiftieth wedding anniversary. When Grandpa picked us up from the airport and brought us home, we saw that Grandma had a yellowish cast to her skin, and was exhausted.

They had hired a caterer, limo, DJ, and whatnot, and invited about 50 family and close friends to see them renew their vows, but Grandma looked and felt, well, bad. She usually calls it a night well after midnight, but the night we got there, she was conking out at 9PM. Not like her. She was worried that much of the last-minute preparations had yet to be done the next day but could not go on. She promised to see a doctor the following morning.

Bile duct blockage and a gall bladder to be removed, is what the doctor determined. She was hospitalized that evening. Barbaloot and her sister spent hours calling the guests, florists, caterer, DJ, limo, and hall, to tell them the event was off.

Not to be deterred, she and Grandpa renewed their vows in the chapel at Kenmore Mercy Hospital on Saturday evening, with all ten grandchildren in one place.



She's had her gallbladder removed, the day we flew back to Colorado. She's home too, and recovering well.

Upgrades

The mission-critical G4 has received an improvement---its original 350 MHz processor has been replaced with a 1 GHz aftermarket processor. Noticeably faster, under $300. Installation was simple.

I had to backup a drive and update the boot ROM before installing, which took some time.

Barbaloot approves of the upgrade, after seeing a Harry Potter game spin up. Downside: the original HD, running OS 9.0, was upgraded to 9.2.1 so I could still boot the G4 with it after the CPU upgrade---the CPU is not compatible with OS earlier than 9.2.1. Now that the original HD is on 9.2.1, it won't mount the later (default boot) drive, where OS X sits. OS 9.2.1 asks whether I want to initialize (Apple for format) the later drive. So I might as well have not bothered with the OS upgrade on the older drive.

Toad at five months and some

He's eightieth-percentile height, thirtieth-percentile weight. In summary, he's just like his mother's father. He smiles generously.



It's getting closer for Walter and charming Mrs. Indenver to bring theirs home, isn't it?

Pack, not herd---call for papers

Interesting development at Winds of Change, a call to formalize distributed defense concepts.

What skills, tools, and organization do citizens need to respond, if we've proved that centralized defenses---like those that fumbled the WTC/Pentagon attacks---will fail? What's the TOE?

Don't forget search and rescue, optimized for building collapse (San Francisco earthquakes, NYC skyscraper collapses, NJ train wrecks).

Wish list

I wanna:
iRiver H140 (the link is to the 120)

Stragetic Hamlet: Pittsburgh

A delightful column recounts the early military career of George Washington in the land of my
youth, the Allegheny Plateau, and how it shaped American history.

To have a unique combat uniform, all USAF has to do is wait ten months

Now that the Army is adopting a new combat uniform (tip of the K-pot to Airborne Combat Engineer), there will soon be no other US armed service left using either the woodland pattern BDU or the three-color day desert pattern DCU.

Granted, the Navy will still use BDUs and DCUs in those ashore instances where they need a camouflage uniform, but work with me here. Besides, the Navy can work out a deal with the Marines to use their exquisite MARPATs.

USAF will have the BDU and DCU effectively to ourselves. Then we can just stencil the new USAF brand on the pocket and the cap and call it our own.

The Army redesign effort appears to have gone much farther out of the box in its thinking, run extensive wear-testing in theatre, and is already closed on the deal to the point that they'll begin fielding their new uniform at about the time USAF opens a website to Airmen for comments on their tiger stripes.

We at WUTT! called the following, which the Army adopted---but a bottle of Johnny Walker says USAF will not:

• Removable rank insignia centered on the jacket front, as on the Gore-Tex parka
  
• Angled jacket pockets, easier to reach into than horizontal
  
• Pencil pocket separate from the jacket pockets (though the Army put theirs on the sleeve)
  
• Tan undershirt, instead of solar-absorption-maximized black
  

It merits mentioning: the Army's design team was run by NCOs.

More on the male finishing school

I'm not alone in noticing a need for a men's finishing school, as proposed here at WUTT!.

However, the likely beneficiaries of this schooling (rather than the students) assert that most men don't realize they need it. Women will ask themselves, "What am I doing wrong?" but men just shrug and turn back to their ESPN. I assure you, Marilyn, this is not completely true. Some men are deeply introspective about their failures at romance.

It also prompts me to ask: why can't more women take up flyfishing?

Looking for a song

DavidMSC has been looking for a
song.


Well, so am I. "Get Around Girl" by Tommy Tutone. I'm not the best at looking for such things, but I can't even find cold trail on it.

"Wanna build that cloverleaf on I-25? Then push light rail."

From Volokh Conspiracy:

The Supreme Court, though, has long (and correctly) recognized that the government does not have a free hand to impose conditions on grants of benefits. When the government controls 25-30% of the GNP, and has vast regulatory power over the economy, imagine what it could do using conditions. "Want a tax refund? Promise not to spend in on anti-government activity." "Want to buy a chunk of federally owned land to build a home? Promise to let us search your house whenever we like, without any excuse."
"Want a corporate charter? Promise not to criticize the government."

If this is the jurisprudence, then, how can the Federal government Constitutionally attach conditions on the grants of benefits to States? In particular, how can the Feds withhold highway funding from States that prefer not to lower their blood alcohol content threshold for DUI? "Wanna build that cloverleaf on I-25? Then push light rail." What gives corporations preference (other than, perhaps, the position of the
corporation as an individual compared to a State)?

In this case the term "benefit" is not even appropriate; the monies to which the Federal strings are attached should represent, for the most part, return of monies taxed from the citizens of that State in the first place, if not in this year's budget, then from last year's or next year's. There should be no net gain or loss over time between taxes taken from the State and Federal expenditures returning to it.

The usual rebuttal that "who pays the fiddler calls the tune" rings hollow. Granted, the quote above comes from a post about the rights of corporations, but I would assert that States have an even broader right to operate than corporations---States are not considered creatures of the Federal government, they are precursors to it who consented to its creation. The Ninth and Tenth Amendments guarantee that States will have a free hand in governing within their spheres, on the condition that individual rights are protected and the Federal government is held supreme in the enumerated areas given to it to govern.

Note, this is probably the only time WUTT! has ever, or will ever, discuss States' rights per se. I'm a States' powers kind of guy---islands of government power surrounded by a sea of individual rights and all that. But for a State to exercise those powers granted to it, it must have some right to operate without interference from other governments.


Woo-hoo! The VC post just below this one has more.

Dream carbine

Galil parts kits are coming into the country. Such kits are made by dismantling selective-fire 5.56mm rifles, putting the parts into a bag, and cutting the receiver into bits. By US law, the receiver---the frame, if you will, to which all other parts attach---is the firearm. By selling a kit containing all the parts except the receiver, you're selling no firearm, just everything you need if you can get a domestically-manufactured receiver. Building one, though, has some legal complexities involved.

New receivers are being manufactured in the US, without the holes where the selective-fire parts would pin in. Take one of these, with its US-originated serial number, and substitute an arbitrary number of other US-made parts, and it's legal per the Assault Weapon Ban (that will, if we mind our Congress, sunset in just a few months). However, these receivers are steel and might be rather heavy.

Let's get somebody to make an alloy or carbon-fiber Galil receiver. Let's get somebody else to make a carbon fiber-wrapped 6.5mm Grendel barrel at about 18" length. That keeps the weapon's weight down to the range that a Grendel deserves, 'cuz the original Galil (milled steel receiver) was on the heavy side. The carbon barrel should also be immune to point-of-aim shifts as it heats up.

Open up the bolt face and reface the extractor so they take the Grendel's case head.

You might have to tweak the gas system. Emphasize might: the Grendel's developer claims that pressures were very close to those of 5.56mm military cartridges, so a gas system that's reliable with 5.56mm should need little tuning to make it hum with 6.5.





Replace the gas tube with a new one with Weaver rails on top. The front-mounted rails let you mount the modern gizmodified intermediate eye relief optics.

There's WUTT!'s competitor to the AR15 platform, in a damned rugged form factor, firing the most capable cartridge that will fit in that form factor. Fixed and folding stocks available. Tritium sights standard.

Most photos are now moved

There are a few photos located on other computers, that I have to upload to the Comcast site for relinking. But most of them are moved and the links are updated. Sorry for sharing a stupid learning experience with my dozen readers.

It doesn't sink in until I hear it from my own kid

I was explaining this afternoon to Firstborn why I was off work today, picking her up from a playdate instead of concluding an exercise working for a fighter jock who thinks he knows more about the CONOPS than I do.

I told her that a former President of the United States died recently, and today was the day that our government chose to remember him as his body was put to its final resting place. On such days, the government releases everybody from work so they can pay attention to that person and pay respects to him. I was one of the many people who were given the day off for that reason.

"He was a great person, wasn't he, Dad?"

"Yes, he was."

"People really liked him."

"Sure did."

"But some people hated him."

"Sure did."

"Did as many people hate him as they hate George W. Bush?"

"That's hard to tell. Reagan seemed to be able to deflect or simmer down a lot of the hate that was directed at him."

"A lot of people hate George W. Bush, don't they?"

"Unfortunately, yes."

"My friend So-and-so from school says that George W. Bush wants to start six wars."

"Oh really?" This was a different So-and-so from another kid, whom Firstborn told me said that George W. Bush is the worst man ever and that he wants the world to end so he can have all the oil.

From this I conclude that Firstborn has two friends at school with holes bored through their skulls, so their parents can funnel hateful mush directly into their brain cases. Parents who, by the way, dropped Big Dollars to enroll these same kids into a Montessori education so they can figure things out for themselves. It's painful to contemplate.

"Yeah. He wants, uh, the other guy to win."

"Firstborn, how much of this do you think So-and-so actually believes, and how much do you think he just repeats from one of his parents?"

"Probably he's repeating his dad. He says his dad says George W. Bush wants to start six wars."

"Okay."

"And he says---his dad says that the newspapers are all full of lies. But So-and-so, reads the paper every day like his dad does. He wants the other ... guy ... to win."

"To win what?"

"President."

"Ummm humm."

"But George W. Bush already won once, didn't he?"

"Yes, he did."

"Did George W. Bush start any wars?"

"There's one he didn't start. I fought in that one. There's another one, that I guess you could say he started. I haven't fought in that one, but I might. I don't think he started any wars without good reason though."

I'm going to be more proactive in figuring out the ideologies held by my kids' friends from now on.

Farewell to Ronald Reagan

All of the commenters on Reagan's passing away, to a person, smile as they recount their experiences with him. Those whom I cannot see, because they're on the radio, speak with voices that resonate with admiration for him. In a way they seem to be happy, both sharing in his widow's relief from the agony of watching him wither away, and sharing with each other the pleasure of having served or met him.

It is fitting that we pause from our lives and our affairs to pay last respects to him.

Another movie for the list

DavidMSC raves about Down With Love.

A noble contribution of tissue

FuturePundit (no relation) reports that Duke University researchers have discovered that a certain population of fat cells is in fact a sort of adult stem cell, that can differentiate into nerve cells.

This discovery suggests the ability to treat neurological disorders without the political or ethical concerns of using stem cells from other sources.

For example, Michael Moore could donate several kilos of his midsection to treat Alzheimers disease.

The question remains, however, whether anyone would knowingly accept into their own bodies any sort of cells from Mr Moore.

Wait! This isn't how I die!?!

After countless urgings from me, Barbaloot now enters her shopping lists into her Palm 125. "But what if we don't need butter on this trip?"

"Why then, Sweetheart, we don't buy it. At least it asks whether we need it so we won't forget it."

Another of our lists records what movies we want to rent. Big Fish was next on the list.

It's a hit. But on the video, there were trailers for Hellboy. Barbaloot added it to the list.

time to make the doughnuts . . .

My keyphrase for drudgery, taken from a very old TV commercial by Dunkin' Donuts, and how they were made fresh every few hours. The doughnut baker never got enough sleep, he was always trudging out the front door, muttering "time to make the doughnuts."

Why the drudgery? Since Angelfire blocks the loading of images from their pages to any other, we can no longer use their ad-suppored free service to store photos and just load them here at WUTT! Not surprising that they'd have such a policy, because their webpages are ad-supported, and remote loading denies them revenue (as if they're getting any from my web page there, but that's another topic).

So I'm building, slowwwwly, the same page on Comcast so I can load it from there instead. The Comcast web server is bought and paid for, but their page builder is a draaaaag to use. No way I can see to just directly edit the index.html as a text file, like on Angelfire.

I have about two-fifths of the photos moved over. So you can see the latest ones again, plus a new one or two. In another six weeks, they'll all be moved and the web page over there will be torn down.

However, I'll be putting all of the fiction up over there, at Ditchweed. More Wise Turkey stories, plus some Scaaaaarrry Stories.

To be fair, though, the blogging tool at Angelfire is not half bad. Whose engine are they using?

Memos I've written, never meaning to send

Department of Defense
UNITED STATES AIR FORCE

Prairie AFB

XXX Civil Engineer Squadron, Readiness Flight

---

TO:
XXX Mission Support Group/CC/CCT/CCF

XXX Medical Group/CC/CCT/CCF

XXX Logistics Group/CC/CCT/CCF

All Readiness Support Team members

All Squadron FSTR Representatives



SUBJECT: C-CW CONOPS Functional Area Training Completion Tracking

1. In January 2003, AF Civil Engineer Support Agency released training packages introducing the Counter Chemical Warfare Concept of Operations (C-CW CONOPS) to selected functional areas. These packages include CerTest training modules that generate a percentage score of the Airman's mastery of the subject. AFCESA intended for all applicable Squadrons to install the training packages and begin training all of their Airmen with them. The packages were originally published through AFCESA's HTTP secure web site. By May 2003, AFCESA distributed these packages on CD-ROM, through MAJCOMs to all units AF-wide.
   
   
2. No tracking or visibility mechanism was instituted to ensure that Squadrons in fact conducted this training or that Airmen retained the training. The packages were intended to introduce the CONOPS to the functional areas, describe the functional areas' unique responsibilities under the CONOPS, and provide a basis for later integration of the CONOPS into each functional area through longer-term revisions to job qualification standards (JQS) and career field education and training plans (CFETP).
   
   
3. HQ USAF Air Staff directed all applicable units to train their Airmen through their respective functional area C-CW CONOPS training packages prior to their next deployment to CENTAF AOR. In any event, all applicable Airmen must complete the functional area CONOPS training packages no later than 1 August 2004. This deadline represents a slippage from the original suspense of 1 July 2003.
   
   
4. Operational readiness inspections, compliance inspections, exercises, and MAJCOM rollups of staff assistance visits indicate that some Squadrons and even some MAJCOM directorates are not completing the subject training packages. Air Staff consequently has directed all Civil Engineer Readiness flights to track completion of these training packages at the base level, to provide visibility of this effort to HQ level via MAJCOMs.
   
   
5. Air Staff has not issued comprehensive guidance on the metrics or reporting format for CE Readiness to report completion of C-CW CONOPS functional area training. Our flight is merely charged with reporting a percentage of completion, monthly until further notice, for each applicable Squadron assigned to XXX Wing.
   
   
6. CE Readiness Flight has determined that metrics and reporting format for this tasker are of paramount importance to assure thorough, verifiable, and authenticable documentation of the completion of this training. If we reported completion of this training without absolute certainty that it is completed, it would be only a matter of time before the results are invalidated by investigation from IG or Air Staff, and a more stringent tasker eventually would be issued for the same task.
   
   
7. XXX CES Readiness Flight developed the following criteria to estimate and report your Squadron's completion of the subject training packages in the interest of saving all stakeholders, including your Squadrons, considerable effort in the long run:
   
   
   
   1. By close of business 1 June 04, each Squadron Training Manager will submit a memorandum for record stating whether the Squadron is encompassed by one of the functional areas for which AFCESA has release a C-CW CONOPS training package. XXX CES/CEX website lists the training packages, as does AFCESA's website.
      
   2. For each Airman assigned to or eligible for assignment to a mobility position, in a functional area for which AFCESA has published a C-CW CONOPS training package (as determined in the preceding paragraph), the CerTest provided with that training package will be completed by the Airman and graded results will be printed. The printed results will be signed and dated by both (a) trainer or supervisor and (b) training evaluator, and forwarded by unit training manager to XXX CES/CEX.
      
      
      
      1. A CerTest certificate indicating that the Airman has not completed the entire series of training modules will be reported as zero percent complete.
         
      2. Only original CerTest certificates, printed in color with completion date and signed in ink, will be accepted. Photocopies and faxes will be rejected.
         
      3. A crisp, unmarked $20 bill will be paperclipped to each certificate.
         
      4. All certificates for all Airmen assigned to the Squadron will be forwarded at the same time in a single package, accompanied by a roster of assigned personnel, signed and dated by the First Sergeant or Squadron Training Manager. Rosters will be derived from only PCIII, MILPIDS, or ACES products, and will be generated within 5 calendar days of the print date of the first CerTest certificate.
         
      
      
   3. Readiness Flight will calculate your Squadron's percentage of completion by dividing number of CerTest certificates, by the total number of Airmen assigned to that squadron per the roster. Any discrepancy noticed between certificates and the roster constitutes cause for the return of the entire Squadron package, minus the $20 bills. Discrepancies include but not limited to (a) more than 5 calendar days elapsing between printing of the first CerTest certificate and generation of the Squadron roster, and (b) including a CerTest certificate for an Airman not appearing on the roster.
      
   
   
8. Due to the manpower loading that this reporting tasker places on the Readiness Flight, the following normally-scheduled activities of the Flight are cancelled until further notice:
   
   
   
   1. NBCC Defense Refresher training
      
   2. Explosive Ordnance Reconnaissance Training
      
   3. Mobility equipment issue by Prime BEEF
      
   4. Sizing of Airmen for Mobility equipment
      
   
   
9. Because this tasker has been imposed on all Readiness Flights Total-Force-wide, other Readiness Flights will not be available to provide these services in lieu of ours. In short, these services will be totally unavailable at this base or any other, until all Squadrons are visible at 90% complete on subject training.
   
   
10. We apologize in advance for the short suspense on this tasking. Please understand that all stakeholders in this process will be making comparable sacrifices to achieve the high level of readiness expected by Air Staff.
    
    

[[ SIGNED ]]

FUSILIER N. PUNDIT

MASTER SERGEANT, USAF

Civil Engineer Readiness

Excused absence

There's a damned good reason I am blowing off the Rocky Mountain Blogger Bash. In fact, there are four. Here are three of them:




This is the third one I could have made. Kinda bummed but I would have ended up with a lampshade on my head anyway. I have enough to live down as it is.

There'll be a balm in Gilead

Somebody's copping from the Free State Project's playbook: gather your peeps to one state, where they become a competitive single-issue political force, and take it over peacefully.

However, theirs differs by seeking complete independence from the United States. All to stand athwart the scourge of homosexual marriage.

Margaret Atwood saw this coming, and offered a name for their new entity: The Republic of Gilead.

Quote for the day

Hat tip to In-Cog-Nito at ChicagoBoyz:

Jack Ryan is the kind of character that a former insurance salesman who has never been in the military would have created.

Fred Schoeneman

How 'bout some milfs on trampolines?

After another of Mlle. Sklodovska's doctor appointments today, I took her to a friend's birthday party. The party was held at an indoor playground---one hell of a simple business model. Take two parts vacant warehouse, one part labor, and a bunch of inflatable slides, climbers, and obstacles. Throw in a Pilates ball or two, do your legal paperwork, paint in primary colors, and charge better than ten bucks a kid. Not a license to print money, but respectable creation of wealth nonetheless. What else are you going to do with empty warehouse space? Shoot music videos?

A dozen kids bounced around, slid down slides, swung inflated boxing gloves half their own size, climbed a ten-meter inflated volcano, or scaled a fifteen-meter climbing wall, or ran from one to the other. In two hours they were exhausted and statically charged from sliding across the vinyl and plastic.

I noticed, however, as I always do, a Man Show angle in this. As in, some of the other kids' moms bouncing on or climbing the equipment with their kids. "How 'bout some milfs on trampolines?"

Dads, you might be missing out on a vital and rewarding part of fatherhood by not taking your kids to certain birthday parties.

The effect was spoiled later, when one of these women addressed me as "sir."

What's playing? (updated)

I've been posing these music questions lately to friends:

1. At what age did you first begin to appreciate popular music?
   
2. Is that age at least 15 years ago? If yes, proceed.
   
3. Can you think of two performers or groups who couldn't get your attention then, but for whom you have a deep appreciation now? Who are they?
   

Update: Andrew Ian Dodge asks just what constitutes "popular" music. I admit, I had reservations about my choice of terms. So for the purposes of this post, popular means "easily accessible through broadcast at the time." That can include country and western, bubblegum, classic rock, all fine with me.

Dare I eat a peach?

My first pair of bifocals arrived in the mail today.

Provided under TriCare, they are not the gradient kind. A sudden blur occurs at the boundary between magnified and non-magnified portions of the lens. This will take some getting used to, but they're only for the few hours a day after I take out contact lenses.

On the upside, the ophthalmologist says I'm an ideal candidate for LASIK, my corneas are about 580 microns thick so there's plenty of meat for the surgery. Uncle Sugar would pay for it if I were in the right status. Alas, I am not. As Advon puts it, "you're not Active Duty, you're just on active duty."

* * * * *

Firstborn and Middlechild are sleeping their second consecutive night in a tent pitched in the backyard. It's colder tonight, so they get thicker sleeping bags and a blanket tossed over the both of them.

* * * * *

Boy's stitches were removed today. I wasn't there to hear that one either.

Quote for the day

To me, the fact that the FBI is pursuing the wiretapping issue with respect to VOIP is just one more reason to doubt that the Bureau is the right agency to fight terrorism. I would have more confidence in a security agency that is working with the latest technology, not against it.

Arnold Kling

AFAIK, Skype is still available.

Sauce for Lott, sauce for Hollings

Pressure Fritz to resign from office in disgrace. You have to bid higher than you're willing to take. We'll accept his resignation from the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee.

TIC: He should be aware that Jews relinquished control of the world economy nearly two months ago. Don't Senators read the friggin papers?

He will not lack gainful employment---his current constituency surely could cast him in some upcoming projects.

FrankenBoy

This is what ten stitches on the forehead look like, 36 hours later.



I wasn't there to see this, or hear the stitches going in. Barbaloot surely would have appreciated the help.

The '05 Grosstod

About 15 years ago, National Lampoon printed a spoof car review---a central African dictator strained his broken English to praise his Grosstod, a conspicuously-consuming 4X4 behemoth, a precursor to the SUV because his corrupt, impoverished country lacked roads suitable for better-known luxury marques. Countless Google searches have failed to turn up a version of the spoof online. Perhaps a gentle reader who has a print version could scan it up for me.

I think of the Grosstod every time I hear the smooth-jazz string riff that is now the theme for Chrysler's TV commercials, and cast my eyes on the '05 restyling of the 300.



It is almost as if Daimler-Chrysler brought German designers over from their MB division, and committed thems to make a vehicle so Big'n'Ugly that it has passed the pale and is beginning to look cool again. In turn, it looks like a bronze brick with wheels and a grille; a lowered Dakota with a trunk; what Peterbilt would deliver if they secretly entered the passenger car market, repeating aloud to themselves in the skunkworks, "not a Hummer . . . please God, don't give us a Hummer."

It is a broad-shouldered post-post-modern car copped from the Adventures of Batman, sans fins. Like the new Thunderbird, I like the look, though I will pay for several college degrees, maybe one of them my own, before I will ever afford one. By then the design will be obsoleted, then retroed, like the cycle of skirt lengths. (Hmmm, wait a minute. Rental fleets will carry a few of them. Maybe in four years . . . )

Me gusta. Now what it needs is a turbodiesel and a receiver hitch. And central tire inflation.

Full faith and credit, privileges and immunities, and so forth

NPR's analysis of same-sex marriage, found through Volokh Conspiracy, inspires us to ask:

Some supporters of same-sex marriage argue . . . that the DOMAs are indeed unconstitutional, and the Full Faith and Credit Clause mandates recognition of out-of-state marraiges.

Okayyyyyy, so if all States are mandated to recognize any official public act of any State, why wouldn't the State of New York recognize my Pennsylvania CCW? That's an, um, extremely official act that the Commonwealth made, my paying the fee, their running the background check and all . . . Assuming that having to get a license to do so is legit, that license should be as portable as any other. And mind you, my Commonwealth CCW was a license, not a permit. Let's hope that's a genuine difference rather than a semantic distinction.

If by public we presume that this State act is a matter of public record, much like a real estate transaction, say, then this cements further that a CCW license would be even harder to ignore by another State, if it was issued by a State that makes the identities of licenses applicants and holders public.

Oooops. Licenses to practice medicine aren't portable either, are they? Acupuncture? Law? Pharmacy? Massage therapy?

Still, this deserves some exploration. All of the conditions, hoops, pitfalls and minefields applied to CCW legislation by those who want to defeat it must be turned into countervailing legal strategies to liberalize CCW.

If same-sex marriage can be used as a tool to demand CCW reciprocity from intransigent states like New York or California, then I could change my position on the matter from apathy to active support.

Let the Left's activists be careful what they demand in Court.

They pay us to do this?

My boss Advon and I just finished a week at Undisclosed CRTC, working for Cadre. We tested out the USAF Counter Chemical Warfare Concept of Operations on a Reserve wing.

We worked some long days, and I was cast as a Czech coalition partner so I was in the muck with the exercised unit, MOPP 4, with an accent that made me sound more like Dexter than former Warsaw Pact.

Now we're at a hotel near MSP, overnighting for a flight back to Colorado tomorrow morning.