Safely back home

We arrived home early this afternoon, to a rapturous reception from our cat.  I was very tired, and took a nap immediately.  I hate to have to admit it, but in my late 50's I'm not able to cope with a week-long road trip nearly as easily as I did even ten years ago, much less twenty or thirty!

Our time since then has been spent washing laundry, eating (and feeding the cat, who's determined to get a week's worth of treats out of us all at one time).  Normal blogging will resume tomorrow.

Peter

Almost home

Miss D. and I are overnighting in the bustling metropolis of Forrest City, Arkansas.  Tomorrow we'll drive the last four hours to get home, but we were just too tired to try to do it this evening.  Besides, we were stiff and sore after almost a week on the road and a selection of not-so-comfortable beds.  (Sleeping on a memory foam mattress is lovely, but you - literally - sorely miss it when you have to use a different type!)

Renting our hotel room proved entertaining. We looked for a better-than-average hotel with suites, in the hope of finding a room or suite with a hot tub, because both of us were excessively stiff after too many miles in a pickup cab. The nice lady at the reception desk confirmed that she had one, but as far as she could remember, no-one had ever rented it since it was installed!  Apparently there just isn't the demand here for that sort of luxury.  Even funnier, when she tried to assign it to us, the computer system refused to allow it - the owner had apparently blocked it from rental availability because of the lack of demand.  She eventually sorted it out, and Miss D. and I have enjoyed massaging our aching backs and knees with jets of hot water.  There's a lot to be said for a good hot tub.  I think we're going to have to put it on our 'nice-to-have' list for when we eventually buy a home of our own.

My visit with the Louisiana DMV this morning proved fruitful.  It took over an hour of navigating their somewhat Byzantine computer systems with the help of a clerk, but I managed to complete two out of three tasks on my list.  The third is pending receipt of paperwork from another source, after which I'll finish it via snail mail.  It was definitely worth the detour to talk to a human being face-to-face and sort things out directly, rather than try to do so over the telephone or via the Internet.  (Al, if you read this before we get home, the paperwork's been organized and paid for.  It should arrive in our mailbox within a month.)

I'm going to turn in and get some beauty sleep (although no-one in his or her right mind would ever consider me beautiful).  Tomorrow morning we'll be homeward bound.

Peter

Back on the road

Miss D. and I said goodbye to Phlegmmy and Lawdog this morning over heaping plates of breakfast at a local hostelry (enhanced by the smell of burning plastic insulation as some appliance or other shorted out), then hit the road.  We drove through the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex (which is even bigger and more crowded than it was when I was last there, about six years ago) and headed East.

We're overnighting in Shreveport, where tomorrow I'll try to navigate my way through the sometimes Byzantine labyrinths of the Louisiana DMV.  When I left this State five years ago, I tried to re-register my vehicles in Tennessee, my new domicile;  but things seem to have gone awry between the Tennessee DMV and Louisiana equivalent, leaving two of my three vehicles hanging in a sort of bureaucratic limbo.  This makes disposing of them rather awkward.  I'm hoping that my physical presence and a couple of affidavits can speed things up to the point where I can finalize everything at last.

Hopefully it won't take too long to unclog the administrative plumbing;  then Miss D. and I will head out again on our way back to Nashville.  We'll overnight somewhere tomorrow, as I don't think we'll have enough time to complete the journey in a single day, and probably get home sometime on Wednesday.  We'd hoped to be away a couple of days longer, but planned get-togethers with other online friends and acquaintances didn't work out, so we'll have to save those plans for the next road-trip.

Normal blogging should resume on Thursday.  I'll try to post occasional updates until then.

(Amazingly, some moonshine cherries have managed to survive this far!  I may have to indulge myself with a nightcap for the road - purely in the interests of science, of course . . . after all, I want tomorrow's bureaucratic negotiations to bear fruit.)




Peter

A bunch of overfed bloggers

Phlegmfest 2015 is in full swing.  Many blogging friends have converged on the home of the lovely Phlegm and Lawdog, including (in alphabetical order) AEPilot Jim, Evyl Robot Michael, Jennifer, JPG, Matt G, Miss D., Old NFO, myself, and several others.

Yesterday saw large quantities of varied and sundry foods consumed.  Breakfast at a local eatery (heavy on biscuits, gravy, eggs, bacon and other goodies) was followed by snacking on Romanian, Russian and Bulgarian sausages, jalapeno cheese rolls, all sorts of salads and desserts, cheeses of various kinds, garlic prawn soup (courtesy of Old NFO) . . . I can't possibly remember everything (although I did my best to digest it).  Various beverages washed it down, including more of the moonshine cherries for those who hadn't yet sampled them (Matt G.'s comment, interspersed with coughing and spluttering:  "Gee!  These cherries really DO absorb the alcohol!").

Today we're repeating yesterday, starting with breakfast of kolaches (with and without jalapenos), donuts and leftovers from yesterday.  (There's a chocolate pecan dessert that's calling my name . . .)  We'll spend the time telling stories, sharing jokes and just plain enjoying each other's company.  I'm still grinning at AEPilot Jim's report-back.  He spent some time flying a LearJet in Angola a few years ago.  Following my military misadventures there during the 1980's, I'd told him to look for this or that or the other interesting aircraft wreck, or downed bridge, or ruined building (some of them dating from approximately the time of my visits).  He confirmed to the gathering, in an impressed tone, that "Whenever Peter said I'd find an aircraft wreck off the runway, the damn thing was still there!"  African cleanup takes decades . . . )

Miss D. and I will be leaving tomorrow, heading slowly back to Tennessee via Louisiana, where I have to deal with that State's bureaucracy about a couple of issues.  We should be home by the end of the week.  I hope to have more regular Internet access from tomorrow night, too - there's none at the place where we're staying for the weekend.

Enjoy the rest of your long weekend, folks.  I'll sip a moonshine cherry or two in your honor.

Peter

Stuck in the modern Dark Ages

I'm not dead - just stuck without Internet access most of the time.  I'll try to put up another blog post or two later today.  Until then, please visit the folks in my blogroll and enjoy their work.

Peter

They're like crack in a jar!

I'm writing these words from a hotel in Arkansas, between Little Rock and Fort Smith, where Miss D. and I are spending the night on our way to a blog gathering in North Texas.  We'll get there tomorrow (Friday).

On the way, I made a fuel stop at a small town where the gas station had a convenience store in one half of its building, and a liquor store in the other half.  Idly glancing into the liquor store as I walked past, my eye fell on a display of various and sundry varieties - sold in Mason jars, as is traditional - of Ole Smoky commercially-distilled moonshine.  I'd heard about their products before, but hadn't come across any before today.  Being familiar with South African witblits (meaning literally 'white lightning') and mampoer (a sort of home-distilled brandy made from various kinds of fruit), I'm no stranger to the moonshine culture.  Intrigued, I stepped inside to take a closer look.

The store offered several different varieties;  blueberry, 'straight', and so on.  However, what really caught my eye were the moonshine cherries;  maraschino cherries preserved in high-proof moonshine.  A fellow blogger has spoken about his growing appreciation of them, so I figured the least I could do was back up his research with my own.  Besides, it occured to me that my fellow bloggers and friends at this weekend's gathering might like to contribute to the research (all in the name of science, you understand).  To cut a long story short, I emerged from the store bearing a couple of jars of moonshine cherries.

Miss D. and I enjoyed a late supper after a long drive, and decided that rather than push on to where we'd planned to stop overnight, we were tired enough to just stay where we were.  An inquiry at the nearest motel yielded an affordable and reasonably comfortable room, so we turned in early.  My fused spine always wakes me after only a few hours by locking up in pain, so I was awake shortly after midnight, and spent a bit of time working on my latest book.  However, I was vaguely thirsty, even after a cup of tea, and wanted something to help me sleep again in due course.  My eyes fell on the jars of moonshine cherries . . .

Oh, my.

Oh, my goodness.

These things are like crack in a jar!  They're delicious!  I'm on my second helping of them already, and feeling little pain by now - they're more effective than many pain pills I've tried (and I've tried most of them in the eleven-odd years since my disabling injury).  After I've put up this blog post, I'll try to get a bit more sleep before continuing our journey in the morning, and I reckon I won't have any trouble finding the Land of Nod with their help.  The only problem is going to be to resist the temptation to have some for (or with) breakfast.  Even a few of them will probably be enough to put me over the drink-and-drive alcohol limit!

The only caution I'll give you is to eat them slowly, and sip rather than gulp the liqueur they come in.  It's strong stuff, and will have you coughing and spluttering if you rush it.  (How do I know this?  Trust me.  I know this.)  Other than that, these moonshine cherries get an emphatic Bayou Renaissance seal of approval.  I'm sure my fellow bloggers will add their own to mine later this weekend.  I can hardly wait to try them over ice-cream.

(In case you were wondering, no, I've not been asked to mention them and I get no sponsorship or commission from the manufacturer for recommending them.  These are just my enthusiastic tastebuds talking!  A tip o' the hat to Glenn B. for recommending them on his blog.)

Peter

Some more windy landings

This video was shot at Leeds Bradford Airport (the highest in England) on January 9th.  Looks like an interesting ride . . .

Leeds Bradford is known for extreme cross-wind conditions.  Here's another video clip from 2008, showing more hairy stuff.

I think I'll try to land somewhere else if I find myself in England again . . .

Peter

On the road again

Miss D. and I will be on the road to northern Texas tomorrow, to attend a small gathering of bloggers and friends.  We'll be a bit difficult to reach during our travels, as e-mail access is likely to be sporadic.  Blogging will go on as and when I can put up a post, but it'll be less frequent than usual for a week to ten days.  If you find yourself bored here, try the good people in the sidebar.  They'll keep you amused.

Please keep us in your prayers for traveling mercies.

Peter

Diversity = Catch-22

In the wake of the Paris massacre last week, many sources are complaining that diversity is a lost cause and can never work.  Fred Reed's take on the matter expresses what many are feeling.

Diversity is a disaster. Why people cannot see this is a mystery. A country can ignore an unfortunate reality, but it cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring it. Why governments allow and even encourage immigration of incompatible populations is a greater mystery. Few things cause more misery, hatred, death, and destruction than does diversity. One may wish it were not so, but it is so.

Some examples of diversity: Chechens and Russians. Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants. Tamils and Sinhalese. French and Moslems. Dutch and Moslems. Swedes and Moslems. Germans and Moslems. Turks and Armenians. Whites and blacks in South African. Ugandans and Indians. Cambodians and Vietnamese. Blacks, whites, and browns in the United States. Jews and Germans. Jews and the rest almost everywhere. Hindus and Moslems. Sunnis and Shias. Turks and Kurds. Tutsis and Hutus. Moslems and Israelis in Palestine.

Note that most of these have caused horrendous bloodshed. Diversity doesn’t work, as a rule catastrophically. Why would any country deliberately seek more of it?

. . .

In America today we see huge homogeneous pools of Negro and Hispanic population and culture. The inhabitants of the massive black ghettoes have virtually no exposure to white America except via television, which means that assimilation is not going to happen. Further, as usually occurs with dense concentrations of a culture, they do not want to assimilate. They have their own music, modes of dress, variant of English, and non-standard names intended to emphasize their distance from whites.

The same to a lesser degree is true of Hispanics. It is also true of American expats, who tend to clump together and have no desire for assimilation. Human nature is human nature.

Aggravating the problem is that the United States no longer has a dominant culture, or at any rate no culture willing to be dominant. This has proved to be a recipe for unending and apparently unendable confrontation with blacks.

Will Hispanics follow the same pattern? They may well. Their numbers and concentration are great enough, they begin to have real political power, and will eventually have a voting majority in the Southwest. They know they are disliked by much of America. Hispanics are more assimilable than blacks; the question is whether they are assimilable enough. If the almost invisible differences between two flavors or Christianity or of Islam can lead to warfare, so may those between Latino and white. And trouble already brews between black and brown.

Diversity. It offers to divide America into three countries, self-aware and, may God preserve us, mutually hostile. We can talk forever about what ought to be. We can leap from a tall building, insisting that we are birds. Yet we live in what is. We are not birds. Reality eventually takes hold. Aye, there’s the rub.

There's more at the link.

That's a pretty gloomy prognostication;  but many seem to share it.  I don't.  I've seen people of all races and cultures work together, successfully, to achieve a common goal;  and I've also seen the opposite side of the coin, where people of different races and cultures hated each other enough to attack, maim and kill one another at every opportunity.  I believe the latter is not inevitable unless we allow it to become inevitable;  and very often it's our choices, more than those of others, that determine the outcome.  As Jesus put it:  "And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye?"

Stratfor has a thoughtful analysis of the problem of diversity in Europe in the light of events in Paris last week.  It calls it 'A War Between Two Worlds'.  Here's an excerpt, published with their permission.

Not all Muslims — not even most Muslims — are responsible for this. But all who committed these acts were Muslims claiming to speak for Muslims. One might say this is a Muslim problem and then hold the Muslims responsible for solving it. But what happens if they don't? And so the moral debate spins endlessly.

This dilemma is compounded by Europe's hidden secret: The Europeans do not see Muslims from North Africa or Turkey as Europeans, nor do they intend to allow them to be Europeans. The European solution to their isolation is the concept of multiculturalism — on the surface a most liberal notion, and in practice, a movement for both cultural fragmentation and ghettoization.

. . .

But the dirty secret of multiculturalism was that its consequence was to perpetuate Muslim isolation. And it was not the intention of Muslims to become Europeans, even if they could. They came to make money, not become French. The shallowness of the European postwar values system thereby becomes the horror show that occurred in Paris last week.

The Role of Ideology

But while the Europeans have particular issues with Islam, and have had them for more than 1,000 years, there is a more generalizable problem. Christianity has been sapped of its evangelical zeal and no longer uses the sword to kill and convert its enemies. At least parts of Islam retain that zeal. And saying that not all Muslims share this vision does not solve the problem. Enough Muslims share that fervency to endanger the lives of those they despise, and this tendency toward violence cannot be tolerated by either their Western targets or by Muslims who refuse to subscribe to a jihadist ideology. And there is no way to distinguish those who might kill from those who won't. The Muslim community might be able to make this distinction, but a 25-year-old European or American policeman cannot. And the Muslims either can't or won't police themselves. Therefore, we are left in a state of war. French Prime Minister Manuel Valls has called this a war on radical Islam. If only they wore uniforms or bore distinctive birthmarks, then fighting only the radical Islamists would not be a problem. But Valls' distinctions notwithstanding, the world can either accept periodic attacks, or see the entire Muslim community as a potential threat until proven otherwise. These are terrible choices, but history is filled with them. Calling for a war on radical Islamists is like calling for war on the followers of Jean-Paul Sartre. Exactly what do they look like?

. . .

Something must be done. I don't know what needs to be done, but I suspect I know what is coming. First, if it is true that Islam is merely responding to crimes against it, those crimes are not new and certainly didn't originate in the creation of Israel, the invasion of Iraq or recent events. This has been going on far longer than that. For instance, the Assassins were a secret Islamic order to make war on individuals they saw as Muslim heretics. There is nothing new in what is going on, and it will not end if peace comes to Iraq, Muslims occupy Kashmir or Israel is destroyed. Nor is secularism about to sweep the Islamic world. The Arab Spring was a Western fantasy that the collapse of communism in 1989 was repeating itself in the Islamic world with the same results. There are certainly Muslim liberals and secularists. However, they do not control events — no single group does — and it is the events, not the theory, that shape our lives.

Europe's sense of nation is rooted in shared history, language, ethnicity and yes, in Christianity or its heir, secularism. Europe has no concept of the nation except for these things, and Muslims share in none of them. It is difficult to imagine another outcome save for another round of ghettoization and deportation. This is repulsive to the European sensibility now, but certainly not alien to European history. Unable to distinguish radical Muslims from other Muslims, Europe will increasingly and unintentionally move in this direction.

Paradoxically, this will be exactly what the radical Muslims want because it will strengthen their position in the Islamic world in general, and North Africa and Turkey in particular. But the alternative to not strengthening the radical Islamists is living with the threat of death if they are offended. And that is not going to be endured in Europe.

Again, more at the link - and very well worth reading.

The essence of dealing with diversity is practicality.  Many of the wilder solutions being tossed around the Internet at the moment are completely and utterly impractical.  You can't expel all Muslims from Europe or the USA - there are literally millions of them, and it would be practically impossible to round them all up (not to mention so costly an exercise that it's literally unaffordable).  Equally, there's no way to kill them all (as some wilder commenters have proposed).  For a start, they'd fight back, and you'd have a civil war all over again.  I've seen how that works out in practice.  You don't want to go there.  Trust me on that.

I think the only way to address problems of multiple faiths is to look for common ground between those faiths.  There is one - the Golden Rule.  It exists in Christianity:

"Just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise."

and also in Islam:

A Bedouin came to the prophet, grabbed the stirrup of his camel and said: O the messenger of God! Teach me something to go to heaven with it. Prophet said: “As you would have people do to you, do to them; and what you dislike to be done to you, don't do to them."

This, of course, requires that those who profess a particular faith adhere to it.  John Adams put his finger on that problem as it affects the USA.

"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

Looking at the present imbroglio over our relations with Islam, I'd say President Adams had a point.  Few of those saying the most - not to mention the most vitriolic - are displaying 'moral and religious' characteristics . . . to our shame as a nation, IMHO.  That may explain why some are so willing to countenance wholly unconstitutional treatment of the Muslims among our citizens and legal residents.

Peter

So much for wireless keyboards

For years I've refused to use wireless keyboards because I believed their signals could be intercepted and decoded by keylogging software.  Turns out I was right.

If you use a wireless keyboard you may be broadcasting everything you type to hackers – from passwords to credit cards numbers and private emails - as a researcher shows how a homemade bugging device can be made for just £6 [less than US $10].

The creator of the listening device – who has also built a predatory drone which chases and hacks into other drones - has posted a list of components, instructions and source code online to allow anyone to make their own.

The KeySweeper can collect every keystroke made on a nearby keyboard locally and also beams it back to the attacker who placed it via a small chip which acts like a mobile phone.

. . .

Perhaps the most dangerous feature is that it can be made to send an SMS alert to the attacker if a certain combination of letters is detected. It could, for instance, watch for the website address of an online bank and alert the attacker that a password and username is likely to be typed in shortly.

There's more at the link.

Here at home, all the stand-alone keyboards used by Miss D. and I are connected to our computers by USB cables.  I strongly recommend that if you use wireless keyboards, you should switch to the older wired technology.  It's not difficult for someone to intercept your keyboard's signals - and if you type things like intimate personal information or do online banking or payments, the snooper can find out everything needed to steal your identity and misuse your accounts.

Peter

Doofus Of The Day #810

Today's award goes to Haribo for the sugar-free version of their Gummy Bears.  The Atlantic reports:

In all fairness, you were warned. The Amazon description for sugar-free Haribo Gummy Bears reads, in part: "This product is a sugarless/sugarfree item with ingredients that can cause intestinal distress if eaten in excess."

"Intestinal distress," in this case, might be an understatement for what a series of viral Amazon reviews call, "trumpets calling the demons back to Hell," "guttural pronouncement so loud it threatened to drown out my own voice," and "100% liquid. Flammable liquid. NAPALM."

. . .

A glance at the nutrition panel shows that the first (and thus most prevalent) ingredient in the sugar-free variety is lycasin, a hydrogenated syrup ... The known side effects of the excessive consumption of lycasin are bloating, flatulence, loose stools, and borborygmi, the scientific term for tummy-rumbling.

Though the substance is considered safe to eat, in clinical studies, adults who consumed 40 grams of lycasin saw an increased frequency of bowel movements and "watery feces." The gummy bears in question come in bags of 5 pounds, otherwise known as 2,267 grams, otherwise known as a world of hurt.

Of course, this also means you now have the perfect hate-gift for your foes:

"I bought one order for the Westboro Baptist Church as a donation," one Amazon reviewer wrote. "Because we all know how much God hates irregularity."

There's more at the link.

I laughed like mad at the reviews on Amazon.  It seems customers there recognize doofidity when they see it, and respond in kind!




Peter

About that hippo . . .

Readers may remember that in late November I posted a photograph of an allegedly yawning hippopotamus, and pointed out that it wasn't yawning:  it was making a threat display, telling the photographer to go away - or else.

For those of you who still can't think of hippos as anything except the cute dancing beasts in Disney's Fantasia, here are two videos showing how aggressive and calculating they can be.  The first is from a BBC program, showing the presenter almost ambushed in his canoe.

He was very lucky there were members of his team to keep an eye on the hippo and direct him to a safer place.  If he'd been on his own, I doubt he'd have made it out alive.

The second video was taken from a tourist boat on Lake Naivasha in Kenya.  I blame the boat pilot for this - he went far too close to groups of hippo.  This angered the dominant male in each group, who clearly assumed that the boat was a threat to his harem, and responded accordingly.

Anyone think that if the hippos had caught up to the boat, they'd have merely asked to have their necks scratched?  No?  I thought not . . .

Peter

Beavercreek . . . Ferguson . . . New York . . . now Cleveland?

The pattern of over-aggressive, overbearing policing revealed (not so much in the incidents themselves as in all the circumstances surrounding and following them) in the deaths of John Crawford in Beavercreek, OH, Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO, and Eric Garner and Akai Gurley in New York, look like they're about to be joined by another cause célèbre:  the shooting of 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland, OH in November last year.

Rice was admittedly carrying an Airsoft replica pistol, and was allegedly brandishing it at passersby;  certainly sufficient cause for police to investigate.  However, newly released surveillance camera footage shows the two police officers involved shooting the boy within seconds of arriving on the scene, then restraining his 14-year-old sister, handcuffing her and locking her in a police vehicle to prevent her going to her brother - all while ignoring the injured child and failing to provide even the most elementary medical assistance.  An FBI agent who arrived later provided the only immediate care to the boy, with EMS personnel arriving soon afterwards.

Here's the newly released footage.

To make matters worse, the performance of one of the officers involved had been very poorly rated at a previous agency where he'd worked, and a long-standing investigation by the Justice Department has alleged that the Cleveland police force as a whole exhibits a pattern of excessive use of force.  The public response by the head of the Cleveland Police Union did nothing to defuse tensions in the situation, and his assertions are not backed up by the available video evidence.

I've written before about several incidents of police overreach and the cases mentioned in the first paragraph.  This latest revelation merely underscores the extent of the problem.  Not all cops are guilty;  indeed, I have many friends whom I regard as outstanding peace officers, and to whom I'd entrust my life without a moment's hesitation.  Despite that, however, US law enforcement officers and agencies in general are deservedly coming under more intense scrutiny.  Their official motto may, in many cases, be some variation of "To Protect And Serve", but increasingly it looks in practice like "Obey Or Die!"  That's simply not acceptable in a democratic society.

In an earlier post about this problem I mentioned Sir Robert Peel's principles of policing.  More than ever, these need to be reincorporated into our police training, both initial and refresher.  The current situation is intolerable.  It must - MUST! - be changed, and that change has to start right now.

Peter

Doofus Of The Day #809

Today's award goes to this mind-boggling example of your tax dollars at work (NOT!).

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is giving an assistant professor nearly $20,000 to write a dissertation on the mating habits of Syrian hamsters.

. . .

Young adult female Syrian hamsters will be injected with 4-vinylcyclohexene diepoxide (VCD), which makes their ovaries age faster, to see the drug’s effect on hamsters’ sexual preferences. Female hamsters usually prefer a “dominant” male, the grant said.

“VCD-treated females will be given an opportunity to choose between a dominant and subordinate male hamster, and their preferences will be compared to vehicle-injected females,” the grant said. “Young females typically choose the dominant male in this situation. If the preference for dominant male hamsters by young VCD-treated females is reduced relative to controls, then this result will emphasize the importance of reproductive quality, independent of chronological age, in explaining the individual variation in female mate choice.”

Videos of the hamsters mating will be publicly available “indefinitely” through Cornell University.

. . .

Place has also studied the “erect clitoris” of the female spotted hyena, which is the “most highly masculinized female mammal known.”

There's more at the link.

A few questions for the NSF:

1. Why Syrian hamsters?  Aren't there enough of the red, white and blue variety within our own shores for this experiment?  Or is it something in the Middle Eastern water?
2. Who the hell wants to watch videos - "indefinitely" - of foreign hamsters mating?  Is this going to be a special subsection on YouTube or something?
3. Who cares whether the female hyena is "the most highly masculinized female mammal known", or whether she has an "erect clitoris" or not?  She's going to bite your face off anyway if you get close enough!  (I speak as an old African hand, of course.  I know hyenas - not, I hasten to add, in any way, shape or form related to their clitorii - and I don't like them.)

Sheesh . . .




Peter

Practical defensive readiness

I've been having an e-mail exchange with a correspondent who asked for advice on which handguns to select for himself and his family.  A lot of things have been discussed, but I thought it might be useful to distil the main points into a single blog post for future reference.

1. Having a weapon or weapons is only one aspect of a multi-faceted problem.  I suggest you should spend time and money 'hardening' your residence to resist 'home invasion'-style robberies and assaults;  clear the area where you park and between it and your home so you can't be ambushed;  and take other practical measures like that.  With proper planning and preparation, you'll hopefully obviate the need to use your firearms at all.
2. Select weapons based on what every member of the family can shoot comfortably and accurately.  Caliber, etc. is secondary to this consideration.  The process will undoubtedly involve test-firing as many different weapons as possible.  Here's what one family chose;  your own selection will depend on your needs.  If you won't be able to practice often, or buy much ammo for the purpose, consider a long gun instead of a handgun.  The former can be mastered more easily and will cost you less to keep in practice.
3. Plan on spending at least the cost of your defensive handgun, per shooting family member, on ammunition and shooting practice every year.  For example, if three of you shoot and your handguns cost (say) $400 apiece, budget $1,200 every year for training costs.  At a fee of (say) $5 per person per range visit, plus 100 rounds of ammo each, that can easily add up to over $100 for each and every training session.  It never ceases to amaze me how people will spend hundreds, even thousands of dollars on a quality defensive firearm, fire half a box of ammunition through it, then put it away in case of need.  It takes a lot of practice to become proficient with any firearm - about five to ten times more for a handgun than for a long gun.  Also, shooting is a perishable skill.  You need to keep in practice, or you're going to lose your touch.
4. Make your practice sessions count for something.  Don't just blaze away downrange without a plan of what you're trying to achieve and how your training will help you get there.  It's a good idea to get professional training to help you do that - see the next point for more information.
5. Make sure you're all well informed about the legalities of self-defense in your local environment:  local, State and Federal laws, attitudes of local law enforcement agencies, etc.  This can keep you out of serious trouble if you - God forbid - should ever need to defend yourself or your family.  I highly recommend doing a course like Massad Ayoob's MAG-20 (at least the classroom portion and, if possible, the live fire component too).  The course can be done in two halves in some locations, and there are numerous affiliated ranges and instructors who work with Mas to offer it.  Contact him for more information.  (I've done three of his courses, and recommend all of them very highly.)
6. Get to know a local lawyer who's knowledgeable and experienced in self-defence cases.  Keep his card in your wallet in case of need.  If you can't find one locally, consider subscribing to a prepaid legal defense service specializing in cases of self-defense (this Internet search will give you more information).  You can bet your boots that if you have to defend yourself using potentially lethal force, those who attacked you and/or their families will be suing for damages, even if they have no right to them whatsoever.  You'll need professional help to deal with them.
7. Get to know local crime patterns and statistics, and keep up-to-date with them.  If there's an upsurge of a particular type of crime, you can plan ahead to avoid becoming a victim.  If a crime wave develops in a particular area, you'll know to avoid it if possible.  Furthermore, if the overall crime situation worsens, you'll have early warning about it and can consider options like moving to a safer area.  This is nothing more than basic common sense . . . but it's amazing how many people fail to do it.

Just a few thoughts for your consideration.

Peter

A reminder from Captain Tightpants

My blogbuddy Captain Tightpants reminds us via a link that we need to welcome home our combat veterans and do all we can to help them fit into society again.  Please read the article at that link before continuing here.

I'd like to second the author's call from my own perspective.  When I came to the USA I was just about burned out after eighteen years of civil unrest, periodic (uniformed) war service, which had its own stresses and memories, and far too much experience of trying to help the victims of violence in South Africa.  I came here because I knew I needed to make a fresh start.  If I'd stayed in South Africa, I think I'd have become just another 'stress casualty' of the long conflict, as happened to far too many friends of mine (like Mike, for example).

I was fortunate enough to find a counselor who'd spent three tours of duty in Vietnam before changing career direction.  He understood my combat burnout and hyper-sensitive reflexes, because he'd 'been there and done that' himself.  We spent three years talking things through, and I suspect our conversations helped him as much as they helped me.  By the time we were done I had a better handle on the experiences that had helped to shape and form me into what I am today, and I was much better balanced all round.  (Thanks, Primo.  You did good, buddy.)

Later I had an epiphany while watching the SEAL movie 'Act of Valor', about which I wrote at some length (as did my wife).  The reality of combat as portrayed there lifted our relationship to a new level, because I was able to figure out - to my astonishment - that my wife really did understand some parts of my past, which I'd always believed would be a closed book to most if not all civilians.  In the USA the 'military brat' subculture is sometimes a real blessing in that regard.  I've since spoken to other combat veterans who've watched that movie, and we all agree;  it was a very good job, very well done, and portrays the realities of combat better than almost any other movie we can think of.

Thanks to that background and all I've learned about myself and others, I'd like to echo the original author's call to help returning veterans whenever possible.  Some of them have been forever changed by their experiences.  Don't mock them;  don't shy away from them as 'weird';  instead, understand that they've been standing between you and the darkness.  As George Orwell put it:

People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.

That's what many veterans have done for us, and it's changed them forever.  Please be there for them, and help them adjust.  It's the least we can do.

Peter

That must be one heck of a waistband!

I dropped in at the local gun show this morning to look for some ammunition and a low-cost fabric holster.  I wanted the latter to carry a revolver with an 8-3/8" barrel at the range;  nothing fancy or hard-wearing, just a cheap holster into which to drop my handgun while changing targets or doing other stuff.  (Sometimes I shoot at ranges where I don't feel comfortable leaving my guns on a table when I'm not on the spot to supervise them.)

I found what I was looking for - with an unexpected twist.  Inserted into the belt loop on one side was an inside-the-waistband (IWB) steel clip, to allow the holster to be worn inside the pants as well as down the leg on the outside.  Dumbfounded, I looked at this lo-oooo-ong holster (it's for an 8-3/8" barrel, after all!) and asked the vendor why on earth anyone would want to carry a cannon like that inside their waistband - assuming it was even possible, because there's no way you'd be able to sit down or bend at the waist while carrying it like that.

He shrugged his shoulders.  "Maybe if you're really, really happy to see someone?"

We both burst out laughing.  He was still chuckling when I moved off down the row of tables, carrying my new holster.

(And yes, the first thing I did after getting home with it was to take out and throw away the IWB clip!)




Peter

Religious terrorism: It's not just Islam

I've been annoyed and frustrated (yet again) by those blaming all of Islam for the actions of fundamentalist extremist Muslim terrorists.  They insist on trying to tar the entire religion with the same brush with which they condemn individual acts.  (For a particularly egregious example, which I do not endorse, see here.)

Those spreading such propaganda completely ignore (or deny the reality) that other religions have precisely and exactly the same problem - rogue individuals and groups who emphasize certain aspects of the faith in question to justify their atrocities while ignoring others.  Don't believe me?  Here are just a few examples of Christian terrorism around the world over the past 50 years.  It's by no means an exhaustive list - and I might add that the 'body count' in these incidents is pretty impressive by any standards, rivaling (and perhaps exceeding) that of Muslim terrorist incidents over the same period.

• South Africa:  Millions were displaced from their homes and tens of thousands tortured and killed to enforce the policy of apartheid, which was officially 'blessed' by the Dutch Reformed Church of that country (and implicitly endorsed by many other denominations) as a 'Christian' approach to the problem of race relations.
• Uganda:  The terrorist activities of the "Lord's Resistance Army" are well-known.
• Mexico:  Certain drug cartels have emphasized and embraced a quasi-Christian religious aspect to their operations.  See, for example, 'La Familia Michoacana' and 'Santa Muerte'.
• USA:  The activities of the Ku Klux Klan were (and still are) often explicitly defended in Christian terms;  and the impact of the later 'Creativity' cult, which warps and twists Christian teachings to promote racial discrimination and White supremacist teachings, is well-known.  Examples include the terrorist group calling itself 'The Order' and the 'World Church of the Creator', among many others.  On the other side of the fence many Black pastors and churches adopted a more radical, racially-oriented stance from the 1960's onwards, including allegations that some have fomented violence against Whites.  Jeremiah Wright, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are among many well-known figures.
• Northern Ireland:  The bloody record of paramilitary and terrorist organizations such as the Provisional IRA, the Ulster Volunteer Force and the Ulster Defence Association, divided basically along the lines of Catholic or Protestant Christianity and justifying their actions as a defense of their 'faith' among other things, is too well known to require elaboration.
• Former Yugoslavia:  The 'ethnic cleansing' of Muslims from areas of Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia during the 1990's, including many atrocities (of which the Srebrenica massacre, in which over 8,000 Muslims were murdered, is probably the worst), will be familiar to many.
• Lebanon:  The massacres at Karantina, Tel al-Zaatar and Sabra and Shatila were carried out by proudly self-proclaimed Christian militias.
• India:  The terrorist National Liberation Front of Tripura is explicitly Christian in orientation.

I could cite many more examples, but why bother?  Similarly, I could point to terrorist incidents perpetrated by Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and any number of other religions, but again - why bother?  Such acts are seldom, if ever, perpetrated by organized religion as such.  They're perpetrated by those who espouse violence and terrorism, but use religion as a cloak to fool others (and themselves) that there's some justification for their actions.  No-one blames all of Christianity for the terrorist actions listed above, just as no-one blames all of Hinduism, or Buddhism, or Judaism, or any other religion for atrocities perpetrated by their followers.  Why, then, do people persist in blaming all of Islam for the actions of Muslim fundamentalist extremist terrorists?

The answer, of course, is simple.  It's easier to blame the 'other', the 'different', as an entity, rather than seek to understand the reality of the situation.  The latter requires hard work, empathy and a willingness to look at all sides of the situation.  Few people are willing to take the time and trouble to do that.

In the sidebar you'll find a series of articles I put up a few years ago under the overall heading 'Discrimination, distrust and xenophobia'.  I stand by what I said in them.  To blame the whole of Islam for the atrocities perpetrated by some of its adherents is to ignore reality.  Those who insist on doing so identify themselves as being just as intolerant, biased and prejudiced as the terrorists they condemn.  Tragically for the peace of the world, there are a lot of them . . . on all sides of the terrorism equation.

Peter

Benjamin Franklin has been proved right yet again

Two quotes by Benjamin Franklin have entered the lexicon of American political discourse.  Said at different times and referring to different situations, they nevertheless reinforce each other.

Those who surrender freedom for security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Unfortunately, too many people forget his warnings when their own or society's safety appears threatened.  They're all too willing to allow government to override their personal, essential liberties by promising an ephemeral and all-too-illusory 'security'.

The otherwise eminent historian and journalist, Max Hastings, for whom I have a great deal of respect as an author, has just made this mistake in an article in the Daily Mail.  He writes:

Our principal weapons against terrorists are not tanks, Typhoon fighter jets or warships, but instead intelligence officers using electronic surveillance.

Much cant has been peddled recently about the supposed threat to liberty posed by government eavesdropping on our lives.

. . .

There may be a few mavericks within intelligence services who abuse such power, but unless we view the very existence of government as inherently wicked and threatening, I cannot for the life of me imagine what harm can result from MI5 accessing the phone calls, bank accounts, emails of you, me or any other law-abiding citizen. How much Amazon and Google know about our private lives seems much more alarming than what MI5 discovers.

Public safety demands a perpetual balancing act between collective security and the rights of the individual.

. . .

Today, we need not erect barbed wire entanglements or mount anti-aircraft guns on public buildings. Instead, and much less onerously, we all must endure airport searches, even though we know full well that we are threatened not by elderly Englishwomen, or for that matter men, but by jihadis. And we must acquiesce in electronic surveillance.

I feel a real anger towards the civil libertarians who resist this, towards the imbeciles who recently sought to raise money for a statue in London celebrating Assange and Snowden as champions of freedom — yes, they really did.

No modern intelligence officer would dare to use Churchill’s wartime words, when he appealed to the Americans for arms: ‘Give us the tools and we will finish the job’. But I am convinced that the security services must indeed be given the modern tools and increased manpower they need if Britain is to have any chance of restricting — not eliminating, because that is impossible — the havoc wreaked by terrorists.

There's more at the link.

The grave error in Mr. Hastings' thinking is simply this:  Such overreaches by the intelligence community have not, and do not, and will not, protect us against all such attacks.  The surrender of personal liberty to the 'security state' has failed to deliver what we've been promised in return - namely, security.  Therefore, if the surrender of our essential liberties will not deliver the freedom from attack, from terror, from fear, that it's supposed to yield, why surrender them at all?

Anyone who says that we 'must' surrender our essential civil and other liberties - including our right to privacy - in order to protect ourselves and our societies against terrorism is lying through his teeth.  Such a surrender cannot and will not produce the desired result.  The proof of the pudding is in the eating.  We've seen a wholesale invasion of our liberties by the authorities since 9/11, all in the name of 'national security' - yet terror attacks have continued, and will continue, and there's no way we can prevent them all (except to pretend, as the Obama administration has done, that they're simply 'workplace violence' instead of terrorism).

No, Mr. Hastings.  Since their loss can never guarantee my or society's safety, I will not surrender my essential liberties;  I will resist anyone who tries to intrude upon them;  and given the opportunity, I will block such intrusion by any and all means at my disposal.  If you can't understand that, then my previously very high opinion of you will take a sudden nose-dive at your demonstrated, incomprehensible lack of logic and inability to grasp reality.

Peter

Cooper on 'Firearms and Personal Defense'

Courtesy of a link at Gunalizer, here's an hour-long talk (including question time) by the late, great Jeff Cooper, delivered at a conference of Doctors for Disaster Preparedness in San Diego in June 1997.  It's a classic of its kind, and I unreservedly endorse everything the good Colonel has to say (not that he ever needed any endorsement from me or anyone else - his wisdom was self-evident).  In the light of events in France this week, I submit that his insights are more important than ever.

I had the great good fortune to attend a lecture given by Col. Cooper in South Africa many years ago.  It was a life-changing experience, and I've never forgotten what I learned from him.  It helped to keep me alive on more than one occasion.

Peter