Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Philosophers

Sometimes amusing thoughts show up when you're standing at the urinal. Today I was agravated by some of the nitwits at capmag.com, one of my former favorite sites. Apparently the USA will become a theocracy in less than 50 years if the Democrats don't win some elections in the near future. This from the leading "Objectivist," Leonard Piekoff.

The thing I realized while I was taking a wiz was this: 1. Objectivism is kinda dumb. I outgrew it a while back. 2. The contribution of philosophy has primarily been the combination of both ordinary and seldom used words into brand new adjectnouns. For example, a particular sort of imperative, say, a categorical one. See, that's an adjectnoun, categorical imperative, contributed by a nitwit named Kant. Kant was smart, Kant was dumb, Kant thinked thoughts about his own bum. I don't even know what a categorical imperative is. It's right there on wikipedia, but I'm not going to look at it. I don't want to know. I've got all sorts of space in my noggin used up with useless crap, like the lyrics to most of the songs on Motley Crue's "Shout at the Devil" album, and I can't shake it no matter what I do. No need to waste any more room up there.

That's all I got.

Archer

That's my boy. I posted this a while back, but now I've got youtube.

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Police Shootout

Interesting Video. 14 minutes long, lots of blasting. Still watching, so I haven't seen the end.

Update: Interesting. Nothing gruesome or anything. The bad guy had a Bushmaster AR-15 and took a lot of shots at the cops. Didn't work out so well for the BG.

Saturday, October 14, 2006

Airborne

In yesterday's Bleat, Lileks commented that his gazebo had become momentarily airborne by the autumn wind, and maybe it's time to pack the thing up. I wish I had realized gazebo weather was over, myself. We have (or had) one that is nearly identical to Lileks'. Three days ago, we experienced a microburst in our neighborhood -- the local news reported a funnel cloud very nearby, so it was Scary Weather time. The winds were sufficient to pick up our gazebo, launch it over our neighbor's house, and slam it into her front yard. The thing is totally demolished. I wish I had snapped some photos of the wreckage before my husband cleared it away. It was a tangle of bent metal and canvas, which also managed to damage our neighbors' truck to the tune of $700. She is being exceptionally nice about the whole thing and has asked us to forget about the damage, but we're going to pay for it anyway (good-neighbor relations are priceless). Dunno if home-owners insurance pays for this kind of thing, but I hope so.

Monday, October 09, 2006

Kim du Toit on Conscription: Carnaby Responds!

Kim du Toit finally posted on the issue of "the draft" over at his blog. Earlier in the week, the matter came up and I commented that I'm firmly against it. One of my readers politely excused himself from the blog on account of my views. I hope to make my position on the matter clearer, and I invite that reader back for some dialogue (I am young after all, and my opinions are not as well formed as those who were alive when there may have been a draft). I won't bother posting a reply in comments at du Toit's blog, on account of it will just get lost in the volume of comments. Maybe I'll copy and paste this there. Here goes:

I think the draft (conscription that is) as it was in the Vietnam conflict is unacceptable. Kim alluded that he thinks this is true also, but makes no provision for outlawing the draft for such "foreign adventure" situations, except to say
Once again, let me remind everyone of who we’re talking about here, when we talk about who would impose conscription: we would. We The People, through our elected Congressional representatives and our elected President, would impose conscription. Can anyone even remotely believe that this nation would re-introduce conscription, except under the direst of circumstances? If any good at all came from the Vietnam War, it’s that we saw that conscription is a last resort, not a first.
I agree with the substance of this point, but for the same reason we need the 2nd Amendment, I think his argument fails. Anti-gunners always argue the line that "our government would never become tyranical." I don't buy it, and I know Kim does not buy it (the fact that my wife's name is also Kim is not helping here). Fine, whatever, we're in some grey area. He does think that the draft is necessary for when the cataclysm occurs. I see his point, but still disagree.

The reason, as far as I know, that what du Toit says is true is that those in command in the U.S. military would rather fight wars with super-soakers than use a conscripted army again. A conscripted army in an unpopular war is worse than useless. In a popular war, a conscripted army is just fine (cf. WWII). Heck, in a popular war, conscription helps with organization, and helps weed out the real cowards, which brings us to one of du Toit's more important points
At its most basic foundation, conscription addresses an unpleasant little fact: most people are cowards. They might be cowards on their own behalf, or because they want to protect their children from dying, but they are cowards nevertheless.
Well, Kim and his kids can fight with the conscripts. My kids and I will stick with the volunteers. Maybe conscription will help the cowards actually point and shoot, or else the du Toits can use them as cost effective practice targets. I think I have a better solution to the problem of cowards which benefits both the warriors on the battlefields and their families back home: conscript wealth.

If you are a pussy, if you come from a long line of bedwetters, then the government should not hold a gun to your head and make you piss yourself in line with a bunch of real men. The government should take everything you and your parents own and give it to the volunteers and their families. You may keep what a coward deserves, enough to subsist on, but during the time of need, you will forfeit all your property beyond the basics, especially any land you own. This property will be given to the warriors upon their return, or if they do not return, then to their heirs.

Now, Tech Support brought up an important point that many in WWII wanted to volunteer, but chose to wait for the draft in order to maintain seniority at their work, or to make sure they did not loose their place in school etc. Now this is not a difficult problem to solve, people! How about the .gov enacts a law that says if the government requests volunteers under "extraordinary circumstances" (i.e. ones that would have previously envoked the draft), then those benefits of the draft will apply to any and all who volunteer from this point forward. Done, next...

And then there's this comment in the post at Kim's (argh!)
2nd - the common idea that seems to run here that, given modern technology, massed numbers of boots on the ground are no longer needed seems to run counter to any historical or military experence. In fact, given the nature of the current difficulties in Iraq, it seems that boots on the ground is exactly what we need more of.
And my response
Sorry, but that notion is completely retarded. We only need boots on the ground in Iraq because we are trying to pacify a bunch of idiots who can’t get along. In the face of a cataclysm, we’d just nook the bitches and be done with it. We would owe them nothing, especially not our boots. While the temptation to name call right now is great, I’ll leave that to the [].
Maybe this is how we can tell when we've gotten ourselvs into something bad. We tried to help the Iraqis. Turns out that, while a minority of them can be helped, the majority cannot. It is time to leave them to their own devices, protect our friends in the north, and let the Sunnis and Shias (and their foreign backers) fight it out.

Then Kim invokes majority rule. I don't buy it. If the majority wants to gas Jews, I ain't gonna go along. I'm all about the militia. I'm a member. If the homeland is going to be invaded, I'm going to be there at the front and my son, when he's older than 6 years, will be with me. If it's foreign and a cataclysm, again I say nook the bitches. I think that is the end of that.

One final note: I'm an engineer, and the way I see it is to basically make an unmanned combat force. Ten combat drones to every one operator. We pay with money and the enemy pays in blood. We win, because we know which is worth more, and so do they. They don't mind a poor exchange rate when the currency is equivilent, but I think when we stop paying with our blood, they'll be hard pressed to pay with their own. And we'll still have a rifleman behind every blade of grass to back us up.

Sunday, October 08, 2006

Is it just me...

... or does anyone else think that Kim Jong Il looks like Rue McClanahan with a sex-change and a dye-job? Or possibly just the dye-job.

Carnaby for President

I'll be old enough to run for pres in the upcoming 2008 election. I think my platform is pretty good, so I must have a good shot at winning the race. Here's my platform, in a nutshell:

1. Veto lots of laws passed by congress.

2. Push congress to outlaw the draft. In its place, actively encourage voluntary service.

3. I'm a hunter and outdoorsman, and I wish to preserve the environment, but I'm not a rabid environmentalist. So much productivity and resources are wasted every hour of every day because of gridlock. I'd encourage measures to cut gridlock. People are often encouraged by money. Hence, I'd give tax cuts to both employers and employees as incentives to telecomute, carpool and use mass transit to get to and from work. I'd encourage states to expand their highways.

3a. Further, at the very least, CO2 emmissions might be bad for the environment. I'd compromise with the enviros and require coal-fired power plants to recover the C02 and other emmisions from their processes. In trade, I'd take opening of currently closed off-shore and Alaskan oil exploration and extraction. Requirements for small footprints and leaving the sites as you found them when finished would be put in place.

4. Individual rights view of the Second Amendment. Repeal 1986, 1968 and 1934 statutes. Encourage permitless CCW.

5. No compromise on abortion. I personally hate abortion, but I would ensure its legality. I would also make it clear that people have the right to associate, or not associate, with those with whom they disagree. For example, landlords could refuse to rent to someone who supports abotion or who is anti-abortion, whichever is contrary to their principles. Applies to all circumstances. Private property is private property.

6. Many more, but you get the gist. For example, encourage large projects to be headed BY ENGINEERS and NOT LAWYERS. Our monorail project in Seattle is a prime example of how NOT to run a large project. Lawyers have their place, and it is at the bottom of the ocean, or in a smelly garbage pit, not as civil project leaders. Same is true for politicians.

I'll take a break here, but more will come in my campaign. Heh.

7. Whoops, I forgot the most important one. If elected, I refuse to take office. I hate politicians, and I don't wish to be tainted. Blech.

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Of Texas, Guns, Du Toit's and Things

I had the strangest dream last night. In the dream, I was visiting Stickwick and her husband in Texas. We were going to go hiking, so I was trying to pick out a carry rig. My brother-in-law had a fancy shoulder rig I was trying out, but once I got the thing on, I couldn't figure out how to get it off again.

Somehow I ended up outside, and who should drive by, but our own gunblogger supremo, Kim Du Toit. I wave, and he stops! He comes up and says "Hi," and I tell him I'm "carnaby fudge" and he sorta recognizes the handle. The really strange thing is that he's lost a lot of weight and is at least 6'8" tall. Very weird. We then step into a strange dive for a bite to eat and to discuss gun matters, and it just starts to get weirder from there. I don't really remember anything else.

Well, there it is.

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Kids Say the Darndest Things

I'm up late grading exams for an astronomy 101 class ("astronomy for poets" as it's known in the department). Here are my favorite answers so far...

From beyond the grave: "After Tycho Brahe died he hired Kepler to do some calculations... "

Deus ex machina: "Because God made it that way."

Unprecedented precision: "distance = 3.92582453663098392748571003847624 light-years"

Honesty: "I'm sorry, I don't know. I didn't study."

Heh heh. At least there weren't any astrology references.

Monday, October 02, 2006

Punished for being bullied?

From today's CNN report on the Amish school shooting (last paragraph on the page). I'm not sending my kids to this school
A high school student near Madison, Wisconsin, is suspected of fatally gunning down his principal on Friday, after he was disciplined for carrying tobacco and being bullied.
Sheesh! Next thing you know, they'll be punishing kids for bringing AR-15 Glocks to school.