Author: Kevin

Déjà Vu

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I’ve been following the Imus kerfuffle for the last couple of days, and I’m reminded of another such incident just recently that strikes me as very similar. Don Imus called a group of people something that they (and a lot of other people) found very objectionable. Outrage was felt. Sponsors pulled their sponsorship. Demands for firing were made.

Sounds like Jim Zumbo, doesn’t it?

Only Imus made a racial comment, and Zumbo insulted a subset of gun owners.

But Zumbo lost his job. Imus gets two weeks off.

I’m just sayin’.

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Things I’ve Learned.

It’s always a good thing to learn something new. So far with this new job, I’ve learned two things with certainty: Skype is damned cool and works great, and the Chevy HHR is a good example of why GM is losing money.

I’m in California for some training, and the company uses Skype for internal long-distance communication. If you’ve got anything even resembling broadband, it’s terrific. I have a Chevy HHR rental – that’s GM’s copy of the Chrysler PT Cruiser.

I don’t know about the PT Cruiser, but the ergonomics of the HHR suck. It’s got adequate power and is very roomy inside, but I just don’t fit. The beltline is too high and the door post is located so as to make it impossible for me to put my arm out the window. It’s a little buzzy, and it just feels cheap. The sun visors are damned near useless – they cover almost half the windshield when down, but don’t cover really any of the side windows if you try to position them there. Driving into a setting sun is an experience, let me tell you. Either you hunch over to look under the thing, or leave it partway up so that it’s aimed at your forehead like a knife blade. Either that, or you just leave it up and squint. I won’t be renting another one, I hope.

Thus concludes today’s filler post. Time for bed.

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Righteous Anger.

Today’s post is a link. Firehand at Irons in the Fire posts a heartfelt screed against GFWs and their (anonymous) objections to placing a memorial statue of a special forces soldier – in this case, a SEAL – in a local park in Littleton, Colorado.

It’s just another example of people who cannot (or will not) distinguish between “violent and predatory” and “violent but protective.”

I won’t excerpt from Firehand’s piece. just go read it for yourself.

Credit Where It’s Due

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Instapundit links to a John Stossel piece on the “Fear-Industrial Complex” at Human Events.

Newsrooms are full of English majors who acknowledge that they are not good at math, but still rush to make confident pronouncements about a global-warming “crisis” and the coming of bird flu.

—

Here’s another example. What do you think is more dangerous, a house with a pool or a house with a gun? When, for “20/20,” I asked some kids, all said the house with the gun is more dangerous. I’m sure their parents would agree. Yet a child is 100 times more likely to die in a swimming pool than in a gun accident.

Parents don’t know that partly because the media hate guns and gun accidents make bigger headlines. Ask yourself which incident would be more likely to be covered on TV.

Media exposure clouds our judgment about real-life odds. Of course, it doesn’t help that viewers are as ignorant about probability as reporters are.

I’m in complete agreement with Mr. Stossel on this point, and particularly when it comes to the firearm question, but credit where it’s due.

In June, 2005, after a string of drownings and near-drownings, my local morning paper the Arizona Daily (Red) Star – a reliably anti-gun paper – put this on the front page of the Sunday edition, above the fold:

I wrote about it then, and excerpted this from the story:

They’re pulled from backyard pools and bathtubs each year, tiny limp bodies, blue and not breathing.

A young life can vanish quickly under water. A survivor can endure a lifetime of disabilities. Either way, families are torn apart by an almost always preventable tragedy.

Standard summer companions in our desert climate, swimming pools can be deadlier for children than guns. A child is 100 times more likely to die in a swimming accident than in gunplay, writes Steven D. Levitt, University of Chicago economics professor and best-selling author.

Levitt analyzed child deaths from residential swimming pools and guns and found one child under 10 drowns annually for every 11,000 pools. By comparison, one child under 10 each year is killed by a gun for every 1 million guns, according to his research, outlined in a new book “Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side to Everything,” which he co-wrote with journalist Stephen J. Dubner.

It was a pretty fair article. The exception that proves the rule?

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This Week’s Post: The Weird 24 Movie Meme.

(Found at Mostly Cajun)

1. Name a movie that you have seen more than 10 times.

Star Wars without a doubt.

2. Name a movie that you’ve seen multiple times in the theater.

Star Wars again. Probably four of the at least ten times I’ve seen it.

3. Name an actor that would make you more inclined to see a movie.

There are several. Denzel Washington, Robin Williams, Wesley Snipes, Harrison Ford to name a few.

4. Name an actor that would make you less likely to see a movie.

Jane Fonda, Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon to name a few. Doesn’t mean I won’t see a movie they’re in, but the chances of me spending $8.50 to see it in a theater are slim.

5. Name a movie that you can and do quote from.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail: “Listen, strange women lyin’ in ponds distributin’ swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.” “Help! Help! I’m being repressed!”

6. Name a movie musical that you know all of the lyrics to all of the songs.

Can’t help you there.

7. Name a movie that you have been known to sing along with.

Here either.

8. Name a movie that you would recommend everyone see.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail – I know it’s not everyone’s cuppa, but if you’re warped enough to enjoy it, you’re my kind of person!

9. Name a movie that you own.

I’ve got a few dozen. I did wait until George “Lucifer” Lucas re-released the original Star Wars trilogy in their original theatrical release edits (no “enhanced special effects,” no “director’s cut”) before I bought them in DVD format.

My VHS tapes were about worn out. My grandson is a major fan. (And my wife is sick of all three of the films.)

10. Name an actor that launched his/her entertainment career in another medium but who has surprised you with his/her acting chops.

Robin Williams. I knew he was a stand-up comedian before Mork & Mindy, and I was working in a theater when he did Popeye and thought that the man actually could act under all those appliances. When he did The World According to Garp I said (I swear!) “This man’s going to win an Oscar some day.”

11. Have you ever seen a movie in a drive-in? If so, what?

We saw a lot of movies at the drive-in when I lived in Florida – mostly Disney films. Couldn’t name one for certain now.

12. Ever made out in a movie?

No, can’t say that I have.

13. Name a movie that you keep meaning to see but just haven’t yet gotten around to it.

9/11 – I don’t know that I’m ready to see that one yet.

14. Ever walked out of a movie?

Oh hell yes. The first one ever was Highlander II. What unmitigated dreck!

15. Name a movie that made you cry in the theater.

Confession: I cry at a lot of movies. So what?

16. Popcorn?

Every time. With butter.

17. How often do you go to the movies (as opposed to renting them or watching them at home)?

Depends on what’s playing. I worked in a movie theater my senior year in High School and my freshman year of college, so I like the “theater experience” of seeing a movie on the big screen. But recently the pickings have been very poor, so we go to the movies maybe once every month or two.

18. What’s the last movie you saw in the theater?

300 – My wife wants to go see it again.

19. What’s your favorite/preferred genre of movie?

Action – aka “blow-up movie,” as in “that blowed-up real good!” I like well-done SciFi movies too, but they’re as rare as hen’s teeth.

20. What’s the first movie you remember seeing in the theater?

I know I saw movies in the theater before this one, but the one that sticks in my brain is The Posiedon Adventure in 1972. I was ten. The theater was packed. My best friend and I had to sit almost front-row off to the right side of the screen, and it was still riveting. (Hey, I was ten.)

21. What movie do you wish you had never seen?

Alien3, Rocky V, and most other sequels.

22. What is the weirdest movie you enjoyed?

Edward Scissorhands – I like Tim Burton films, and they tend to the weird. I like Johnny Depp, and so does he.

23. What is the scariest movie you’ve seen?

Alien – the best combination: SciFi and horror done to the nth degree. I was so tense through that movie that my abdomen ached the next day.

24. What is the funniest movie you’ve seen?

Without doubt, Monty Python and the Holy Grail – funny from the opening credits all the way to the end.

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PSYCH!!.

Well, not really. Like I said, don’t expect much new content for a while. For certain, don’t expect any 7,000-word überposts, but when I come upon somthing interesting or important, I’ll certainly make all efforts to put up at least a quick post.

This is one.

Via Alger, I strongly recommend you download and listen to the speech given by Evan Sayet at the Heritage Foundation. The MP3 file is here.

Sayet’s speech begins 7:30 in to the recording. It’s worth your time, if you’re willing to listen to the whole thing. Pass the recording around to your friends. Discuss it. Hell, discuss it in the comments here.

It’s a Bad Time for One, but: Hiatus!

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Wednesday, March 28, 2007 will be my last day at the job I’ve had for twenty-one years and a month (to the day). I’m moving on to what I believe is a better opportunity. After twenty-one years of bitching and complaining about consulting/specifying engineers, I’m about to become one.

Consequently, these last three days at my old job, and the first few weeks at my new one promise to be a little hectic, so feel free to check in from time to time and leave a comment, but don’t expect to see much new content here for a bit.

Death and the Internet

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Cathy Seipp has died. I don’t know how many of my readers followed Cathy’s battle with lung cancer on her blog Cathy’s World. I didn’t have her linked on the blogroll because I only read her on occasion, usually when Instapundit linked to her, but I enjoyed her writing and I took vicarious pleasure when she wrote about an arbitration board overruling her insurance company’s decision to not pay for an experimental drug that appeared to be helping her.

I remember reading about her daugher Maia’s (then pseudonymously “Cecile”) conflict with the teaching staff at her high school, and writing a piece on it. I wrote a later piece linking to one of Cathy’s NRO columns. That’s been the the total linkage on this blog, but I’ve read a lot of Cathy’s stuff.

I am affected by her passing.

This is odd. I’ve lost a few relatives in the past few years; a grandmother, an uncle and an aunt, a great-uncle. I wasn’t particularly close to any of these people. Their deaths did not particularly affect me. But I’ve also lost other people I’ve known only (or primarily) through the ‘net. Airboss, the wry and intelligent commenter at many blogs whom I met at Kim du Toit’s house. Eric the (profuse) Hun, the irrepressible Texas lawyer and hugely prolific poster at AR15.com. Rob “Acidman” Smith, the outspoken self-described Georgia cracker who never held anything back.

I’ve read these people’s words. In some small way I have gotten to know them before their passing and that knowledge has affected me, more than the deaths of blood relatives that I never really knew.

Rest in peace, Cathy. My condolences, Maia. Know that your mother had a life well-lived, and left many people behind who thought well of her.

UPDATE: And I’d like to take this opportunty to apologize to Susan Estrich. I took a cheap shot at Ms. Estrich a while back, but she has written a truly excellent eulogy for her friend, Cathy. As she put it:

Lung cancer was one of the few subjects we agreed on; I lost my best friend seven years ago, and watched in horror as the money from the tobacco settlements got spent building highways. We also agreed about things like mothering, kids and friendship. As for the rest, we had to agree to disagree. But I was always interested in how Cathy put it, where she came down and how she got there, because I knew she’d be as tough on herself as any critic would be. So I checked in every day to see what she was thinking, until the end. Ours was an old-fashioned relationship, the kind people used to have with people they disagree with, the kind that is too often under attack these days.

Thank you, Susan, for being the kind of person it is an honor to disagree with.

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Wait a Minute… This is in New Jersey??

Picking my jaw up off the floor, I have just finished reading the New Jersey Superior Court’s hot-off-the-presses appeal to grant a firearms purchaser identification card to one Dennis Peterson. (How this case is legally identified I have no idea.) It’s a PDF image file, or I’d just cut-and-paste the entire thing.

It seems Mr. Peterson was a bit of a wild one as a kid, had a cheating wife, and some other legal problems several decades ago. Due to the divorce and some heated words, Mr. Peterson had a restraining order placed against him and ten of his firearms were seized. Since he didn’t have a FID, he didn’t get them back. This was four years before the state of New Jersey passed a law making such seizure and surrender grounds for vacating anyone’s ability to acquire an FID.

Mr. Peterson recently applied for a card. He answered the questions on the form as thoroughly as he could, and was rejected. He appealed. The judge of the Superior Court found in his favor.

Color me shocked. Stunned, even.

In New JERSEY??

This is from the same state in which an appellate court declared a .22 rimfire Marlin Model 60 a “highly dangerous offensive weapon” because it held two rounds over the legal limit of 15? The Court that said “When dealing with guns, the citizen acts at his peril”???

I’m not going to copy the whole decision, but here’s the pertinent cite:

Egregious deprivation would surely be the result if this applicant were precluded from obtaining a firearms purchaser identification card by virtue of the fact that he consensually surrendered his weapons at a time when it was impossible for him to have known that such action would later subject him to lifelong deprivation of his second amendment right.

Additionally, it is clear that in consenting to the disposition of the weapons seized as a result of the temporary restraining order, the applicant did not intend to waive his right to bear arms as provided by the second amendment of the U.S. Constitution. He therefore could not have knowingly, intelligently, or voluntarily waived that right.

In New Jersey. And this was on February 27, before the D.C. Court of Appeals decision in Parker.

Somebody pinch me. I must be dreaming. (I bet there was an appeal filed by the State immediately thereafter.)

UPDATE: I should read more thorougly before I hit “publish.” His lawyer, Evan Nappen reports that an appeal has indeed been filed.

Who’s taking bets on this one?

UPDATE, February 2008: Yup. Reversed on appeal.