Category: Uncategorized

KevinLeave a comment

Vote for Bruce!.

The 2006 Weblog Awards is now taking votes. Bruce of mAss Backwards is on the ballot for Best of the top 2501-3500 blogs. This sounds a little ridiculous until you realize that there are literally tens of millions of blogs out there, and that Truth Laid Bear tracks over 58,000 of them. The “top 3500” represents the top sixth percentile of that 58,000+.

Bruce is escaping Taxachussetts (Live Free or Die Here), and will be retiring mAss Backwards once he moves to his new digs in (slightly more free) New Hampshire where he and his family will be living side-by-side with the thirty-five or so die-hard (big “L”) Libertarians who moved there for the Free State Project. I think winning this Webby would be a great and well-deserved send-off to mAss Backwards, and I wish him all the luck in the world in his new state of residence.

So, go vote for him already!

UPDATE: I’m informed via email that “almost 200” libertarians of the big and small “L” variety have moved to New Hampshire as part of the Free State Project. According to this site, a whopping 663 people have pledged to move there before 12/31/08. Just for your edification, the 2005 population estimate for New Hampshire was 1,309,940.

KevinLeave a comment

Ennui.

Due to various influences – workload, current events, some specific business-oriented things not workload related, family issues, etc. – I have not been posting much lately. My apologies, but this may continue for a bit. I’m going out in the desert tomorrow with a bunch of guys from work to expend a bit of ammo. Perhaps I’ll come back in a better frame of mind.

Perhaps not.

KevinLeave a comment

Is it Denial, or is it Deliberate?.
(Not that it matters, much.)

James Lileks expresses – as only he can – my take on current events in today’s Bleat:

I heard some of the confirmation hearings for the new SecDef and was impressed, providing they’ve changed the name of the office to the Secretary of Deference. I think they should have pressed him to list all the other countries he opposed “attacking” just so everyone’s clear and we can begin the new year on the same page.

The Bush doctrine has been dead for some time, but this was the funeral oration. I don’t believe in “rope-a-dope,” and I don’t believe in the miraculous Israeli strike, and I don’t think the momentum can be reversed. It’s as if we invaded France and spent three years getting their government back on their feet before proceeding to Berlin. Given this, the debate over the ISG’s recommendations is rather superfluous, but the report does tell you where some people’s heads have become permanently socketed.

Go read the rest.

Peggy Noonan in her “Separate Peace” column from last year said (and was pilloried for saying):

Our elites, our educated and successful professionals, are the ones who are supposed to dig us out and lead us. I refer specifically to the elites of journalism and politics, the elites of the Hill and at Foggy Bottom and the agencies, the elites of our state capitals, the rich and accomplished and successful of Washington, and elsewhere. I have a nagging sense, and think I have accurately observed, that many of these people have made a separate peace. That they’re living their lives and taking their pleasures and pursuing their agendas; that they’re going forward each day with the knowledge, which they hold more securely and with greater reason than nonelites, that the wheels are off the trolley and the trolley’s off the tracks, and with a conviction, a certainty, that there is nothing they can do about it.

I suspect that history, including great historical novelists of the future, will look back and see that many of our elites simply decided to enjoy their lives while they waited for the next chapter of trouble. And that they consciously, or unconsciously, took grim comfort in this thought: I got mine. Which is what the separate peace comes down to, “I got mine, you get yours.”

Let’s see what the elites of the “Iraq Surrender Group” recommends we do:

RECOMMENDATION 15: Concerning Syria, some elements of that negotiated peace should be:

• Syria’s full adherence to UN Security Council Resolution 1701 of August 2006, which provides the framework for Lebanon to regain sovereign control over its territory.

• Syria’s full cooperation with all investigations into political assassinations in Lebanon, especially those of Rafik Hariri and Pierre Gemayel.

• A verifiable cessation of Syrian aid to Hezbollah and the use of Syrian territory for transshipment of Iranian weapons and aid to Hezbollah. (This step would do much to solve Israel’s problem with Hezbollah.)

• Syria’s use of its influence with Hamas and Hezbollah for the release of the captured Israeli Defense Force soldiers.

• A verifiable cessation of Syrian efforts to undermine the democratically elected government of Lebanon.

• A verifiable cessation of arms shipments from or transiting through Syria for Hamas and other radical Palestinian groups.

• A Syrian commitment to help obtain from Hamas an acknowledgment of Israel’s right to exist.

• Greater Syrian efforts to seal its border with Iraq.

Right. We went through how many years of trying to get Saddam to comply with UN Security Council resolutions? And if Syria decides not to play? What then? We issue another strongly-worded condemnation? The report also says:

The United States must build a new international consensus for stability in Iraq and the region.

In order to foster such consensus, the United States should embark on a robust diplomatic effort to establish an international support structure intended to stabilize Iraq and ease tensions in other countries in the region. This support structure should include every country that has an interest in averting a chaotic Iraq, including all of Iraq’s neighbors—Iran and Syria among them. Despite the well-known differences between many of these countries, they all share an interest in avoiding the horrific consequences that would flow from a chaotic Iraq, particularly a humanitarian catastrophe and regional destabilization.

A reinvigorated diplomatic effort is required because it is clear that the Iraqi government cannot succeed in governing, defending, and sustaining itself by relying on U.S. military and economic support alone. Nor can the Iraqi government succeed by relying only on U.S. military support in conjunction with Iraqi military and police capabilities. Some states have been withholding commitments they could make to support Iraq’s stabilization and reconstruction. Some states have been actively undermining stability in Iraq.

Like IRAN and SYRIA…

To achieve a political solution within Iraq, a broader international support structure is needed.

Who does the Iraq Surrender Group think we need the aid of? Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, and Jordan, in addition to Iran and Syria.

Let me think… What was one of the reasons for the invasion of Iraq, the overthrow of Hussein and the establishment of a democratic form of government in the heart of the Arab world? Oh, yeah. Let Charles Krauthammer express it more eloquently than I, from his Time Magazine piece after Lebanon’s “Cedar Revolution”:

Jon Stewart, the sage of Comedy Central, is one of the few to be honest about it. “What if Bush … has been right about this all along? I feel like my world view will not sustain itself and I may … implode.” Daniel Schorr, another critic of the Bush foreign policy, ventured, a bit more grudgingly, that Bush “may have had it right.”

Right on what? That America, using power harnessed to democratic ideals, could begin a transformation of the Arab world from endless tyranny and intolerance to decent governance and democratization. Two years ago, shortly before the invasion of Iraq, I argued in these pages that forcefully deposing Saddam Hussein was, more than anything, about America “coming ashore” to effect a “pan-Arab reformation”–a dangerous, “risky and, yes, arrogant” but necessary attempt to change the very culture of the Middle East, to open its doors to democracy and modernity.

And it wasn’t just Krauthammer. See line 4 of the eye chart:

That’s a Henry Payne cartoon from 2004.

And the clowns elites of the Iraq Surrender Group expect the existing governments of the Middle East to HELP us establish the viper we’ve deliberately tried to place in their midst?

What were they smoking? Or are they just trying to convince and placate us, while really knowing the reality on the ground?

Today is the 65th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Back then we, as a nation, understood the job and the risks. While we’ve never, really, been 100% united about anything, during that period I’d say the percentage behind the effort was in the 90’s. But now I think Peggy may have been more right than anybody wanted to acknowledge. They’ve got theirs. No one in “the elites of journalism and politics, the elites of the Hill and at Foggy Bottom and the agencies, the elites of our state capitals, the rich and accomplished and successful of Washington, and elsewhere” wants to stand up and say “we’ve got to roll up our sleeves and sacrifice.” No one’s going to do a Churchill and say “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.” It might affect the sales of Playstation 3’s. Or their chances of getting re-elected.

We’ll just wait ’till a young muslim male chanting “Allahu akhbar!” presses the button on a nuclear weapon in some American port city, and then report on how we need “greater understanding” and ask ourselves – again – “why they hate us.”

In his October 2001 speech, President Bush concluded with:

The battle is now joined on many fronts. We will not waver; we will not tire; we will not falter; and we will not fail. Peace and freedom will prevail.

Well, we’ve wavering, the public is apparently tired (since the media chants nothing but defeatism at them), and the Iraq Surrender Group recommendations indicate that faltering should be official U.S. policy. Lileks is right. The Bush Doctrine is dead.

All that’s left now is the failure part.

Ah, well. How ’bout them Chargers?

This has to be Some Kind of Record

KevinLeave a comment

Reader Robert Gallagher, webmaster of 2ndWatch.org, sent out a blanket email a couple of days ago:

This is a little bit odd.
I went to the State Departments Bill of Rights website and every area of our enumerated rights were covered EXCEPT the 2nd Amendment.
In place of the essay was this statement:
(The accompanying essay is under review.)
The Website is:
http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/rightsof/homepage.htm

That rang a fuzzy bell, so I dug through the archives and found this old post.

That essay has been “under review” since Professor Eugene Volokh spanked it severely back in March of 2004. Pushing three years now, and they still haven’t come up with a suitable essay?

D’you think they’d like some outside contributions?

UPDATE: Joe Huffman recommends that the State Department depend on this Justice Department memorandum opinion for its essay. I concur.

Quick! Somebody Tell the 9th Circuit!

KevinLeave a comment

(And the New Jersey Superior Court)

Eugene Volokh reports that the Washington Supreme Court has declared in State v. Williams:

In the present case, we are similarly concerned that possessing a firearm can be innocent conduct. Citizens have a constitutional right to bear arms under both the federal and state constitutions. U.S. Const. amend. II; Wash. Const. art. I, § 24. A person may lawfully own a shotgun so long as the barrel length is more than 18 inches in length and has an overall length of less than 26 inches.

This is an error. The overall length must be greater than 26 inches, not less. The decision gets this right in at least two other places.

See RCW 9.41.010(6). RCW 9.41.190 precludes possession of a short-barreled shotgun. Moreover, the statute also criminalizes possession of a short-barreled rifle and a machine gun. The factor concerned with innocent conduct is particularly important in the case of a machine gun, which can be altered in ways not easily observable.3 If strict liability is imposed, a person could innocently come into the possession of a shotgun, rifle, or weapon meeting the definition of a machine gun but then be subject to imprisonment, despite ignorance of the gun’s characteristics, if the barrel turns out to be shorter than allowed by law or the weapon has been altered, making it a machine gun. The legislature likely did not intend to imprison persons for such seemingly innocent conduct.

This decision did uphold Mr. Williams’ conviction for possession of a short-barreled shotgun, but contrast this wording to, for example, New Jersey’s Superior Court in State v. Pelleteri. Here are the facts of that case:

On May 30, 1990, our Legislature proscribed the “knowing” possession of “assault firearms.” N.J.S.A. 2C:39-5f. Persons legally in possession of such firearms prior to the effective date of the statute could retain these weapons by obtaining the appropriate registration. N.J.S.A. 2C:58-12. Included in the definition of “assault firearm” is “[a] semi-automatic rifle with a fixed magazine capacity exceeding [fifteen] rounds.” N.J.S.R 2C:39-1w(4). Defendant was convicted of “knowingly” having in his possession an assault firearm, a semi-automatic rifle with a magazine capacity of seventeen cartridges.
—
Defendant, an expert marksman who at one point was employed as a firearms instructor, won a Marlin semi-automatic rifle in the late 1980’s by placing first in a police combat match. An avid gun collector, defendant placed the weapon in his safe. Defendant claimed that he neither inspected nor used the firearm. When the police recovered the gun from defendant’s residence in December 1993, it still had the manufacturer’s tags and the owner’s manual attached to the trigger guard. The owner’s manual indicated that the rifle could hold at least seventeen cartridges. Defendant claimed that he never read the manual. While conceding that he knew the rifle was a semi-automatic weapon, defendant contended that he was unaware that the firearm had a magazine capacity exceeding fifteen rounds.

And here’s the court’s decision:

We are concerned here with a statute dealing with gun control. “New Jersey has carefully constructed a ‘grid’ of regulations” on the subject. In re Two Seized Firearms, 127 N.J. 84, 88, 602 A.2d 728, cert. denied sub nom Sholtis v. New Jersey, 506 U.S. 823, 113 S.Ct. 75, 121 L.Ed.2d 40 (1992). This is an area in which “regulations abound and inquiries are likely,” and where the overarching purpose is to insure the public safety and protect against acts and threats of violence. State v. Hatch, 64 N.J. 179, 184, 313 A.2d 797 (1973); see also Burton v. Sills, 53 N.J. 86, 248 A.2d 521 (1968). “[T]he dangers are so high and the regulations so prevalent that, on balance, the legislative branch may as a matter of sound public policy and without impairing any constitutional guarantees, declare the act itself unlawful without any further requirement of mens rea or its equivalent.” State v. Hatch, 64 N.J. at 184-85, 313 A.2d 797. When dealing with guns, the citizen acts at his peril. In short, we view the statute as a regulatory measure in the interests of the public safety, premised on the thesis that one would hardly be surprised to learn that possession of such a highly dangerous offensive weapon is proscribed absent the requisite license.

Here’s that “highly dangerous offensive weapon” that the State of New Jersey declared an “assault firearm.”:

Actually, that’s not true. The picture here is of the current Marlin Model 60 .22 rimfire semi-automatic tube-magazine rifle. The new one has been redesigned so that it can only hold fourteen of the horrificly deadly .22 rimfire rounds, thus rendering it not an “assault weapon” in the eyes of the State of New Jersey.

Then, of course, there’s the Ninth Circus, who, in Hickman v. Block declared:

The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution states: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” U.S. Const. amend. II. Hickman argues that the Second Amendment requires the states to regulate gun ownership and use in a “reasonable” manner. The question presented at the threshold of Hickman’s appeal is whether the Second Amendment confers upon individual citizens standing to enforce the right to keep and bear arms. We follow our sister circuits in holding that the Second Amendment is a right held by the states, and does not protect the possession of a weapon by a private citizen. We conclude that Hickman can show no legal injury, and therefore lacks standing to bring this action.

In the later Silveira v. Lockyer case, Judge Kleinfeld wrote this in his dissent to the decision to refuse to hear the case en banc:

The panel opinion holds that the Second Amendment “imposes no limitation on California’s [or any other state’s] ability to enact legislation regulating or prohibiting the possession or use of firearms” and “does not confer an individual right to own or possess arms.” The panel opinion erases the Second Amendment from our Constitution as effectively as it can, by holding that no individual even has standing to challenge any law restricting firearm possession or use. This means that an individual cannot even get a case into court to raise the question. The panel’s theory is that “the Second Amendment affords only a collective right,” an odd deviation from the individualist philosophy of our Founders. The panel strikes a novel blow in favor of states’ rights, opining that “the amendment was not adopted to afford rights to individuals with respect to private gun ownership or possession,” but was instead “adopted to ensure that effective state militias would be maintained, thus preserving the people’s right to bear arms.” It is not clear from the opinion whom the states would sue or what such a suit would claim were they to try to enforce this right. The panel’s protection of what it calls the “people’s right to bear arms” protects that “right” in the same fictional sense as the “people’s” rights are protected in a “people’s democratic republic.”
—
About twenty percent of the American population, those who live in the Ninth Circuit, have lost one of the ten amendments in the Bill of Rights. And, the methodology used to take away the right threatens the rest of the Constitution. The most extraordinary step taken by the panel opinion is to read the frequently used Constitutional phrase, “the people,” as conferring rights only upon collectives, not individuals. There is no logical boundary to this misreading, so it threatens all the rights the Constitution guarantees to “the people,” including those having nothing to do with guns. I cannot imagine the judges on the panel similarly repealing the Fourth Amendment’s protection of the right of “the people” to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures, or the right of “the people” to freedom of assembly, but times and personnel change, so that this right and all the other rights of “the people” are jeopardized by planting this weed in our Constitutional garden.

Washington’s Supreme Court has stated that the Second Amendment and Washington’s Constitution both protect an individual right to arms, but Washington is one of the states in the 9th Circuit. If someone attempts to appeal in FEDERAL court on the grounds that they have such a right, said claim will be rejected. Hickman v. Block settled it.

UPDATE: Ben at Carnaby Fudge has an excellent take on the search that resulted in Mr. Williams’ arrest for possession of the sawed-off. But in my case I think I’m just going to stick with telling the officer, “No, you can’t come in without a warrant.”

And I want one of these for Christmas.

Still Trying to Make Hay.with the “Shipping Fallen Soldiers as Freight” Meme

KevinLeave a comment

Last December I got into a urination contest with Jack Cluth, proprietor of The People’s Republic of Seabrook over his apparent outrage that, well as the original story put it:

Family Upset Over Soldier’s Body Arriving As Freight

Bodies Sent To Families On Commercial Airliners

SAN DIEGO — There’s controversy over how the military is transporting the bodies of service members killed overseas, 10News reported.

A local family said fallen soldiers and Marines deserve better and that one would think our war heroes are being transported with dignity, care and respect. It said one would think upon arrival in their hometowns they are greeted with honor. But unfortunately, the family said that is just not the case.

Dead heroes are supposed to come home with their coffins draped with the American flag — greeted by a color guard.

But in reality, many are arriving as freight on commercial airliners — stuffed in the belly of a plane with suitcases and other cargo.

John Holley and his wife, Stacey, were stunned when they found out the body of their only child, Matthew John Holley, who died in Iraq last month, would be arriving at Lindbergh Field as freight.

You can read the rest of the piece for yourself. There’s even a video link of the story apparently showing a body being unloaded from a commercial aircraft.

Jack was outraged. OUTRAGED!

OK, let’s imagine something for just a second. Let’s say that Bill Clinton was still in office. And let’s say that the bodies of dead American soldiers were being shipped to their families as freight, stuffed in the cargo hold of a plane along with the luggage?

If Republicans were to get wind of this sort of Democratic perfidy, CAN YOU IMAGINE THE WEEPING AND GNASHING OF TEETH, AND THE PEALS OF RIGHTEOUS INDIGNATION that would be raining down upon a Democratic Administration? And guess what? They’d have a damn good point. So why then is it acceptable for Our Glorious Leader’s Administration to be shipping the bodies of fallen soldiers as they would Aunt Ethel’s luggage? It’s simple, really; because Democrats simply lack the cojones to to raise Hell and demand that this disrespect stop IMMEDIATELY.

Yes, Jack was outraged that the Democrats hadn’t raised hell over this disrespect, thus getting themselves some much-needed positive press. After all, Clinton (blessed be his name) would NEVER have done anything so disrespectful!

But he did. The government always has. Bodies are shipped as air cargo via commercial carrier – just like they did your great-aunt Melba when it was time to send her body home. Was that disrepectful of her?

John Holley, father of Matthew Holly, protested:

What do you mean civilian aircraft? Why isn’t he flying into Miramar or North Island and having the military handle, you know, the military can handle the military. I mean he’s a war hero for crying out loud. If it was the President or some general or somebody like that, this wouldn’t be occurring.

No, probably not. But your son isn’t a general or the president. He’s a soldier. As I explained in the earlier post, bodies are shipped home via air cargo – with military escort. This is done for several reasons. First, I imagine, is economy. Should the military send all remains to the nearest military air base, as Mr. Holley asked? Should they be on a dedicated cargo aircraft? Wouldn’t it be just as “disrespectful” to ship the body on a military plane otherwise full of spare parts, mail, or other cargo? What if the parents of the fallen soldier don’t live anywhere near a military air base? Or should the military dedicate a C-37 (the military version of the Grumman Gulfstream V) for the deceased and his entourage? Wouldn’t somebody then complain about the astronomical expense?

The fact is, soldiers are shipped home honorably. Your grandmother may go back to old Virginnie as air cargo to be met by the local undertaker, but our honored military dead get an escort to ensure that they are treated properly. Noplace is this better described than by The Rocky Mountain News in their absolutely outstanding and emotional piece “Final Salute,” which I strongly recommend you read if you haven’t already. Be prepared to spend some time, and bring a hanky.

Well, once again, the “disrespectful treatment” meme has raised its ugly head. On Wednesday the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle published a “guest essay” decrying this same practice. Cynthia Hoag penned the essay after reporting that she saw a flag-draped coffin come down the baggage conveyor out of the cargo hold, under the observation of the escorting soldier, and then she watched it

disappear into the cart with the rest of the luggage. The waiting soldier stayed with the casket and rode in the cart as they pulled away.

She was shocked! Shocked, I say!

Well, her essay stirred up some controversy. In today’s edition there was a story saying that the Army was probing the report, but Northwest Airlines was saying they did everything according to procedure. The most interesting thing about the story, though, wasn’t the story. It was the comments. Like this one by “Reader11722”:

This administration doesn’t care how the soldiers are treated when they are alive (i.e., improper vests and inadequate protection on Humvees), why would they care in death? This lady is probably 100% correct and the misdeeds of this administration are about to worsen. However, Iraq is a bloody diversion. As the army attacks Iraq, the US gov’t erodes rights at home by suspending habeas corpus, stealing private lands, banning books like “America Deceived” from Amazon, rigging elections, conducting warrantless wiretaps and starting 2 illegal wars based on lies. Soon, another US false-flag operation will occur (sinking of an Aircraft Carrier by Mossad) and the US will invade Iran (on behalf of Israel) costing more American lives.

Yes, the moonbats were attracted to the light! (And make sure you take a gander at the book he’s hawking.) Another, “rwb100”:

Boy. Talk about making a mountain out of a molehill!! The lady was appalled at seeing a flag draped coffin on a baggage cart? What I want to know is why she wasn’t appalled at the fact that the soldier was even in the coffin in the first place. If you want to be appalled at something, be appalled at that!! Be appalled that our fearless leader, King George The Pea Brained, had the audacity, tumerity, and unmitigated gall to get us into this senseless war in the first place. And as for one comment I read about treating our “fallen military heroes” this way, well, as far as I am concerned, anyone who voluntarily signs up for the military, knowing full well that it just might mean having to go to war, is an idiot, not a hero. Especially those who volunteered after this war was started, with the express intent of going to Iraq. War is never the right answer to any problem, anywhere, anytime. Never!!! Now I know all of you red state republican flag waving lemmings out there probably have steam spewing out of your ears right about now, but if you would all just pull your heads out of your collective anal orifices and take a good look around, you will no doubt see as clearly as I do that you have all been sold a bill of goods by the current administration. George Bush is by far the stupidest president that this country has ever had, not to mention the most dangerous. By comparison, he makes Nixon look great! Maybe you remember immediately after 9/11 how America had the sympathies of pretty much the entire world. Everyone was in our corner then, but Bush has, in just a few short years, completely reversed world opinion about us. We are hated and reviled the world over, thanks to the backwards, mean-spirited, and paranoid policies of the Bush administration, and the sooner we all wake up and tell them NO MORE!!!!! , the better off we all will be. So again , I say WAKE UP AMERICA!!!!! End this bloody war now, and then we won’t have to see any more flag draped coffins on conveyor belts, baggage carts, or anywhere else for that matter. Now, what a wonderful world that would be!

Had to archive that one for posterity.

On a more sober note, MJL posted:

Last December I was waiting to board a flight from Atlanta to San Antonio. I looked out the window at my plane and noticed a large box being loaded into the cargo hold. I wondered what it was and then noticed a soldier standing at attention, watching the box move up the conveyor. I looked around…it was cold, freezing rain outside, and typically hectic inside the airport terminal. I couldn’t see anyone who had noticed or was watching besides the soldier, the baggage handlers, and myself. After we were in the air the first announcement the pilot made was regarding the fallen soldier’s remains and the accompanying soldier. In this case I saw nothing but quiet, subdued respect.

“Mudflap” posted:

I worked for 20 years as a customer service agent. I have worked on the ramp, inside, the warehouse and baggage service. The coffin is too big to put in a regular baggage cart. It is brought to the warehouse where freight is prepared for shipping. It is put on a open cart and does not carry extra baggage, unless it was the military’s member luggage that was accompanying the coffin. It is taken over to the freight house where the vehicle can pick it up. It has to come off the plane on the conveyor belt. It is heavy and long, and the plane sits off the ground quite a bit. There also has to be enough people to be able to lift it on and off the cart. I find the story hard to believe. In all my years at the airport, nothing but respect is paid to a coffin weather it be civilian or military.

“USAF2T2” chimed in:

As an Air Force Transportation Specialist, we handle the human remains of fallen soldiers within specific guidelines ordered by Air Force Regulations. They do return in “transfer cases” but are carefully placed level, with the heads stowed towards the nose of the aircraft – the head ALWAYS higher than the feet. NO OTHER CARGO is loaded on top of remains’ transfer cases. When they arrive at a terminal such as Dover AFB, human remains are stored in a secure area and separated from other cargo. At that point the shipment is made available to the receiving individual or agency.

So from the military’s point of view, as a RULE, we handle all with care and respect.
Do they also travel in commercial baggage area? Of course they would with they(sic) same rules applied. BTW, the baggage area is not a bad place to travel in (many pets travel that way) and when you consider how annoying some passengers are, it’s probably more preferable.

At any rate, the receiving agency is responsible for the remains once released. Since the reporter of this “story” did a poor job of doing his journalistic duty of investigating and getting the facts, all we have is a “story” which, as we know, can be as fictional as “The 3 Little Pigs”. But then had he dug into the story and found the truth, we wouldn’t be here on this site reading about it. Such is modern news, entertainment (to sell more papers/ad space) at the expense of a few.

May God Bless the family of Army Sgt. 1st Class Tony Knier especially at this time of the year when the rest of us sit around the tree and enjoy our families. Sgt. Knier truly sacrificed his life (as others) so that our children and we can continue OUR traditions and way of life; not one forced upon us by radical Islamics.

Now there’s a voice of reason. Finally, I’ll select the post by “gvenema” though there are pages more:

I don’t understand the outrage, Beenthere is correct.

I worked the Ramp 10 years ago in Minneapolis. There are no special carts for Human Remains. There is no special unloading crane painted red white and blue just for military personnel. The ramp agents have to use the equipment they have. How else are the remains supposed to be removed from the aircraft?

The outrage is over the remains being unloaded and placed into a cart.

From the article:
Northwest Airlines, on which the casket was flown, said in a statement tonight that a military escort stood at attention as three airline agents transferred the casket from the aircraft to an empty cart, then closed the privacy curtains. Northwest said it complied with all military and airline procedures.

There isn’t even a real disagreement on what happened. I guess people expect a band playing stars and stripes to follow around every casket until the funeral.

That’s how it appears to me.

It also appears that this is just another opportunity for the Left and Right to scream at each other. Reading the six pages of commentary, that’s much the impression I got. This comment by “aki009” said it well:

I have to say that we live in a day and age where I find myself having to question all the data that is being presented to me from essentially any source. I had to add photography to the list of things to question thanks to Reuters, UPI and others with their contributors who took a free hand to “enhance” images. Unfortunately such doubt can cause something genuine to fall into the questionable category.

Perhaps some day various forms of media will regain my trust.

In the meantime, ill-educated swipes from the left _and_ the right simply undermine any remaining trust I have in any form of communication from either side. Though from my perspective it seems that the left fabricates a significantly larger volume of “information” than the right.

Doesn’t it, though?

KevinLeave a comment

The Top 100 Things to do as an Evil Overlord.

Via the webcomic A Miracle of Science (which I quite enjoy), I bring you The Evil Overlord List, a hilarious take on what to do if you ever become an Evil Overlord. First up, The Top 100 Things I’d do if I Ever Became an Evil Overlord. A sample:

4. Shooting is not too good for my enemies.

5. The artifact which is the source of my power will not be kept on the Mountain of Despair beyond the River of Fire guarded by the Dragons of Eternity. It will be in my safe-deposit box. The same applies to the object which is my one weakness.

6. I will not gloat over my enemies’ predicament before killing them.

7. When I’ve captured my adversary and he says, “Look, before you kill me, will you at least tell me what this is all about?” I’ll say, “No.” and shoot him. No, on second thought I’ll shoot him then say “No.”

8. After I kidnap the beautiful princess, we will be married immediately in a quiet civil ceremony, not a lavish spectacle in three weeks’ time during which the final phase of my plan will be carried out.

9. I will not include a self-destruct mechanism unless absolutely necessary. If it is necessary, it will not be a large red button labelled “Danger: Do Not Push”. The big red button marked “Do Not Push” will instead trigger a spray of bullets on anyone stupid enough to disregard it. Similarly, the ON/OFF switch will not clearly be labelled as such.

10. I will not interrogate my enemies in the inner sanctum — a small hotel well outside my borders will work just as well.

11. I will be secure in my superiority. Therefore, I will feel no need to prove it by leaving clues in the form of riddles or leaving my weaker enemies alive to show they pose no threat.

12. One of my advisors will be an average five-year-old child. Any flaws in my plan that he is able to spot will be corrected before implementation.

13. All slain enemies will be cremated, or at least have several rounds of ammunition emptied into them, not left for dead at the bottom of the cliff. The announcement of their deaths, as well as any accompanying celebration, will be deferred until after the aforementioned disposal.

14. The hero is not entitled to a last kiss, a last cigarette, or any other form of last request.

Also included are an additional 51 really good ideas, such as:

109. I will see to it that plucky young lads/lasses in strange clothes and with the accent of an outlander shall REGULARLY climb some monument in the main square of my capital and denounce me, claim to know the secret of my power, rally the masses to rebellion, etc. That way, the citizens will be jaded in case the real thing ever comes along.

And he’s taking suggestions, too. Pretty evil, eh?

KevinLeave a comment

The Militarization of the Police.

Instapundit links to a Wall Street Journal column by a retired officer on the recent shooting of three black men in an automobile. Some fifty shots were fired by three officers. According to a link provided by Zendo Deb, one officer fired thirty-one rounds – 15 +1 in the chamber, and another full magazine. According to the WSJ piece, the police opened fire after the driver of the vehicle struck a plainclothes police officer who had identified himself.

A week ago Tuesday, three Atlanta police officers performed a raid of a 92 year-old woman’s home on a drug warrant. She opened fire, hitting the three officers in their extremities. They killed her. At most, minor amounts of marijuana were found on her property. There are serious questions about the way the warrant was obtained and the “confidential informant” who gave the evidence for it. This is hardly an unusual occurrence. Radly Balko is probably the best source for in-depth coverage of stories like this one, and others such as Cheryl Ann Stillwell’s, or Cheryl Lynn Noel’s; or just look at his map of botched raids.

A commenter to Instapundit’s piece said:

Police officers carry “high-caliber” semi-automatics nowadays because they should have access to the best tools possible when they are really needed. Trust me on this: even the most routine call is an “extraordinary circumstance” to a cop in trouble.

I have no problem with this. If my life was on the line and I carried a gun as part of my professional duties, I’d want it to be semi-automatic and in a caliber starting with .4 myself. I certainly agree that the .38 Special is not really up to the task, nor is the standard-issue “riot gun” the best long arm an officer might use.

My problem is with the tactics and the attitude.

A lot of cop-bashing goes on over at AR15.com, where more than a few members are uniformed and plainclothes police officers. A lot of comments about “going home safe at the end of the shift” get bandied about, like a scene from “Hill Street Blues.” Cops go dressed in body armor and face-masks. They crash through doors with battering rams in “dynamic entries” ostensibly for their own protection. I realize that this can be a necessity. It should not be standard procedure.

Glenn Reynolds also has a piece up at Popular Mechanics which largely makes the point I want to here:

Dress like a soldier and you think you’re at war. And, in wartime, civil liberties—or possible innocence—of the people on “the other side” don’t come up much. But the police aren’t at war with the citizens they serve, or at least they’re not supposed to be.

I’m fond of quoting Sir Robert Peel’s Nine Principles of Modern Policing:

1. The basic mission for which the police exist is to prevent crime and disorder.

2. The ability of the police to perform their duties is dependent upon public approval of police actions.

3. Police must secure the willing co-operation of the public in voluntary observance of the law to be able to secure and maintain the respect of the public.

4. The degree of co-operation of the public that can be secured diminishes proportionately to the necessity of the use of physical force.

5. Police seek and preserve public favour not by catering to public opinion but by constantly demonstrating absolute impartial service to the law.

6. Police use physical force to the extent necessary to secure observance of the law or to restore order only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be insufficient.

7. Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.

8. Police should always direct their action strictly towards their functions and never appear to usurp the powers of the judiciary.

9. The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with it.

It would seem that we’ve abandoned at least a couple of those principles. Specifically, we’ve abandoned #7, and #6 seems to be on the wane. The public are now “civilians,” and the police apparently no longer see themselves as also civilians. But they are. The police are not subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, they’re under the same civil law as the rest of us – except they get away with a lot more than we do, because they’re “professionals,” I guess. To a lot of cops, the rest of us don’t even seem to qualify as amateurs.

Most of the militarization of the police, I think, can be placed at the feet of the War on (some) Drugs™. Dealing with heavily-armed drug dealers meant that cops had to up-arm and “go tactical” too, but it’s greatly increased the police perception of the citizenry as “them” instead of “us.” I don’t want to disarm the police. I don’t think it would be a good idea to strip them of their AR15 rifles, MP-5 submachineguns, 15-round Glock pistols, body armor, etc. But I would prefer it if their attitude was less “as long as I go home safe at the end of the shift” and more like the Coast Guard’s “We have to go out. We don’t have to come back.” After all, their job is supposed to be “To Protect and Serve,” not “Kill People and Break Things.”

UPDATE: Say Uncle prefers the term “Ninjafication” to “Militarization,” and makes a good argument for the difference.

Orson Scott Card on Gun Control

KevinLeave a comment

I’m a fan of author and professor Orson Scott Card. I admit that he’s hit-and-miss with me as a novelist. I greatly enjoyed most of his “Enderverse” novels (excepting Xenocide and Speaker for the Dead), and some of his other works are quite good, but some leave me unmoved. I generally like what he writes in his “Ornery American” columns. I strongly recommend this one, for example: Who Was On Watch As the Dark Age Approached? I’ve linked to or quoted something he’s written a half-dozen times, most recently here, and there’s this quote I liked very much from his novel Shadow of the Giant:

Islam has never learned how to be a religion. It’s a tyranny by its very nature. Until it learns to let the door swing both ways, and permit Muslims to decide not to be Muslims without penalty, then the world has no choice but to fight against it in order to be free.

Mr. Card has a new novel out today, Empire, on the subject of a new American civil war. (The first quarter of the book is available online. Read Chapter Two, I beg you.) Such a war has been an ongoing topic here at TSM, most recently revisited in Reasonable People, so this is a book I will most definitely be buying in the not-too-distant future. Mr. Card is now doing his rounds of interviews in support of the book release. He was on local radio Monday morning, and today he was interviewed by Mr. and Mrs. Instapundit in a 40+ minute podcast that ranged over a wide array of topics, mostly not the book. That interview is linked here, and I strongly recommend you listen to it as the pieces I have transcribed from it are taken just a bit out of context. It doesn’t sound as bad when you hear the entire discussion. Plus, it’s a damned interesting discussion.

Here’s the pertinent portion, starting about 2/3rds of the way through the interview:

The real problem here is that both parties are pushing towards ideological purity. We have the movement within the Republican party of getting rid of the RINOs – the Republicans in Name Only. We have Democrats who actually spurned Joseph Lieberman because he supported the war. Which means what, they’dve gotten rid of Scoop Jackson, Patrick Moynihan, the greatest Democrats, the reason I became a Democrat? The answer is “Yes, of course they would.”

But when people insist on ideological purity, with incoherent ideologies – and that’s what really both parties offer us right now – incoherent ideologies, there’s no reason why the fact that I oppose the death penalty should mean that I must therefore support freely available abortions. Simply no reason why those should be related. There’s no reason in the world why the fact that I support a fairly strong program of gun control should in any way imply that I support a complete ban on, on, uh, personally owned weapons. No reason why the fact that I support gun control should say anything about how I feel about free-market capitalism. Um, et cetera, et cetera. What do they have to do with each other? And above all, what does being liberal have to do with opposing, or, uh, supporting the war against terror? Our enemies in the war against terror are so anti-liberal that you would think it would be liberals leaping to protect the world from these monstrous ideologies.

—

A lot of it has to do with where the money is coming from in politics today. We have hard-core ideologues, ideologically-driven groups, that contribute money according to their issue. And that’s where these (political) packages were assembled. The NRA knows that Republicans are on their side. If they ever find a Republican who isn’t, of course, they’ll jettison him and he won’t get their money. They’ll support his opponent, if his opponent is willing to say that he’s against any kind of gun control. So we have a group that is a one-issue ideological group, pumping money into campaigns. And, so, the Republican party has become essentially owned by one team of unrelated ideologues who drive them in one direction and the Democratic party is supported by their team of one-issue ideologues who don’t have anything to do with each other, but they’ve picked their party. And so the parties then reflect where the money’s coming from.

—

When you begin to feel that there is no political recourse, where do you turn? What do you do?

—

The people in Yugoslavia, when Yugoslavia started breaking apart into the different republics, nobody expected there to be a war. After all, the different groups that ended up fighting were intermarrying at an astonishingly high rate. It was if the differences were irrelevant. The populations were scattered among each other, it’s why they needed to have ethnic cleansing. It was because you had Muslims and Christians living side by side, Serbs and Croats throughout the country. It looked like a civil war-proof society. But when one team decided to start shooting, they had to sort themselves out, divide themselves into their various territories. It became ugly very quickly and you ended up with genocidal acts. Why? Because the people who were the angriest and the most murderous felt completely justified. They were being lied to. They were being told that the other guys were monsters who were doing hideous, terrible things, and they also wanted to believe those lies, because it made them feel so justified in their rage. So satisfied at the thought that they could do something about it. Well, what they did about it was they pulled out all those wonderful unregistered guns and started shooting.

Well, by Mr. Card’s definition I would have to say that I’m an ideologue. If you want to go so far: a fanatic – defined as “won’t change his mind, won’t change the topic, and won’t shut up.”

It would appear that ideologues are a bad thing in Mr. Card’s estimation, and perhaps they are. I can certainly see his point. But the difference between myself and many, perhaps most ideologues is that I do have a coherent ideology, based on what I’ve studied. No one’s told me to think this way, nor do I blindly follow. I haven’t been lied to to make me believe what I believe. (Well, I have been lied to – by both sides – but I can discern the difference and I know which side lies most often and most egregiously, and why.) I’ll be the first to agree with him that his stance on gun control in no way means that he must hold a specific opinion on free-market capitalism, or that his opposition to capital punishment must mean a support for abortion. I understand what he’s arguing.

Given what he said in the interview though, I gather that the major portion of Mr. Card’s “fairly strong program of gun control” must include registration, and most likely licensing. It probably includes restrictions (bans) on particular types of (but not all) firearms. Mr. Card is a reasonable person. As such I believe we could discuss his support for gun control, and I believe that with some time and effort I could, if not convert, certainly alter his position. But Mr. Card is representative of a plurality of the population that holds an incoherent ideology with respect to gun control. It’s these people I want to reach. It’s these people I write most of these essays for.

I received an email the other day from a gentleman across the pond who wrote:

I’ve been reading through various pages of your blog for most of the day and I just read the “Invitation to my Readers” July 2003 entry and decided to write a quick email.

For most of my life I was pro-gun-control. I’m English, so this view was completely uncontroversial and I don’t think I ever conversed with anybody who disagreed with it. ‘Bowling for Columbine’ was regularly discussed in a “Sheesh, those crazy Americans, eh?” kind of way. Then a couple of years back I starting reading some dissenting opinions. I can’t be sure, but I think it was Robert Anton Wilson who started me down this road. There’s nothing like somebody you respect espousing ideas you don’t to make you look at them anew.

Anyway, every once in a while I’ll come back to the subject (living here it’s not exactly directly relevant to my life) and each time I do I move closer to the libertarian position. Your blog is a very well-written and balanced description. I find myself agreeing with much of it and, where I don’t – I see universal free health care as a great idea, for instance – your writing makes me examine things again.

So thanks for writing it. I get the feeling I’m going to be coming back.

I sincerely hope he does. That’s why I write. That’s why I debate people here on this blog and anywhere they’ll have me.

And I would love a chance to debate Orson Scott Card on the topic of gun control. Registering the Serbian, Croat, Bosniak, Albanian and Macedonian weapons wouldn’t have prevented Yugoslavia’s meltdown, nor could it prevent civil war here. It could have just made the atrocities even more one-sided. Ask Rudolph J. Rummel.