LeslieBard

100,000 Downloads -- Part One

2013-05-12T15:38:00.000-07:00

An odd little incident happened last Thursday which just might change history. Note:

From Forbes, 5/9/13

State Department Demands Takedown Of 3D-Printable Gun Files For Possible Export Control Violations

On Thursday, Defense Distributed founder Cody Wilson received a letter from the State Department Office of Defense Trade Controls Compliance demanding that he take down the online blueprints for the 3D-printable “Liberator” handgun that his group released Monday, along with nine other 3D-printable firearms components hosted on the group’s website Defcad.org. The government says it wants to review the files for compliance with arms export control laws known as the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, or ITAR. By uploading the weapons files to the Internet and allowing them to be downloaded abroad, the letter implies Wilson’s high-tech gun group may have violated those export controls.

“Until the Department provides Defense Distributed with final [commodity jurisdiction] determinations, Defense Distributed should treat the above technical data as ITAR-controlled,” reads the letter, referring to a list of ten CAD files hosted on Defcad that include the 3D-printable gun, silencers, sights and other pieces. “This means that all data should be removed from public acces immediately. Defense Distributed should review the remainder of the data made public on its website to determine whether any other data may be similarly controlled and proceed according to ITAR requirements.”

Wilson, a law student at the University of Texas in Austin, says that Defense Distributed will in fact take down its files until the State Department has completed its review. “We have to comply,” he says. “All such data should be removed from public access, the letter says. That might be an impossible standard. But we’ll do our part to remove it from our servers.”

As Wilson hints, that doesn’t mean the government has successfully censored the 3D-printable gun. While Defense Distributed says it will take down the gun’s printable file from Defcad.org, its downloads–100,000 in just the first two days the file was online–were actually being served by Mega, the New Zealand-based storage service created by ex-hacker entrepreneur Kim Dotcom, an outspoken U.S. government critic. It’s not clear whether the file will be taken off Mega’s servers, where it may remain available for download. The blueprint for the gun and other Defense Distributed firearm components have also been uploaded several times to the Pirate Bay, the censorship-resistant filesharing site.

Wilson argues that he’s also legally protected. He says Defense Distributed is excluded from the ITAR regulations under an exemption for non-profit public domain releases of technical files designed to create a safe harbor for research and other public interest activities. That exemption, he says, would require Defense Distributed’s files to be stored in a library or sold in a bookstore. Wilson argues that Internet access at a library should qualify under ITAR’s statutes, and says that Defcad’s files have also been made available for sale in an Austin, Texas bookstore that he declined to name in order to protect the bookstore’s owner from scrutiny.

Despite taking down his files, Wilson doesn’t see the government’s attempts to censor the Liberator’s blueprints as a defeat. On the contrary, Defense Distributed’s radical libertarian and anarchist founder says he’s been seeking to highlight exactly this issue, that a 3D-printable gun can’t be stopped from spreading around the global Internet no matter what legal measures governments take. “This is the conversation I want,” Wilson says. “Is this a workable regulatory regime? Can there be defense trade control in the era of the Internet and 3D printing?”

Wilson compares his new legal troubles to the widely-followed case in the mid-1990s of Philip Zimmermann, the inventor of the cryptographic software PGP, who was threatened with indictment under ITAR for putting his military-grade encryption software online. “It’s PGP all over again,” says Wilson.

Wilson revealed a nice sense of history when he labelled his 3-D-printable gun the "Liberator". The original Liberator was probably the world's cheapest and flimsiest professionally manufactured gun, produced by the millions in the last year of World War Two -- and dropped by the millions over occupied France. The Liberator wasn't intended -- or designed -- to be fired more than a dozen times apiece; the idea was to use it to shoot a German, and then take his (much better) gun. Yes, the Libertor pistol played a significant part in the liberation of France. It's anyone's guess just whom Wilson intended his gun to liberate people from.

He's quite correct, though, when he says that the genie is definitely out of the bottle. In the two days that the file for printing the Liberator was available on the Internet, it was downloaded more than 100,000 times. Likewise, as he mentions, there are other sites outside the US that have the files are are gleefully posting them. Knowing what mavericks computer-nerds tend to be about Internet censorship, I daresay that plenty of them have downloaded the files, passed them on, and started 3-D printing the guns just for the hell of it.

The only limitation here is the availability of adequate 3-D printers, the material (high-impact plastic) to make them out of, and ammunition. (Of course, files for 3-D printing ammunition are available on the Internet too.) Now it's anyone's guess how many 3-D printers are already out there in private hands. I saw one making cute little sculptures at LunaCon just a couple months ago, I've heard that the simplest machines are on the market for $500 and top-of-the-line industrial printers can be bought for $8000. The materials have been available everywhere for years. There is no way that the government -- any government -- can stop the underground manufacture of Liberators -- by the millions. So forget the legendary "Saturday Night Special", zip-gun and underground arms-dealer; the Liberator can outnumber all of them.

This is the death-knell of all hope for gun control.

The only solution to the gun-crime and gun-violence that the Schumers and Feinsteins cry about will be to adopt just the opposite tactic: the Swiss System. The lessons of history show that when all Americans are as well armed and trained as the Swiss, we'll have an internal crime-rate as low as Switzerland's. Gun control will be as dead as Prohibition, thankfully.

And we'll have the 3-D printer to thank for it.

--Leslie <;)))>< Fish

Stopping Pests in the Bedroom Window

2013-04-28T18:46:00.000-07:00

(As promised, here's the tale of the Window Weenie-Wagger -- and a couple more besides)

Three times in my merry career, in three different cities and states, I've had to chase burglars -- and worse -- out of my bedroom windows, using serious weapons.

The first time was back in Michigan, where I was going to school. I was living in the second-floor apartment of a rented house, and I'd elected to stay and take classes over the summer semester. The house had no air-conditioning, the attic insulation wasn't very good, and an unusual heat-wave came along, so I was distinctly hot that night. My roommates were out at a movie, and I was alone, so I stripped off my clothes and sat naked in the armchair to do my homework. I'd finished my studies, still wasn't sleepy, and we had no TV at the time, so I turned on the radio to the local Classical/Folk/Blues station, took down the ornamental sword from the wall, pulled out a knife-sharpening stone and began sharpening the sword in time with the music. Talk about cheap thrills on a hot Michigan night!

Anyway, as I was sharpening the sword, I heard a funny noise -- like raising a window -- from the bedroom next to me, which had been made out of a former dining-room and was cut off from the living-room only by an archway and a pair of curtains. I knew that nobody was supposed to be in that room, let alone raising the window. I set down the stone, took the sword in hand, got up and peeked through the curtains.

There I saw, in the dim light, a punk climbing through the bedroom window.

Well, I knew there was no point in calling the police; they'd never get there in time to help, and besides, they were notoriously lax about responding to calls from students -- hippies and radicals, you know. I had to take action myself.

So I plunged through the curtains, sword held high, yelling "Kreeee-gah!" -- straight out of Tarzan novels. Yes, I fully intended to skewer the punk -- or slash him, and I knew that the sword's edge was up to the job.

Well, the punk saw a naked woman, swinging a sword, charging at him while screeching a battle-cry in an unknown language -- and decided that this scene was a little too weird for him. He yanked himself back out the window, grabbed for the drain-pipe he'd clambered up, missed it -- and fell all the way to the driveway below. When I got to the window and looked out, I saw him pull himself up and hobble down the driveway as fast as he could drag his injured leg, which looked broken. I was disappointed that he hadn't broken anything else, thought again of calling the police, and decided that it wasn't worth the hassle. That broken leg would keep him out of the crime game longer than any likely jail sentence.

I also resolved to get a more serious weapon than an ornamental sword.

Interestingly enough, we weren't bothered by thieves anymore, all the time I lived there.

                                                               *          *         *

The second time was a few years later, in Chicago. By then I'd managed to buy a 12-gauge shotgun, which usually stood in a corner of the bedroom. I was staying with the late Mary Frohman then, in an old-town "carriage house" -- a small house at the end of the back yard, with the bedroom window overlooking the alley -- on the notorious Near North Side. One lazy Sunday afternoon we were lounging around in the bedroom, reading, when we heard the unmistakable sound of the garbage-can outside being dragged to just under the curtained bedroom window. We looked at each other soundlessly, then I got up and got the shotgun. Mary slid around beside the window and took hold of the curtain. I sat on the bed, aimed the shotgun right at the lower edge of the window, and waited. When we saw a poking motion move the curtain, I nodded to Mary. She yanked the curtain away, revealing...

...a young punk with his hands and nose just over the window-sill, in the classic "Kilroy Was Here" position -- with his nose just about an inch from the muzzle of my shotgun. I crooned: "Hel-LO there!" His eyes grew very wide, and he pulled back fast out the window. I scrambled after him, leaned out the window in time to see him jump down off the garbage-can and run -- quite quickly, too -- down the alley. I called after him, in my best Chicago accent: "Oooh, come back! We wanna play wit' yez!" Of course, he did nothing of the sort, but dodged into the nearest available back yard to get out of my line of fire.

Mary and I collapsed on the bed, hugging the shotgun and laughing our @sses off.

No, we didn't bother calling the cops. This was the Near North Side, after all. But in any case, we weren't bothered by thieves again all the time we lived there.

       *    *    *

The third time was here in Arizona, in Phoenix, when I was living in Ozzie's and Allanna's house, just off 7th Avenue and Missouri Road. It was a one-story frame building, and I had the front bedroom to one side of the front entrance. The windows were the old-fashioned crank kind, that looked out on the large front yard. I'd bought my little pistol by then, and kept it on the nightstand beside my bed. I also let my cats go in and out through the bedroom window.

One summer night, it being hot as Arizona usually is, and the house having only evaporative cooling, I was sitting in bed reading, with the window open. I barely noticed, through the window, that the light over the front door was out; that was unusual, since Ozzie usually left it on all night, but I thought nothing of it. Then I heard a rustling outside the window, and thought it was the tomcat wanting to get in, so I got up and cranked the window open a little wider, leaned out and called: "Kitty-kitty-kitty" as usual.

The rustling came again, but now I saw that it came from a man -- middle-aged, middle-sized, wearing nondescript clothes -- who was crouched by the side of the entryway. He saw me and lunged toward the window, so I promptly ducked back and began cranking it closed. You cannot crank a window closed quickly, and he got there before I finished -- and stuck his arm through the window and wagged it in a particularly threatening way. I promptly let out a fine string of outraged curses, because I recognized that gesture. I'd seen that movie, too! It was a pretty-damned-sexist thriller about a stalker that threatens a feather-headed girl who hasn't a clue how to protect herself. I was furious that this creep thought I was anything like that fluff-brained fool!

Undeterred by my unexpected reaction, the perv pulled his arm out and instead stuck his weenie through the window and shook it. Infuriated, I grabbed his weenie -- good and hard -- and pulled it, and part of him, through the nearly-closed window. I also reached for my gun on the nightstand, but couldn't quite reach it. He, naturally, pulled back. We had a brief tug-of-war with his weenie as the rope, until -- his dong being uncircumcised -- the skin slid on the core and pulled out of my grasp, just as my fingers closed on the pistol. I promptly leaned out the window and aimed at him, but he was running away. I remembered to angle the shot downward so it wouldn't go out of the front yard, and fired. I might have creased him across the buttocks, but there was no sign of it; he only ran away faster. In another second, he was out of sight in the shadows.

I would have let it go at that, guessing that my grip would cause him difficulty p!ssing for the next few days, which might make him reconsidere his pet sport, but I realized that somebody in the neighborhood must have heard the shot. That meant some neighbor was most likely reporting "gunshots" right now, and I'd best beat them to the cops. So I got on the phone, dialed 911, and explained: "If anybody has reported a shot being fired in this neighborhood, don't worry; it was only me, chasing a weenie-wagger out of my bedroom window."

Well, as I might have expected, the cops soon showed up. I recited my tale, and when I got to the bit about grabbing his weenie and pulling it, the cops had trouble keeping their faces straight. They asked for a description, which I gave -- and then I added that, considering how hard I'd grabbed him, he probably had finger-sized bruises up and down his dong, which they might find in a "short-arms inspection". The cops were hard put not to crack up at that. One of them managed to say that, yes, they'd had similar complaints of a weenie-wagger in this neighborhood. The other tried to scold me about firing a shot in a crowded city neighborhood, but he kept snickering while he did it. I claimed that yes, I understood that, which was why I had angled my shot downward and therby probably missed. They asked if I were sure that I'd missed, and I explained that I might have creased him across the buttocks, but certainly didn't stop him from running away faster -- and the cops snickered again. I also mentioned that he had probably unscrewed the front light-bulb, so his prints might well be on it. The cops agreed, handed me the formal papers they usually hand out to crime witnesses, and went outside to collect that light-bulb. I could hear them laughing all the way to their cop-car.

Well, I was never called as a witness, so I guess that either they caught the perv and didn't need my testimony, or else -- after a few days of painful p!ssing -- he decided to give up weenie-wagging. In any case, I never heard of him bothering anybody in my neighborhood again. For that matter, we didn't have any problem with burglars, either.

This is why I encourage everybody -- and especially women -- to get themselves firearms and become competent with them. It also helps to cultivate a bold attitude -- and a strong grip.

--Leslie <;)))>< )O(

The Most-Filmed Manhunt in History

2013-04-21T18:11:00.002-07:00

(I had originally planned to tell the funny tale of the Weenie-Wagger in the Window, but current events took precedence. I'll get to the Weenie story next week, promise.)

The bombing of the Boston Marathon managed to do the almost-impossible; it broke the media's (and several unscrupulous politicians') carefully-nurtured four-month hysteria campaign, using the Newtown school shooting to push for more federal gun-control laws.

This shift isn't surprising, considering how totally insane the bombing was. I can't think of any activity more apolitical, religiously neutral or inoffensive than the Boston Marathon. The only possible reason for bombing the race would be to harm as many innocent people as possible, and who on Earth would want to do that?

Well, I can make some guesses.

Though nobody publicly took credit for it, foreign correspondents reported Hamas, Hezbollah, Al-Qaida, Islamic Jihad and other Jihadist groups in the middle-east publicly celebrating the attack, handing out candies and dancing in the streets, and howling "America is ruined!" "Boston is paralyzed!" "Allah is making the West suffer!"

The physical evidence also showed ties to Jihadist terrorists; the bomb was an IED of the type commonly used by Jihadists in Iraq, Afghanistan and Israel. As the Boston police commissioner announced, after describing the nature of the bomb, "Draw your own conclusions." That conclusion wouldn't be difficult, seeing that Jihadists are notorious for attacking innocent and politically totally-unrelated targets – often for no other reason than to shock and dismay, they hope, whole populations. American politicians and media know better, which is why they've been doing their damndest to deflect America's rage and demand for vengeance away from anything remotely Muslim.

That's probably why the Boston police commissioner didn't say anything more than that; no doubt he was muzzled by his political bosses. The Liberal news pundits, and politicians, promptly tried to blame the bombing on "domestic anti-government groups", sometimes going to ridiculous lengths. Chris Matthews noted: "(It's) Tax Day… But of course it's Patriots' Day. It's also the Boston Marathon. And would you as an expert be thinking domestic (terrorists) at this point?" House minority whip Steny Hoyer (Democrat, Maryland) blamed the bombings on "irrational" security cuts caused by the "sequestration". MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell claimed that "lobbyists from the NRA have made it harder for the FBI to find the murderer who planted the bombs…" because "The NRA has successfully blocked any requirements for such (identification) taggants in gunpowder" – and this last was said after the Chechnyan brothers had been identified as the bombers.

Even after the suspects had been respectively shot and captured, even after the FBI announced that the elder and dominant brother had spent six months of 2012 in Chechnya, even though it's common knowledge that the population of Chechnya is predominantly Muslim, government agencies and the media scrupulously avoided saying the word "Muslim" anywhere near any mention of the brothers – even though the public can readily draw its own conclusions.

Also interesting is that the Boston police thanked the public for its assistance in identifying and capturing the bombers, while the FBI and the media made no mention of the civilians' immense role in the manhunt. In fact, it was all those cameras – security cameras in stores along the marathon's route, video-cameras and cell-phone cameras in the hands of all those watchers, thousands of them, voluntarily given to the police – that picked up images of the Chechnyan Brothers planting those bombs in the mailbox and trash-can, thus allowing the FBI to identify them and post their pictures on the news. From that feedback, it was the civilian who owned the boat that the younger brother took refuge in, and who reported it to the police, that resulted in the capture. Thanks to all those pictures, this manhunt was amazingly short: less than five days, from start to finish. This was certainly the most-photographed crime, and manhunt, in American history – thanks to thousands of civilians – and that's what made it one of the shortest manhunts in history. You'd think the federal government would acknowledge that fact.

Instead, politicians and media are still trying to drag popular attention back to its deflated argument for new federal gun-control laws. They may find that difficult, now that the Newtown hysteria has been wiped out by the marathon massacre – and its vivid proof that gun-control does nothing to guarantee the public safety.

--Leslie <;)))>< )O(

Killing the Money Game

2013-04-07T15:22:00.001-07:00

There's a marvelous little video on YouTube -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0nERTFo-Sk -- that explains the difference between Hayek's and Keynes' ideas of economics: "free" markets vs."managed". Now anybody who's studied history can tell you about the disasters of a "managed" economy -- whose ultimate expression is/was the Soviet Union. Likewise, history shows what happens when a "free" economy's big boys -- usually the banks -- are allowed to do whatever they please; this led to the crash of 1929 and the resulting Great Depression.

Now understand that I never took an economics course in my life. All I know about economics comes from my own experience running a small (very small: just myself, my guitar and my word-processor) business, but I've observed that the basic rule of economics is the same as the basic rule of physics: you don't get something for nothing. I've also observed that if you live beyond your means for very long, the creditors will come and strip your bones -- so don't do it.

I've also seen that all real wealth comes from just two sources: physical materials that come out of the earth, and people's work on them -- and of those two, people's work is the greater part.

Example: suppose you're strolling through the wilderness -- land that nobody (except maybe the national government) owns, land that nobody works, land that's maintained entirely by Nature -- and you happen to come across a big healthy fruit-tree, loaded with fruit and about to drop it. Well, this is what the term "windfall" comes from! Here's all this lovely fruit, free for the taking; you can gather it and eat it yourself, or make it into jams and jellies and fruit-wine, or sell it to the neighbors -- either bartered directly for other things you want, or traded for a "trade standard" (money) that will buy you other things you want. The fruit is free -- or is it? You have to put in the labor of gathering the fruit, taking it home, washing it off, storing it safely, processing it into those other foods, then advertizing it to the neighbors and carting it to where the neighbors can buy it. In other words, even if you can get your raw material (or finished product) for free, you still have to put work into it. Labor is the greater part of real wealth.

The "economic problem" started after money -- the uniform trade standard -- was invented, and certain clever and unscrupulous folk realized that they could get rich by playing games with the value of money, rather than by making real goods or real services.

The most common means of playing games with money is by unscrupulous lending -- and I don't mean just by charging outrageous interest, which keeps people paying off debts five or ten times over (common with village money-lenders in Asia and South America). And I don't mean just lending the same money to several different people at the same time (invented by early bankers in the late Middle Ages). I also mean deliberately lending to people whom you know can't or won't repay, so you can foreclose whatever property they put up for collateral, and also collecting lender's insurance on the "lost" loan. I also mean borrowing money at low interest rates, then turning around and lending it to someone else at high interest rates.

And then there's speculation, including playing the stock market, which is an elaborate form of gambling, that I've gone into elsewhere. And never mind the trick of hoarding money so as to make it scarce to the public, or likewise putting a lot of money out into the market with the deliberate intention of making it cheap.

All of these are playing games with promises and obligations and the perceived value of money. They create no goods or services, but only inflate the value of money -- under false pretenses -- which eventually deflates, with a bang. This is what causes booms and busts -- and ruins lots of innocent people who really do work at creating actual goods and services. The people and businesses that play these games are nothing more or less than parasites, and dangerous parasites at that.

The Money Game itself must die.

How do we kill it?

Well, I have an idea that might at least be a step in the right direction. Whether by federal law or nationwide custom (which would include anything from expose' and massive boycott to mobs armed with tar and feathers), forbid anyone -- individual, group or corporation -- to lend money to the public unless he/she/it/they has first owned and managed a business (likewise doing business with the public) that has produced enough profit to cover the loan. Said business shall not include banking, brokering, insurance, mortgages, or any other "financial institution". Instead, think of "Joe's Bank and Grill", or "Ford Motors and Loans", or "Mor's Furniture and Mortgages". Having to manage a real business, and therefore having to suffer fluctuations in the market along with everyone else, would make such money-lenders a little less inclined to damage that market with money-games.

What do you think? Can anybody come up with further ideas?

--Leslie <;)))>< )O(

Waste Lands

2013-03-31T20:18:00.000-07:00

The darker side of the trip to LunaCon:

'Twas late at night on my second day of travel, after we'd finally gotten out of Texas and were rolling north through Arkansas, and only a few of us in the last car -- and the lounge car -- were awake.

The first thing we noticed was a slight thump under the wheels. Then the train put its brakes on and stopped. Then we noticed train attendants getting off and hurrying toward the back of the train with flashlights. One man who got up to look out the rear window saw "lights, and chunks of meat between the tracks". Then more train attendants came up into the main passenger section and taped paper over that rear window, with stern warnings not to remove it. The train stayed parked where it was for three hours, and the only answer we could get out of train attendants was: "There was a slight collision". Only later, at the stop in Little Rock where the train changed crews and the outgoing crew was willing to talk, did we find out what had really happened.

A man had deliberately run onto the tracks as the train was coming, committing suicide by train. Of course the engineer had to stop the train and call the nearest sheriff as soon as he saw what had happened, and the sheriff showed up with a sizable posse and the coroner to pick up the "chunks of meat", and the forensics team (I got an image of CSI techs swapping blood off the engine's drive-wheels), and the train was understandably delayed. One of the attendants added: "Dammit, this is the third time in the last month."

Third suicide-by-train in a month? Ye gods, what's in the water in Arkansas, anyway?!

I pondered that question while we rolled on through the night, and the only answer I could think of was -- economics. Arkansas never was one of the richest states in the US, depending mostly on farming and its support industries; certainly the current Depression must have hit it hard, destroying thousands of jobs and making it hard for businesses to survive. The state welfare system, never very well-funded, would have broken down early, and stopped taking on any new clients. Even the soup-kitchens wouldn't be enough to feed all the jobless. It's understandable that jobless people, especially if they couldn't even raise the money to get out of state and job-hunt elsewhere, might get desperate enough to choose a fast death over slow starvation. ...But then, why should anyone starve in a farming state? Farmers would be all too willing to swap food for work.

Then the sun came up, and I saw at least part of the answer. As far as the eye could see from the train were empty fields, fallow land: not planted, not grazed, not even managed as timber-land -- or even wilderness park. The trees I could see were all second-growth, none more than 20 years old, and mostly leafy softwoods: worthless for anything but making charcoal, or cheap paper at best. Everything else was weeds and brush. Yet the soil was good; it was all dark brown crumbly loam, and well-watered, with small streams everywhere. As we drew closer to towns I saw some fields that were worked -- planted with pasture-grass and grazed by fat cattle -- but also abandoned urban lots, all too often strewn with trash. I asked my fellow passengers, and the only answer I got was that the soil wasn't really as fertile as all that; it had been overworked and couldn't grow much of anything. I privately questioned that; as an Arizonian, I'd seen plenty of land -- hardpan clay, with never enough water -- that had been made fertile by determined farmers, or at least grazed by sturdy ranchers. Hell, give me topsoil like that (even a city lot-full), and I could make it yield. I'm planning to reconstitute the soil in my back yard and grow fruit trees in it. Why was that land really lying fallow, left to trash and weeds, that could have been growing crops or at least livestock, and providing jobs or at least food for all those desperately unemployed people?

I got another answer when I reached the convention and asked various fans. "It's the soil bank," one local fan said. "The government pays the farmers not to grow food." Why, I wondered; just to keep food prices high? "To save for planting in case of emergency," he said. Well, gee, what would you call our current economic mess? Food prices are too high already, which doesn't do us or even the farmers any good, and too many of our own people are jobless and desperate. "Those unemployed are city people," another fan argued; "They won't take farm-work jobs." What, they'd rather throw themselves in front of trains?! From what I've seen, and I've lived all over the US, there is no such thing as a job that Americans won't take; there are only wages that Americans won't take, and there are rather few of those these days. So, for me, the mystery still remains.

I have a dark suspicion that maybe those lands are kept fallow for another reason; the federal government and the banksters are planning to use them to pay off the US' monstrous debts. It wouldn't bother them at all to sell big chunks of our land to China, regardless of what that would mean for the rest of the country, or the people in it.

Can anybody come up with a more likely reason?

--Leslie <;)))>< )O(

Madly Busy, Here and There

2013-03-25T22:10:00.001-07:00

Hi, team! Sorry I've taken so long to get back to you, but it's been a really busy two weeks.

First, for all those of you who wished me a happy birthday, I spent that day -- and the next two -- on assorted Amtrak trains, riding from Arizona to New Jersey, then a few hours riding, car this time, into New York state, and finally to the Rye Hilton for LunaCon. Then there were three days of the convention, then another three days riding back to Phoenix.

And once I got home, if ya please, Rasty and I had to scramble back and forth across the Valley of the Sun -- a good 50 miles each way, and his Bronco is a gas-gulper -- trying to get moved into the new (well, actually old: 1947) house. There was the fun-and-games of getting the water hooked up, which meant getting a good plumber (who, it turned out, lived even further away than we did), replacing the stolen water-heater, turning on the water and finding a lot of small problems which will have to be dealt with over the next week. Then there was the even wilder fun-and-games of getting the electricity turned on, which involved lining up one electrician and two bureaucracies -- the county inspector and the local power company -- all on the same day. And in the midst of this Rasty's truck blew a rear-left brake disc, which will take a whole day's work and roughly $800 to repair. Arrrrggghhhhh! But at least, bit by bit, we're getting moved in.

There's a lot I could say (and will!) about the long train-ride and the local scramble, but I'll start with the easy part: LunaCon.

I was invited as Filk Special Guest by the concom's filk liaison, Marc Grossman, who was talked into it (with not much difficulty) by a lot of east-coast fans and old friends who hadn't seen me in years -- since Pennsic War 8 years ago, IIRC. I spent most of my time in the filk-room, singing and singing and...well, you get the picture, and the rest of it bouncing between the con-suite (lots of decaf drinks), the guests' green room (lts of tasty finger-food), the hotel restaurant (where I did a long interview with a writer working on a biography of the late great Isaac Bonewitz), the dealers' room (where I did a book-signing that wound up autographing lots of albums too), and my hotel-room (which was one of the few places where I could quickly get outside to smoke, since the whole hotel was piously "smoke-free"). This caused some timing problems, since the Rye Hilton is another of those infamous hotels that may have been designed by Escher, and I couldn't get through it without a map and guide. That means that I didn't get to see much of the rest of the convention, but from all I heard it was lively fun: a pretty large convention with an impressive number of programming tracks. Oh yes, I'd recommend it highly.

Marc recorded all the filking, starting from even before the opening ceremonies, in hopes of coming up with a convention album, and I sincerely hope he succeeds. I know that my performances weren't the best, since I was recovering from a cold that had wiped out my entire upper octave a week before. I'd been trying to exercise my range back up, but it's hard to do vocal exercises on an Amtrak train. I managed to get through the traditional Dawn Patrol on Saturday night, but I didn't get my total range back until the last day of the con, and my tone wasn't great. I didn't look my best, either, after 3 days in the coach-cars of 3 different trains. At least I got the beginnings of a song out of it:

"Three days on the train, and I look like hell,
But it beats flying, anyway.
I didn't get X-rayed, didn't get groped, or robbed by the TSA.
The food is better and the seats are bigger,
So even if it's slow,
When it comes to long distance over land, the train is the way to go."

More later. Gotta get to sleep early and up early tomorrow. *Sigh*

--Leslie <;)))>< )O(

A Moving Mystery

2013-03-06T00:58:00.001-08:00

Ah, the fun of moving into a new house! Last Tuesday we drove out to it (clean across the Phoenix valley: about 50 miles each way) to get the water turned on, and noticed that the back door had no doorknob or latch or hole for one; it was barred by a two-by-four set into two wooden sockets, and there was a doggy-door in the bottom closed with a thin wooden panel. The water-man came and turned on the water and went, and we found that we had a lot of minor plumbing to do: washers and valves and a faucet to replace. We got some new locks and argued over whether we'd need a locksmith to install them, then went off to dinner and drove home.

Friday we came back to do some of that plumbing, repair the fence, and set up an appointment with an electrician -- to get the repairs, to get the inspection, to get the power turned on. I found that the windows were unlatched, but immovable thanks to warping. Rasty noted that the next northward neighbors, beyond the vacant lot next door, included a couple of playful kids and a pregnant lady. I noticed that the cars were absent from the driveways of all the houses on the block, which rather strongly indicated that all the men and most of the women were out at work. Rasty also noticed that the two-by-four in the back door was gone, replaced by a slat-board off the southward gate of our back-yard fence. Curious. Again, we did our repairs, went to dinner, then headed home.

Tuesday morning we came back, primarily to meet with the electrician, also to set an appointment with a local handyman (recommended by the local hardware store) to do the small repairs. First thing we noticed was that somebody had p!ssed in the dry dirt near the front porch, and dropped a cigarette butt there (not my brand). The second thing we noticed was that there was a crack in the front window's lower pane, which hadn't been there four days ago. When we got into the house, the third thing we saw was that the back door wasn't barred and the doggy-door was kicked open.

Next thing we saw was that the water-heater was gone.

"Burglary," Rasty pronounced. "Call the cops."

I did that -- the town is small enough and far enough from the city that 911 connects to the sheriff's office -- while Rasty checked out the rest of the house and found that nothing else was missing. The latch had been broken loose on the northward gate, as if the gate had been wrenched open. Also, whoever had taken the water-heater had carefully disconnected the hoses instead of just cutting them.

"They wanted it for a working appliance, not just for the metal," Rasty deduced. "It was used, but in good shape. You could sell it to any appliance store."

About then the sheriff's deputy arrived, and we showed him everything. I pointed out the p!ss in the front yard and the cigarette butt. "Does the sheriff's office have a forensics lab?" I asked. "Could you get DNA off that?" "We do," he said, "And it's big, but even so it's loaded with work, and this is a low-priority crime. You wouldn't get an answer back for months." Ah, well. He took pictures of the space where the water-heater wasn't, and of the other clues, and the other damage done, and wrote up a report and gave us a copy.

As soon as he took off, I called our house-insurance company and reported the whole thing. Unlike a good neighbor, they promised to phone us back in one to two days. Meanwhile, Rasty paced around reconstructing the crime. Then we went to visit the neighbors, to see if anyone has seen or heard anything.

That was when we found that the next-northward neighbors weren't there anymore. The house was empty, the cars were gone, the yard was full of discarded furniture, and the gate was padlocked. They'd moved out, kids and pregnant lady and all, in the past four days. We also found that everybody else was indeed out at work, except for one lady who "no hablo Ingles".

Then we sat down to figure out what had happened. The robber(s) had come first to the front door and tried to pry open the window, but found it stuck shut. Unwilling to make noticeable noise breaking the window, they instead went around to the northward gate and wrenched it open -- which, presumably, would have made less noise and drawn less attention than breaking the window. Then they kicked out the doggy-door, crawled through, unbarred the back door, came in and took out the water-heater, loaded it into a truck and drove it away. They bothered to close the broken gate behind them, so nobody noticed anything until we showed up.

Now, whodunnit?

Well, as the chief on CSI always says, what does the evidence say?

Okay, the driveway closest to that gate is gravel, so a truck could have pulled up there without showing any tracks: no evidence there. The next yard eastward contains some dogs, who are more likely to bark than not, unless they're used to whoever is in our yard -- and they didn't go into loud and continuous barking during the robbery, which might have alerted any neighbors at home at the time. There were other cigarette butts -- of the same brand -- near the one in the front yard; somebody stood there for at least 20 minutes -- probably the lookout -- and wasn't worried about being seen p!ssing in public, for all that he (and his buddies?) didn't want to make noise by breaking the window, and didn't make noise by setting off the neighbor's dogs. The dirt was still damp where he'd p!ssed on it -- outdoors, in Arizona, even in late winter -- which means that it was sprayed there within 24 hours before, or less. That would be when everybody was at work, except for the occasional housewife, such as Ms. "No Hablo Ingles" across the street -- while any time after 5 PM would have had a lot of people home and possibly on the street. The only valuable fixtures in the house were the water-heater, the stove and the metal pipes and wiring in the walls; of all those, the quickest and easiest to grab was the water-heater. Whoever stole the heater knew that the heater was empty of water -- therefore light enough to carry -- how to detach it without damaging it, and where to sell it quickly. That oddly replaced two-by-four reveals that somebody had sneaked into the house before, scoped the place out, and spotted that water-heater. Somebody had studied the house, noticed that the northward gate had a weak latch -- even after I'd repaired the fence -- and could easily be wrenched open. Finally, even with the doggy-door kicked open, an adult would have had a seriously hard time crawling through it -- but a child wouldn't.

Conclusions: first, the robbers knew the neighborhood, and that house, well. At least one of them, probably a little kid who could fit through the doggy-door, had been in there before, knew what was in the house, and reported it to an adult -- most likely a relative -- who decided what to grab and how, and when. They hadn't robbed the house in any of the months that it was standing empty, but only this last weekend -- after the new owners (us) had started showing up to repair the house with the intention of moving in soon -- so there was something about this weekend which impelled the robbers to steal something they could take and sell quickly. They also had reason to think they could get away clean. The robbers included the lookout, a little kid to get through the doggy-door, and two adults to carry the water-heater. Now, where in the neighborhood would you find an adult-and-kid robbery team who fit all those parameters?

The evidence points to those moved-out northward neighbors. They probably needed the extra money to help with the move -- a motive I'm well acquainted with.

So the question is, do I call back that sheriff's deputy and tell him what we've found -- and concluded? The thieving neighbors are well gone, possibly in Mexico by now, and this is -- as the deputy pointed out -- a low-priority crime. We can possibly find our missing water-heater just by shopping the local appliance stores, and the insurance company should damn-well cover the cost. We've pretty well solved the crime to our own satisfaction, and the local sheriff's department can't chase the thieves outside our own county. What good would reporting the news do, after all?

Should I even bother?


--Leslie <;)))><

Witch Kittens -- Again

2013-02-28T01:39:00.001-08:00

This will be a short one, folks. I have a new litter of kittens -- three colorpoints with blue eyes, two ebonies with gold-green eyes -- of my Witch Cat bloodline, that I've been breeding for intelligence for all these years. They're just a month old, but I'm already fishing (!) for homes for them because they're a lively bunch, already toddling around exploring, and already experimenting with solid food. They're still young enough that it's hard to tell their sexes -- especially given the way they wriggle around in protest when I try to pick them up and look -- but I'm pretty sure that at least one of the colorpoints and one of the ebonies are females. Yes, they've got the enlarged craniums, and obviously the enlarged brains and intelligence, of my Witch Cat bloodline. As near as I can tell, they also all have thumbs.

Anyone within one or two days' drive of Phoenix, who's interested in these brilliant little fuzzies, email me -- lesliefish@cox.net -- and we'll set something up. I still don't know how to transfer pictures onto my computer, or I'd post pictures of the adorable little creatures. Meow!

--Leslie <;)))>< )O(

IMMIGRATION: A HARD LOOK AT REAL REFORM

2013-02-21T01:42:00.000-08:00

Let's get real, folks, and look at the facts.

America has the third largest population of any country in the world. The biggest, of course, is China – with 1.5 billion people. Second is India – with 1.2 billion. Both those countries are trying desperately to reduce their populations, and having little luck at it. Third is the US – with 311 million that we know about, and possibly another 10-20 million illegal immigrants that we don't know about.

Our physical, social and economic resources are already straining at the seams, as any ecologist or social worker can tell you. We have only so much farmable land, only so much drinkable water, our wildlife preserves are endangered, and we're beginning to strain at feeding the population we have. We can't keep taking in half a million immigrants every year.

We can't take in 40% of the population of Mexico, which is the number that wants to come here. We can't take in all the poor people in the world. We simply can't do it. We have to stop taking in everybody, and reduce the population we already have.

There is now and always has been a "quick track to citizenship", and nowadays it's open to women too – that is to join our military. Join the military, serve for two years, come out a citizen and with military benefits. How many illegal immigrants have done it? We have to ask if citizenship is really what they want.

The "immigration reform" we need is a moratorium on all immigration for the next five years. We also have to fortify our borders and prevent any more illegal immigrants from coming in. We can close most of our overseas military bases, bring back the troops therein, and put them to patrolling the borders.

We also have to go ahead and round up all the illegal immigrants currently hiding out in America, and send them home – or at least to the nearest country that will take them. Yes, by all means, let them take with them all the goodies they got and all the money they made here in goody-land; they'll need a grubstake when they get home. In fact, let's also give every last one of them – man, woman and child – a parting gift: a box containing a sturdy revolver, ten boxes of fitting ammunition, a fitting cleaning-kit, and an instruction book – profusely illustrated – written in the immigrants' native language. They'll need that to hold on to their grubstakes when they get home.

Where should we send them? If they're from Latin America, send them to Mexico. If they're from Africa, send them to Haiti – and start building some industries there; heaven knows, there's plenty of cheap labor in Haiti! If they're from Arab countries, send them straight to Mecca – where all good Muslims want to go, anyway. Besides, with the money they bring with them, they can be rich in Mexico, or Haiti, or Arabia, instead of poor here.

No, it's not impossible to round them all up. The illegal immigrants haven't exactly been secretive about where they're staying; if we send out the police to surround and then search door-to-door in those neighborhoods, we can find the vast majority of them. It won't take terribly long to move out from there and find the rest. To put it the worst way, if the Nazis, 70 years ago, could round up 99% of the Jews in Europe and send them off to the killing-camps, we can certainly round up at least 99% of the illegal immigrants in America today and send them off to countries where they, and their money, will be welcome.

Anyone not a citizen, or not already formally enrolled in the process of getting citizenship – including in the military – must go, and nobody else can come in for another five years.

We have to do it, or go the way of India and China; it's that simple.

--Leslie <;)))><

Earthquakes, Traffic, Deserts and Democracy

2013-02-14T15:58:00.001-08:00

Despite the pious claims of various would-be oligarchs, Democracy -- and Anarchism -- do work, because the average person is not a stupid sheep who needs a proper Ruling Class to make him do what he needs to survive. I've seen proof of this myself, three times over.

   *    *    *

The first time was right after the Loma Prieta Earthquake, which reached nearly 7 points on the Richter Scale, and had the dubious distinction of breaking up the 1989 World Series. 'Twas the first time in history that the record books noted: "Game called on account of earthquake". The quake also shook down the elevated Nimitz Freeway, which ran through the center of the poorest section of Oakland, a slum commonly nickamed Dogtown, trapping lots of cars and their occupants in the rubble. When those 17 frantic seconds of shaking stopped, the local residents of Dogtown picked themselves up, looked at the collapsed freeway -- and became instant heroes.

One of the few employed residents used his keys to open a warehouse, take out a large forklift and pallet, drove them out to the collapsed freeway and used them as an elevator to lift rescue-workers to the top of the rubble-pile. An unemployed resident followed him into the warehouse, grabbed all the pickaxes and shovels he could carry, and handed them out to the volunteer rescuers. The corner drugstore donated bandages and wound-dressings. The liquor store down the block donated vodka and Everclear for more wound-dressings. A local pimp used his cell-phone to call the official services -- police department, fire department, hospital ambulance fleet -- for help, only to find that they were overwhelmed by damages and emergencies elsewhere. A local heroin-pusher donated his supply to treat the injured. The two local residents who had working cars volunteered to take the injured to the nearest hospital and then come back for more. An ancient long-retired former Army medic (World War Two vintage) took charge of the medical department, and the local whores volunteered as nurses. A nearby coffee-shop donated food and coffee to become the rescue-workers' free canteen. Local residents donated food and coffee, as well as labor. Everyone else became volunteer rescue-workers, digging survivors out of the rubble. Folks from elsewhere in the surrounding towns -- including me -- volunteered labor when and as they could. Over the next week, those volunteers saved nearly 100 survivors from the wreckage of the collapsed freeway. It was all spontaneous.

Not only was the government no help, its service organizations being frantically busy elsewhere, but it became an active hindrance. President Bush planned to visit the site of the disaster, so the Secret Service came in ahead of him to "clear the area". One of them marched into the coffee-shop/canteen and ordered it to shut down. Why? Why, to make sure that there was no nearby area out of view of the SS crew. The cooks promptly told him where he could go. He made a grab for one of the cooks, who hit him with a frying-pan. The rescue-workers in the canteen then picked him up and forcibly ejected him from the premises. Likewise, a local cop climbed up on the rubble-pile and ordered the rescue-workers to cease and desist, and come down from the pile. Why? Because some would-be assassin might have hidden a rifle in the wreckage, in hopes of taking a shot at the POTUS. While the other rescue-workers looked at each other, trying to find a polite way to say no to an Oakland cop who was likely to wave his gun around, one very large rescue-worker pulled a chunk of concrete out of the rubble and said, "Okay. Hold this," and handed it to the cop -- who took it. The 200+-pound chunk promptly flattened him, whereupon the rescue-workers went back to work. Bush decided not to visit the Nimitz Freeway site, but went elsewhere for his photo-op. The rescue-workers eventually pulled the chunk of concrete off the cop.

   *    *    *

The second incident happened nearly ten years ago, here in Phoenix. Long before Global Warming became a handy political football, the Phoenix valley was subject to sudden ferocious storms during the rainy seasons, and on this particular day a classic firehose-in-the-sky storm dumped enough water, hard enough, to short out the traffic signals all up and down the length of Camelback Road -- one of the main drags of the sprawling city -- in the middle of a working day. There weren't nearly enough cops in all the city to direct traffic at every intersection on Camelback Road. So what did all those drivers do?

With no possible verbal -- and very little visual -- contact with each other, the drivers worked out a safe system for driving through the signal-blind intersections. On coming up to an intersection the drivers would stop and look at traffic on the crossing street. If no cars were right up to the crossing line, then the drivers would proceed across -- about five of them. After five cars the drivers would pause again, by which time some traffic had usually gathered at the crossing street. The drivers would wait until about five cars had gone through the intersection on the crossing street, at which point the crossing traffic would usually pause and let about five cars go through on Camelback. This tacit agreement worked, with no accidents, for the rest of the day. Fortunately, the city engineers got the traffic signals working again (long after the rain had stopped) before dusk.

*    *    *

The third time was a few years ago, when the late Frank Gasperik and I took a driving tour out to the desert interior of southeastern California. Out beyond the mining-town of Trona, which also sported an enormous array of solar electric panels, an eastbound road continued beyond where the pavement ended: a dirt road running out into the empty desert. According to the map (topographical, satellite-survey), at the far end of that stretch of desert, in the foothills of the distant mountains, lay a ghost-town called Ballarat. This had been a small mining-town, built a century ago, abandoned when the mines played out around 1910. Never having seen a real ghost-town, I persuaded Frank to turn the car that way, and we set off across the desert.

When we arrived, covered with dust, we found perhaps half-a-dozen ancient buildings -- dry and skeletal as withered leaves -- plus a pump attached to an old well, a homemade hydroponics tank, and one small house-trailer parked nearby. The ghost-town was inhabited by a little more than ghosts. The sturdiest of the old buildings, the original town jail, was inhabited by the local historian -- a middle-aged fellow, happy to meet some strangers, who had shelves full of books and documents about Ballarat and its history. We chatted awhile, learning how the present-day town worked. The folks who owned the trailer also had a working car, and once a week they'd go into Trona to pick up supplies, and mail, for all the half-dozen non-ghost residents. Other than that, the mortal residents were happy to live out at the end of the desert -- and be left alone. We thanked the historian, and asked if he'd like a beer from our car's supplies. He flinched, and said in a very neutral voice: "I... don't drink beer." Right there, in a flash of insight, I realized why he'd isolated himself out here in a desert ghost-town, without transport of his own. "How about some root-beer, then?" I quickly offered, and he gratefully accepted.

As we strolled out to the car to get the root-beer, we heard a roar of motors and saw no less than a dozen heavy-duty motorcycles come rolling up. The riders wore hard-traveling gear, and pistols openly displayed on gun-belts -- this in southern California, mind. Frank, an old biker himself, recognized the gear if not the riders themselves, and tossed them a complex in-group salute that made them smile. They paused by the pump just long enough to fill their canteens, and then rolled on -- up the extension of the dirt road, which wound further up into the mountains. A quick glance at the topo-map showed another old (and supposedly abandoned) mining town up in the hills. A question to the historian, about how many people lived up in that other ghost-town, harvested only a shrug. "We all get along well," was all he said.

So Frank and I picked up some mineral samples -- chunks of remarkably pure galena -- got in our car and headed back toward "civilization", speculating on how those forgotten towns survived. We concluded that all they needed were reliable wells with working pumps, and they made all the rest -- including their social system -- by themselves. Their system worked, and it was all entirely off the grid. We also speculated on how many other such invisible communities exist in the US today.

*    *    *

I know there are plenty of other examples, but those are three that I saw myself. I don't think anyone can convince me, after that, that the people can't create and maintain working societies for themselves.

--Leslie <;)))>< )O(

Eyewitness From History

2013-02-06T08:40:00.000-08:00

My husband Rasty, who was born and raised in rural Arizona, has some memories from his childhood back in the days before gun-control was even dreamed of, anywhere outside of New York City.

His grandfather was the town marshal of Yuma, a town out in the boondocks which serviced the local mines and ranches. This meant that once a week bunches of rough-and-ready miners and cowboys would come into town with their pay, looking for fun rather than supplies -- and that meant the town saloon. Now miners and cowboys and alcohol and guns often made for trouble. The townsfolk didn't mind if drunken miners and cowboys shot up each other, but those drunken shots often went wild and shot up the saloon as well -- not to mention innocent passersby. For that reason alone, the townsfolk decided on a common custom, enforced by the local marshal; within half an hour after coming into town, visitors had to hand over their guns to the marshal -- or the bartender -- and leave them there until half an hour before leaving town again. Most people saw the plain sense of this, and complied.

Ah, but there's always a fool in the bunch, and one day a miner who fancied himself a gunslinger came into the saloon and refused to hand over his six-shooter. The bartender quietly sent out for the marshal. Grandpa-the-marshal showed up, strolled over to the miner and politely informed him about the town ruling. The fool miner mouthed off that nobody was taking his gun -- and made the fatal mistake of reaching for it. The marshal shot him dead.

Nobody complained about this action, except for maybe some grumbling on the part of two other miners who were picked to drag the carcass down to the undertaker's and the bartender who had to mop the blood off the floor. Nobody even thought to bring charges against the marshal -- or any of the miners, for that matter. There wasn't even a coroner's inquest, since everyone knew how the fool had died. And everyone went on about their regular -- and untroubled -- lives.

A few years later there occurred another shooting in Yuma. Two ranchers, who had been arguing for months over some suspiciously altered brands on some cattle, happened to come into town on the same day. The first rancher was walking down the one street in town when he saw the second rancher come riding up, dismount and hitch his horse to the rail in front of the general store, about a block away. The first rancher, overcome with outrage over those cattle (and perhaps a bit the worse for a visit to the saloon), pulled out his Colt pistol and aimed a shot at the second rancher. It was a close miss, but he missed.

The second rancher ducked behind his horse, pulled his Winchester rifle out of its saddle-scabbard, rested the rifle across his saddle, aimed at the first rancher -- and didn't miss. In this case a coroner's inquest was called for. A jury was chosen and sworn in, witnesses (everyone who'd been out on the street that day) gave their testimony, and the jury eventually gave it's verdict; the decision was that the first rancher had died of "suicide". Why suicide? Why, because any fool who shot -- from a block away -- with a pistol at a man with a rifle, was clearly committing suicide. QED. And everyone went on about their regular, and untroubled, lives.

Shooting deaths were really that rare back in the real Old Wild West.

Bear in mind that back then, in Yuma, Arizona, everybody kept pistols and rifles in their houses and places of business, and rode around with them when they left home, and could buy guns and ammunition -- and dynamite -- in the general store, or the hardware store, for nothing more than laying down sufficient money. And of course anybody could make a private sale to anybody else. There were no background checks, no sanity-checks, no waiting-periods. Anybody who acted stupid or insane with a gun simply didn't outlive the action by very long.

So what made the big change between then and now?

First, everybody had guns, and everybody knew it. Guns were common tools, which everyone was obliged to learn to handle sensibly-- yes, even the "repeaters" with their multi-shot magazines. Parents usually taught their children basic gun-handling and target-shooting, not to mention hunting, but there were also shooting clubs attached to the schools, and the town civic centers, and even the churches, and there were firearms merit-badges awarded by the Boy Scouts. Guns weren't romanticized, demonized, forbidden, extensively lied about or used as political footballs. Much the same was true of dynamite.

This is probably why (it takes some work to look this up, but you can find it), in the entire 50-year history and half-a-country extent of the Old Wild West, there were fewer shootings than there were last year alone in Chicago -- which has some of the fiercest gun-control laws in the country.

Despite all the frantic exhortations of the mainstream media, don't emote -- think.

--Leslie <;)))>< )O(

Breeding for Brains

2013-01-25T21:09:00.000-08:00

For those of you who've asked, here's a brief history of my peculiar cat-breeding experiment.

The experiment began many years ago, back when I was in college. I was taking Biology 101, had just completed the section on Evolution, and was fascinated with the biological mechanism: how mutations create new structures and natural selection chooses between them.

That was when one of my classmates showed up at our rental house with a box of kittens to give away. I'd been wanting a pet, and was charmed by the adorable little creatures, so I petted them and looked closer. I noticed that three of them – two toms and a queen, all jet-black – were subtly different from the rest. They were more imaginative and clever in their playing, their little spines attached not at the back of the skull but slightly underneath it, and their little craniums were bigger than usual. In short, I was looking at a mutation for higher intelligence.

So I adopted not one but three kittens. As I raised them, I studied them. I also played games with them to exercise and stimulate their intelligence. Finally I tested them, saw that they were indeed more intelligent than the average cat, and wrote up the whole experience as my final paper for my Biology class. Yes, I got an A on the paper.

I also kept the kittens, now full-grown cats. I named them Makhno, Kropotkin and Bakunin after famous Anarchists – fitting for all-black cats – and bred them together, and observed and tested the kittens. I kept the most intelligent of the kittens and gave the rest away, carefully, to people whom I could be sure loved cats. My term paper had turned into a lifelong project.

At present -- all these cat-generations later -- I have four of my super-smart cats at home: two queens and two toms, three of them color-points and one ebony. The older queen, Comet, is pregnant again. In a few months I'll be advertising my kittens again, and I hope I have enough local fans who'll be willing to take them.

--Leslie <;)))><

Behind the Global Warming Hoax

2013-01-15T01:30:00.000-08:00

All right, to take on the whole megillah at once (note that all the facts mentioned herein are readily available on the internet):

I first heard the Global Warming theory some 20 years ago, and it didn't make sense then. The story was that evil-evil American Industry -- and cars, and exhaling -- put a lot of carbon dioxide (CO2, for those of you who skipped Chemistry in junior high school, high school and college) into the atmosphere, and the CO2 reflects heat/sunlight back at the Earth, thus heating up the atmosphere. Now I recalled from my grade-school science class that animals -- including humans -- inhale oxygen and exhale CO2, while plants inhale CO2 and exhale oxygen, and this nice exchange has been going on for about two billion years. I also knew, from friends who worked in the business, that commercial greenhouses often pump in CO2 to make the plants grow faster. So why, I pondered, wouldn't all the plants in the world happily inhale that extra CO2 and grow faster?

I was also not impressed by the evidence. According to the "climatologists" (a science I'd never heard of before), Earth's weather has been warming up for centuries. Well, a bit of research will show that Earth's weather has been warming up since the end of the Ice Age, which is why the Ice Age ended. In fact, according to paleontologists (a real science, of respectable age and discoveries), there have been at least six ice ages, at regular intervals over the past few million years. Before that, Earth's climate still varied wildly. There was a time when there was almost no ice anywhere on Earth, and giant amphibians swam in the lakes of Antarctica. There was another time when all of Earth's surface was covered with ice, and life survived only around volcanic vents in the ocean depths. Earth is a dynamic planet, still evolving, and its climate is the result of complex interactions between its own plate tectonics and the likewise complex cycles of the weather of the sun. For proof, note that during the same years when, the alarmists claim, Earth's general temperature has been rising, the ice-caps have been melting on Mars -- and the temperatures on Titan and Pluto have risen two and one degrees centigrade, respectively. I don't think we have any industry or cars on Mars, Titan and Pluto.

And there's more. Most of the temperature readings that the Global Warming crowd claims as evidence were taken by volunteers, with donated recorders. Most of these volunteers, like most humans, live in cities -- and didn't go far from home to plant their recorders. Cities are notorious heat-generators, besides being a bit short on plant life, and there was a notable shortage of recordings taken in rural or wilderness areas. This is a guarantee for skewed data. On the other hand, temperature recorders planted by actual scientist teams -- which were duly placed at equally-distant points all over the planet -- show that the temperature of Earth's climate has not changed in the last 16 years. There's also solid evidence (again, collected by scientists, not volunteers) for "Dimming the Sun" -- from the PBS documentary of the same name (available on YouTube). This holds that air pollution, particularly soot, blocks sunlight from reaching Earth's surface to a significant degree -- enough to slow water evaporation in lands as distant, and different, as northern New York and eastern Australia.

Then there's the fact that the steady rise of Earth's general temperature since the Ice Age has not been a smooth climb, but a rhythmic fluctuation. There was the cold period that helped bring down the Roman Empire, followed by the Early Medieval Warm Period -- when Vikings raised dairy cattle in Greenland, vineyards grew in England, and freshwater crocodiles frolicked in the rivers of France (thus adding to the legend of dragons) -- which was followed by the Little Ice Age of the later Middle Ages, and so on up to the present day. There was no evil-evil modern industry during the early Middle Ages. The recent melting of a glacier in Austria revealed artifacts (like broken spear-points, worn-out sandals and ancient fireplaces) that proved the ground had been ice-free and inhabited by humans just 3000 years ago.   Finally, I can tell you from personal observation, that here in Arizona the last five winters have each been colder and wetter than the last.

None of these Inconvenient Truths jibe with the Global Warming theory, which just might explain why the Global Warming pundits have begun referring to "Climate Change" instead.

The question is, why has this shaky and contra-indicated theory become so popular?

Well, it's been pushed and pimped by expert flak-artists. Never mind Al Gore (whose personal "carbon footprint" is greater than that of any four average American households) and his movie; why didn't the Nobel Prize committee, whose job includes checking out the actual science of any science project submitted to them, check out the facts before handing him the prize? Why did other respectable scientists, as revealed in their own emails, make a point of muzzling and denigrating other scientists who presented solid evidence contradicting the Global Warming theory?

Well, for one thing, there's been an awful lot of grant money handed out, over the past 20 years and more, for studies on Global Warming -- and almost none for studies on possible returns of the Ice Age, or very-long-term patterns of Earth's weather. Where has all that slightly-biased money come from? It's impossible to track it all down, but one might consider that about 20 years ago certain Asian interests tried to push the US and several other western industrial countries into signing the Kyoto Accords. The US refused, because after examining the Accords political analysts realized that following them would effectively strip the US of its manufacturing capacity.

There are two good reasons why countries like China, India, and especially Japan, would like to make the US and its western allies give up on manufacturing. First, simple competition: China and India would love to become the new industrial giants of the world, and Japan assumes it already is. All that stands in the way of their total economic domination is their pesky western rivals.

The second reason is that the Asian countries, and particularly Japan, remember that what allowed the US to win World War Two was its uninterrupted industrial capacity. At the height of the war, the US was churning out better than two navy ships, ten tanks, twenty artillery pieces, 500 combat rifles and 1000 rounds of ammunition per day -- not to mention other troop supplies. The Axis countries, regardless of their troop numbers, couldn't match that.

The Asian industrial countries are primarily concerned with their own agendas, and are not necessarily friends of ours; they know full well, from their own histories, that economic rivalry often leads to war. How could they disarm their foremost rival in advance? Well, how better than by playing on our current concern with environmental damage and reliable Liberal Guilt? Add to that their decades-long policy of inviting western industries to move their plants, whole-cloth, to -- yes -- China, India, Japan, and other Asian countries under their influence, with promises of business-friendly governments and lots of nice cheap labor, and the result is a lot of western mines and mills -- especially mills -- standing idle.

The real irony here is that China, with India not too far behind, is the worst air and water polluter in the world right now. Air pollution from China is massive enough to drift across the entire Pacific, to register on pollution-counters in California. And never mind what they dump into their water! Our Asian trade-partners aren't really that concerned with environmental quality, even on their own land.

Could America today -- with more than twice the population we had then -- mount an industrial and military effort as great as we did in World War Two? The issue is in doubt. Among other things, our attitudes -- or at least our politicians' attitudes -- about precisely how to win a war are very different from what they were then, as our military performance over the last 15 years displays. Our attitudes toward industry and manufacturing are different too.

We could always regain that capacity, cut drastically into our unemployment figures and repair our sagging economy just by changing those attitudes, but the Global Warming-- ooops, "Climate Change" -- theory won't be any help there.

--Leslie <;)))>< Fish

Paved With Good Intentions

2013-01-06T23:14:00.000-08:00

I was originally planning to do a long piece about global warming, but I came across this article and thought it was more immediately relevant.

"SSRI's: Turning People Into Monsters The massacre of 20 children and 7 adults at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, CT on Dec 14, 2012 has the nation and the world reeling in shock and horror.

It has revived the debate about gun control, but a growing chorus of voices that have been desperately trying to cut through the media censorship for over a decade document the real cause of these unfathomable events: Psychiatric drugs, especially SSRIs, serotonin re-uptake inhibitors, such as Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Luvox and more.

In an estimated 5% of people taking these drugs, which are freely prescribed to children and adolescents, a condition known as "akasthisia," occurs. This is a build up of electrical impulses that causes the brain to disassociate, causing the victim to erupt in sudden, extreme violence, often: murder, mass murder, suicide, arson and more. Characteristics of SSRI violence include hallucinations, and amnesia so powerful that all memory of the event is absent, in those who survive.

This website documents over 4,800 cases of such extreme violence, including 66 school shootings, in which SSRI drugs, often more than one, had been prescribed.

www.ssristories.com (The list ends in 2010)

16 year old Corey only remembers being in bed, tired, when "next thing I know, I'm in the detention center." He had been arrested for holding 23 classmates hostage, and he did not even remember it.

"There's no doubt that the medication did this," says his father. "He had amnesia, hallucinations earlier, abnormal dreams, which are all side effects of the medication."

"His father says the pills turned Corey from a sensitive boy to a volatile marauder, susceptible to blind rage" says the Fox anchor.

"It was out of character," said Corey's father.

The burning issue is neither guns, nor "evil" in our youth, nor bad parenting, but rather a truly evil pharmaceutical empire that has steadfastly preyed on our children, in their schools, in programs often funded by the Pharmaceutical industry, such as "Teen Screen," which seek to diagnose and medicate kids at every possibly opportunity, turning a number of them into Manchurian Candidates--assassins--operating from compulsions caused by the drugs.

The mass media, with a few exceptions, are complicit in the deaths of the very children they appear to lament, until they face their professional obligation to investigate this enormous story.

--Celia Farber "

This ties in with something I'd noticed earlier -- that almost every perpetrator of a school-shooting in the last 20 years had been taking anti-depressants for days beforehand. And haven't you noticed that, in all those TV ads for anti-depressants, the announcer also mentions -- in a fast mumble -- that "rare side effects may include mood changes, aggressiveness, suicidal thoughts or actions"?

It's perfectly understandable that the media, and the politicians, have ignored these little facts and gone haring off after gun control instead. After all, the "gun lobby" is nothing compared to the Big Pharmaceutical lobby.

--Leslie <;)))>< )O(

Back to Politics: Emoting Vs. Facts

2012-12-28T19:34:00.002-08:00

Here's an article quoting actual facts and figures:

"Will Banning Guns Stop Homicides? Stats from England and Australia Show…

Posted on December 28, 2012 at 9:18am by Mike Opelka

The debate on gun control is only gaining momentum. On Thursday, Senator Diane Feinstein outlined her plans to introduce sweeping legislation that includes fingerprinting and registration of all those who currently own so-called semi-automatic “assault” weapons.
Those in favor of a total ban on firearms often point to countries like England and Australia where firearms are banned or virtually impossible to possess. A look into the statistics might offer some clarity, though, about how safe such a move actually makes a country.
Let’s start at home. From 2009 to 2011, homicides overall declined slightly according to a 2011 Centers for Disease Control (CDC) report, with a corresponding drop in homicides by firearms.
In fact, the report says homicide is not among the top 15 leading causes of death in America. (As recently as 2009, the CDC reported that homicide was in the top 15 at #15.) Instead:

Accidents (unintentional deaths) were #5 and Suicide (intentional harm) has held solid as the 10th leading cause of death for several years.
The stats from 2009 show that homicides totaled 16,799, with 11,493 of those attributed to guns.
During that same year, motor vehicle deaths were nearly triple that of gun-related deaths — 34,485 vs. 11,493.
Death from accidental falls totaled 24,792, almost double the firearms homicide total.

The stats for gun deaths have actually shown some significant declines in the past two decades.

Image: National Institute of Justice

Looking at the above graph, it is worth noting that deaths caused by “other guns” has been relatively flat since 1985. The assault weapons ban was in place from 1994-2004.

And what about the argument most often made by the Left quoting the success of oppressive gun laws in countries like Australia and England? A recent opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal by Joyce Lee Malcolm shows that argument to be hollow: “After a school massacre, the U.K. banned handguns in 1998. A decade later, handgun crime has doubled.”
Malcom’s article details what happened after Australia banned many guns following a 1996 mass murder of 35 people by a madman with assault rifles. The country tightened registration laws, banned assault rifles, pump-action shotguns, and also forced a buy back of more than 600,000 guns. What effect did this have on crime?

“A 2003 study published by the Brookings Institution, found homicides “continued a modest decline” since 1997. They concluded that the impact of the National Firearms Agreement was “relatively small,” with the daily rate of firearms homicides declining 3.2%.”

During the same period in America, deaths attributed to firearms dropped by nearly ten times the decline seen in Australia. Restricting or confiscating handguns seems to have had almost no effect on homicides in Australia and the stats also show that the law had no real effect on suicides.
“Suicides with firearms went down but suicides by other means went up,” Malcom notes.
And what about the oft-cited British gun laws? Have they done the job?
Restrictive gun laws have been around for almost 100 years in England, and Malcolm reports that getting a permit requires proving to police that you have a “good reason” for needing a gun. Self defense is not considered to be a good reason in England. Following a 1987 shooting in the British town of Hungerford, the Brits enacted stricter controls. And in 1998, a near-total ban on gun ownership followed another mass shooting. Were these moves a success?

Within a decade of the handgun ban and the confiscation of handguns from registered owners, crime with handguns had doubled according to British government crime reports. Gun crime, not a serious problem in the past, now is. Armed street gangs have some British police carrying guns for the first time.

There is little doubt that the Senate will soon put forth new legislation regarding gun ownership, especially as it relates to so-called assault weapons. However, those making the argument that banning guns has worked in places like Australia and England might be advised to check the statistics or risk looking foolish if they encounter someone armed with the facts.
(H/T: Weasel Zippers)"

No matter how you feel, the facts show that gun-control just plain doesn't work.

--Leslie <;)))><

Season's Greetings!

2012-12-26T23:57:00.001-08:00

To everyone:

Happy Hannukah, Jolly Solstice, Merry Christmas, Joyful Sir Isaac Newton’s Birthday, Happy Kwansaa, Jolly Eid al-Fatr, Happy Bodhi Day, Merry Boxing Day, Lusty Saturnalia, Happy New Year, Jolly Hogmanay, Merry Twelfth Night – and a partridge in a pear tree!

In other words, Happy Holidays -- all of them.

No, there is no "war on Christmas; it's just that it has a lot of competition.

--Leslie <;)))>< Fish )O(

Fish in a Barrel

2012-12-16T22:48:00.001-08:00

Last week, in Connecticut, a vicious lunatic named Adam Lanza murdered his mother. Then he stole her (legal and registered) handguns, drove to the school where she had worked, marched right in the front door without any difficulty, went to the room of the kindergarten class his mother had taught, walked right in -- then shot the teacher, and proceeded to shoot the students. There was no one in that room capable of stopping him.

Apparently the school had made some preparations for such an incident, for other teachers -- hearing the gunshots -- locked their classroom doors and made all the kids hide in a corner out of sight from the doors. They also phoned the police, who arrived quickly and began clearing the building. Just who finally stopped Lanza -- whether he shot himself or the police did it -- is still unclear, but obviously it was none of the students, teachers, or school staff. That, thank you, is because the school's -- possibly the state's -- Zero Tolerance Policy forbade anyone, from the principal down to the janitor, and certainly the students, to bring a firearm or any other effective weapon into school. That policy, of course, did not prevent Lanza from doing it. That policy made the students and teachers into helpless targets. Everyone has heard the phrase 'like shooting fish in a barrel'; it could easily be replaced by 'like shooting kids in a zero-tolerance school'. Or, for that matter, a 'no weapons allowed' theater or shopping mall.

Of course, the moment the news came out, the professional liberals of the media began howling for More Gun Control, with such well-crafted phrases that they must have written up their appeals long in advance. Of course President Obama was asked for his opinion, and he made a stirring speech about the 'tragedy', but was careful to say only that 'something must be done'. A few media pundits bothered to say that we need better vicious-lunatic advance detection.

What nobody bothered to mention is this odd little fact. For the past several decades, whenever some vicious lunatic wants to go kill a lot of innocent people, and decides to use guns instead of bombs, he'll go to, in order of precedence: a) a school, b) a theater, c) a shopping mall. You never see a vicious homicidal/suicidal lunatic go shoot up: a) a police station, b) an army base, c) a shooting range. There has been just one case, and that in recent years, of an Islamofascist sleeper-agent shooting up a military base -- but even that base had a strict policy of keeping the guns locked away from the soldiers, leaving the armed military police to take the killer down.

Another odd little fact: you never hear of a vicious lunatic shooting up schools, theaters or shopping malls in Israel. This is because in Israel: a) the schoolteachers have usually had military or police training, and are always armed, b) the theaters have armed guards always watching, if not armed police or soldiers in the audience, c) the shopping malls have guards armed with rifles or shotguns, placed in strategic positions, always watching the crowds -- and never mind how many of the shoppers are armed. The teachers, guards and even civilians are trained and prepared to recognize a threat, and shoot him before he finishes saying the "-hu" on "Allahu akbar". Likewise, when was the last time you heard of a vicious lunatic shooting up anything in Switzerland?

Gee, are we seeing a pattern here?

Yes, it would be nice if we had some reliable public system for detecting vicious lunatics before they kill anyone, and quietly trundling them off to the Happy Home. The problem is that nobody has any idea how to go about doing that little thing. We've seen from too-long experience that Gun Control doesn't work, despite the pious insistence of various liberals. Getting Guns Off The Streets campaigns have only increased markets -- and prices -- for illegal gun-dealers.

The only tactic that works is arming, and training, the public at large -- as in Israel and Switzerland -- and providing realistic security systems, including armed guards, in vulnerable target areas -- such as schools, theaters and shopping malls.

Perhaps a good first step in this direction would be to make up small stickers (with really tough glue on the backs) saying "Helpless Victims Here" and showing an icon of a fish trying to leap out of a barrel, and stick them up on walls right under any sign that says "Gun-Free Zone" or "No Weapons Allowed". Most people will get the hint. Eventually, even politicians and media pundits will, too.

--Leslie <;)))>< (not in a barrel)

The Pagan, the Christian, and the Overworked Garage

2012-12-04T01:28:00.000-08:00

This happened a few years back, while John and Mary Creasey's son Richard was staying with me in Phoenix. We were trying to get him a job, and he'd applied to the Post Office. The application involved taking a test at one of the PO's administrative offices, so I drove Richard there, left him off for what promised to be at least two hours, and went looking for someplace to have lunch. As I started to roll out, I noticed that one of the rear tires was flat. Not terribly confident about changing tires by myself, I went looking for the nearest garage instead. I found one within a block, up at the corner, and pulled in. I signed in at the office, where a harried mechanic sadly told me that there were four cars in line ahead of me, so I'd have to wait. Ah well, at that rate, I'd still make it back to the office in time to pick up Richard, so I sat down on a bench to wait.

The nondescript man in the nondescript suit, on the bench beside me, noticed my pentacle pendant and grew increasingly nervous. Finally he burst out: "Ma'am, do you realize you're wearing a Satanic symbol?" Well, I thought I'd give him the benefit of the doubt and just assume he was innocently misinformed. "Oh no," I said, smiling. "That's a Wiccan symbol; it's an upright five-pointed star, representing a human figure -- head, arms, legs and body -- inside and touching a circle, which represents wholeness, or the world, specifically the natural world. The two together represent the unity of man and Nature, which is a big point of the Wiccan theology. The Satanic symbol is a five-pointed star with the point down, representing a goat's head. There's a big difference."

"Difference?" he asked cautiously. "But aren't 'Wiccans' really witches, who worship Satan?"

"Certainly not," I snorted. "Wiccans are commonly called witches, but they're purely Pagans, who worship Nature and the spirits of Nature. Satanism is the worship of the Christian devil -- more specifically, the Catholic devil. I mean, what would a 'Black Mass' mean to a Protestant? Pagans, of all kinds, aren't Christians at all. They don't worship the Christian god, so why on Earth should they worship the Christian devil, let alone the Catholic devil?"

He started to speak, then caught himself -- and I could see him thinking: "For revenge." He didn't say it because he guessed that then he'd have to admit that Wiccans, witches, and Pagans in general had some good cause to want revenge for. Instead, he tried a different tack. "Don't, uh, Pagans consider their religion superior?"

"Well, superior for themselves, anyway." I shrugged. "Consider religion in general as a carved jewel with lots of different facets. Each facet reflects light a little differently, but they're all part of the same gem -- the same desire and spiritual impulse."

"But doesn't one of those...facets reflect light best?"

"Should one facet of a diamond reflect light, and all the rest be dark? Hardly -- especially when you consider that they all affect each other. Paganism affected Judaism and Hinduism, Judaism directly influenced Christianity, Christianity and Judaism influenced Islam, Islam and Hinduism influenced Buddhism, and so on. No man is an island, and no religion either."

He thought that over for a long moment, then tried something else. "But do you, uh, Pagans believe that a spirit of evil exists?"

I shrugged again. "Oh, it probably does by now -- if only because so many people have believed in it, so hard, for so long. Faith itself has power, you know. That's another reason why we Pagans don't give any attention to any spirit of evil; we don't feed it any belief at all." I couldn't help adding, "Faith is the real Food of the Gods."

Again he started to speak, and again he stopped himself. I saw his eyes widening as he took in the implications of that. If human faith can feed a god, any god, and lack of faith can starve and weaken one...

Right then the mechanic came up and told my unlikely companion that his car was ready. He got up, looking downright grateful for the interruption, and hurried off. A moment later another mechanic came up and told me he had a few minutes to help change my tire. Between the two of us, we got the tires swapped off in ten minutes. Buying another tire to put on the old one's rim took another twenty minutes. After that I managed to get a quick lunch at MacDonald's, and got back to the administrative office in time to pick up Richard after the test.

I never saw the curious Christian again, but I sometimes wonder what effect my answers had on him.

And no, Richard didn't get the job.

--Leslie <;)))>< )O(

A Prophecy for Gaza

2012-11-28T01:05:00.000-08:00

I hereby predict that before New Year's day, probably at the beginning of Hannukah, the Palestinians in Gaza will break the cease-fire, blame it on Israel, and start lobbing rockets again. Anybody want to take my bet?

Why do I think so? Well, for one thing, the Palestinians have broken every other treaty, cease-fire, agreement, etc. that they've ever had with Israel. For another, if you Google-search a group called MEMRI, you'll find a remarkable number of videos showing various Palestinian pundits howling about how they love death the way Westerners love life, brainwashing little children to become suicide bombers, and promising each other that after they destroy Israel they'll kill all the Jews, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Secularists, and Moslems who aren't as religiously pure as themselves, and they'll rule the world in the name of their vision of Allah. These people love their hate, more than their children or life itself. They're addicted to it, and won't be able to leave it alone for long.

The only reason they agreed to the cease-fire in the first place was to give them time to stock up on more ammunition to use against Israel, probably through all those smugglers' tunnels they've dug all around the Gaza border. It doesn't help that Iran, which is supplying the weapons, is using Gaza for a stalking-horse and happily egging on the Palestinians, promising them that they can actually beat Israel.

Of course Israel is quite aware of this, and is making its own plans for what to do when the Palestinians break the cease-fire. It would be sensible to legally declare war on Gaza -- which is, after all, supposed to be an independent Palestinian country -- then use the ground troops only to guard the border and stop anyone coming up out of those tunnels, and use their air force to carpet-bomb Gaza, moving from the east border westward, slowly enough that the population has time to run.

The Palestinian refugees will, of course, run west to Egypt, thinking they'll stir up the Egyptians to help them make war on Israel. Now it's obvious that, despite the inflated standing of the Moslem Brotherhood there, Egypt is thoroughly mired in troubles of its own. Egypt adamantly does not want a half-million Palestinians running around loose, howling jihad-jihad on every street-corner, demanding to be supported in the style they became accustomed to in Gaza, threatening to become a serious political faction. Older and wiser heads in Egypt can remember the first wave of Palestinian Refugees, back in 1948, and what a pain in the butt they turned out to be. Egypt's solution then was to cram the Palestinians into tightly walled-off refugee camps, and use them -- for generations after -- as cannon-fodder, every time Egypt decided to go to war with Israel. Eventually, after several sharp defeats, Egypt wised up about attacking Israel -- and found ways to filter the Palestinians back into Israel, to make trouble there. Egypt absolutely does not want the Palestinians back again; having a bunch of them inside its borders will give it a serious headache.

As for Iran, if Israel's remarkable "Iron Dome" anti-missile system doesn't wise up Achmedinejihad's government, observing Israel turn Gaza into nothing but rubble and plowed ground should do it. If Iran's government is crazy enough to make war on Israel, on the excuse, of course, of "avenging" the poor-poor Palestinians, they'll get their @sses handed to them.

And if Iran actually has managed to produce -- or buy -- a working nuke, and tries to use it on Israel, they just might learn -- the hard way -- the best-kept secret in the middle-east.

Israel already has nukes. Has had them for years, saving them for just such an occasion.

When it gets to that point, the Arab governments will divide up handily: the jihadist idiots will pull their heads in like turtles and console themselves with hopes of another chance someday. The sensible governments -- like those of Jordan and Oman -- will actively denounce Iran, the Palestinians, and the jihadists in general.

If the US government has any sense, it will join them. Our surest, solidest ally in the middle-east -- despite the shabby way we've treated it -- has always been Israel.

--Leslie <;)))>< )O(

Frank Gasperik's Fable: The Magical $100 Bill

2012-11-16T08:27:00.000-08:00

Before anything else, folks, go to http://revolutionpac.com/articles/ron-paul-on-fire#land to catch Ron Paul's farewell address to the House of Representatives. Then consider the following story, told to me by the late Frank Gasperik.

Once upon a time in the old wild west, there was a rancher who had an old ranch-hand named Jack. Jack worked hard and well, but he had a weakness for going into town afterwards and whooping it up in the local saloon. The result was that Jack was always in debt.

One day the rancher sent Jack to deliver a large herd of steers to the stockyard and bring back the payment. Jack faithfully delivered the steers and collected the pay in a sealed pouch, but then he just couldn't resist going to the saloon, where he added to his liquor bill and got into a poker game. For once, luck was with Jack; he won big -- and the loser paid him off with a new $100 bill.

Jack studied the bill, thought a bit, and then went up to the saloonkeeper and said: "I know I've been owing you for a long time. Take this to pay off what I owe ya, and keep the rest." The saloonkeeper, delighted, thanked jack and took the bill, and hurried out. Curious, Jack followed at a distance to see what happened to that bill.

The saloonkeeper went straight to the town storekeeper, handed him the bill, and said: "Here, this should catch me up for all the saloon supplies you've sold me on a promise. If there's anything left over, keep it for the time it's taken me to pay you." The storekeeper thanked him profusely, took the bill and hurried out, and the saloonkeeper went happily back to his place of business. Jack now followed the storekeeper to see what he'd do.

The storekeeper promptly took the bill to the local drover, and paid off his debt for the transporting of the store's supplies -- and let him keep the change. The drover went at once to the livery-stable owner, and gave him the bill to pay off overdue rent of his horses, and let him keep the change. The livery-stable owner promptly saddled up and rode out to the farm that grew his horse-feed, and paid off the farmer what he owed for horse-feed -- with interest. The farmer then saddled up and rode to the rancher -- Jack's employer -- and gave him that $100 bill to pay him for some cattle that the rancher had sold him, on credit, a few weeks before.

Jack waited, discreetly, until the farmer was out of sight, and then rode up to the ranch and gave his boss the sealed pouch with the pay and the bill of sale for the steers. The rancher was pleased at the amount of money the steers had brought him, and he thought a bit, and then took Jack aside and said to him. "Jack, you've worked hard and well for me for many years, and I've paid you well but never given you a bonus. So here, take this as a token of my appreciation." And he handed Jack that same $100 bill. Then he added: "There've been some coyotes sneaking around the calf-pen, so if you wouldn't mind, would you take your rifle and go sit out with the calves tonight?"

"Sure thing," said Jack. He tucked the $100 bill in his shirt pocket, took his rifle and gear, went out to the calf-pen, and set up camp on the far side of the pen to watch for coyotes. He spotted a coyote sneaking around, out by the limits of the firelight, and shot at it. The coyote yelped and ran away, and no other coyotes came near.

So Jack sat down by his campfire, cooked himself a pot of beans, ate supper, and then he pulled the $100 bill out of his pocket and looked at it. He thought of all the places that bill had been that day, all the people it had made happy, all the debts it had paid off, and all the good it had done. He considered how all the people in town could have swapped their debts directly to each other, but they hadn't known how to do it without that $100 bill. Then Jack laughed softly, and threw the $100 bill into the fire, where it promptly burned to ashes.

...Because only Jack knew that that bill was counterfeit.

Think.

--Leslie <;)))>< )O(

Not Entirely Unexpected

2012-11-08T03:20:00.000-08:00

The election's finally over, and Obama won by a respectable-enough lead that nobody but the conspiracy buffs are claiming it wasn't a valid win. The GOP also took serious hits in the legislature and the local races, and a lot of them are stumbling around wondering what went wrong -- after all, they did outspend the competition, by a huge margin, on advertising.

Looking back, it's obvious by 20-20 hindsight that the Republicans' contempt for the intelligence of the average American voter did them in, but -- yes -- it was questionable for awhile. None of the political pundits seemed to have any reliable data on the real attitude of the public, as viz. those numerous conflicting polls. This is remarkable given all the information available these days; one can only assume that the "experts" didn't know where to look, or how to evaluate the data.

At least the reporters did their duty and announced all over the media every hypocrisy, every contradiction, every stupidity, every bigotry that the candidates displayed -- and the GOP's share of them outweighed the Dems', beyond denial or doubt. There's never been a better example of the need for free and uncensored media. The interesting part is that the viewers were quite able to absorb the broadcast facts while ignoring the surrounding flood of political ads. Maybe decades of watching TV shows interrupted by commercial ads has immunized us against even the cleverest of propaganda.

Another interesting item -- overlooked unless you know what to look for -- was the increased percentage of independent, Libertarian and even Green party votes apparent in the federal votes: anything from 1% to 12%. I'm currently trying to find the percentage in state and local votes, but the media are being a bit coy about that. Hmmmm... More later.

--Leslie <;)))>< Fish

GOP Betrayal and Self-Destruction

2012-10-26T18:36:00.000-07:00

by Leslie Fish

As I mentioned in earlier posts, the GOP co-opted the Tea Party -- which began as a Libertarian grassroots movement -- and turned it into a cheering section for its own really reactionary NeoCons. Worse, the GOP then assumed that all those people who had founded and supported the original Tea Party were now dutiful NeoCons too. Bad mistake! This is what made NeoCon GOP candidates assume that there was a huge public backing for their own incredibly reactionary social ideas. This is probably the reason for the GOP's alienation of its own Libertarian wing, culminating in its visibly shabby treatment of Ron Paul and his supporters. This is also why we've seen Ronney sounding off about saving tax money by not funding birth-control for the poor, Ryan touting bans on abortion, Akin's incredible statements about "legitimate rape", and Mourdock claiming that rapes are part of "God's plan". This is what comes of believing your own propaganda and, worse, listening to none but your own supporters.

Dozens of polls have shown that the Republicans have lost 81% of the Hispanic vote, 47% of the women's vote, and 100% of the Black vote. This is a prediction of disaster, and should have raised warning flags, but the GOP's response has been only to discount the polls.

Another unnoticed warning is the record number of voters registering Independent, or even third-party. Here in Arizona, the number of registered Independents is greater than the number of registered Democrats and Republicans -- who are running about equal. This could possibly be because, in this state, if you're registered Independent you can vote in the primary elections of every party on the ballot -- or it could be because a huge number of voters are disgusted with the Big Two parties and are willing to look elsewhere. In any case, it means that Republicans are a minority here. It's a mistake to assume that Arizona is still a reliable "red" state. Nonetheless, the GOP has made that mistake. The usual glossy political ads are specializing on state legislative races, hardly even mentioning the presidential race. They think they've got it in the bag.

Well, they don't. This state also has voluntary early voting, and a lot of citizens (including me) have taken advantage thereof. The early returns on those early ballots show Obama leading with a score of 53%, Romney with 41%, and... nobody's talking about the other 12%. This, in a state that everyone assumes is reliably Republican! What do you think is happening in other states?

And the Republicans did it to themselves. I predict that in betraying its own Libertarian wing, by believing its own NeoCon propaganda, by tricking itself into thinking that the majority of Americans really want to go back to the 1950s, the GOP has (unless it commits a really spectacular vote-fraud, probably with the vote-tabulating machines) cost itself the coming election -- and very possibly more.

A lot of Americans, given our current economic and political mess, are fed up with the two-party system. They may be registering Independent, but they're looking elsewhere. Here in Arizona, I noticed in the voters' information book, a good dozen Libertarian candidates for state offices, and another half-dozen Greens. If the Rep./Dem. balance among the winners is close, it won't take a majority of Libertarians or Greens to swing a vote in the legislature. And all political movements -- and parties -- start small.

It's not impossible that in another decade or two the largest of the third parties -- the Libertarians -- will draw enough votes to outnumber the Republicans. That would be a fitting revenge for Ron Paul and the original Tea Party, both.

--Leslie <;)))>< )O(

Movie Review: "Atlas Shrugged II" -- Better Than The Original

2012-10-14T04:31:00.001-07:00

It''s rare that a movie sequel is better than the original, rarer still that a film made from a book is better than the book, rarest of all that the second movie in a trilogy is both a seamless part of the whole and still effective as a stand-alone film. "Atlas Shrugged Part Two" succeeds on all three counts.

First, with the benefit of a larger budget, the director could provide more special effects for the action sequences, of which there are several. The film opens with a fast-paced airplane chase, ending just before an inevitable crash – and then cuts to nine months earlier for the lead-up story. The destruction of the D'Anconia mines isn't just reported from offstage but, in good film fashion, shown – in a spectacular long-distance shot. The crucible-spill in the steel mill, by contrast, is done in a series of really startling mid-shots that include the flood of glowing molten metal right next to the workers frantically shoveling sand to block it – and it's left to the viewer to consider (in later reflection?) how all that sand will make the metal useless even if it's recoverable. The train-wreck in the tunnel is more spectacular yet, and all the more effective for the detailed build-up.

Second, the need to cram a lot of background and thematic information into the time-limit of the film creates tight, fast pacing with immense detail in the setting of each shot. The scenes of sign-waving protesters never exceed thirty seconds, not nearly enough time to read many of the intriguing slogans; that will take repeated viewing on DVD, which slyly encourages sales thereof. Hank Reardon's trial is compacted to half a dozen pithy exchanges, with audience reactions. Jimmy Taggart's courtship and marriage to Cheryl, the innocent but adoring shop-girl, is done in just three scenes – one of which includes another Mysterious Disappearance of the Capable, which is a running theme of the plot. The only instance of a Randian speech is D'Anconia's rant about money at Taggart's elaborate society wedding – where Cheryl gallantly tries to hold her own, and allows for one of Rand's best punchlines – and even that is mercifully brief. The result is a fast-moving and densely layered film, inviting lots of re-viewing, that loses nothing of Rand's themes.

Third, framing the film with the swooping jet air-chase that starts with a question – "Who is John Galt?" Dagne growls as she flies into what looks like a mountain – and ends by answering it – "I'm John Galt," says the silhouette as he pulls her from the plane's wreckage – neatly shapes the plot into a coherent whole. Part Two is a taut political thriller, about two capable people trying to shore up a staggering economy and fending off attacks by an increasingly Fascist government, while solving a mystery – the Disappearances. As such, it's hauntingly reminiscent of the British political-mystery films of the early days of World War Two, intended to persuade the yet-uninvolved Americans that Fascism was a bad idea.

At the same time, since the film can't be separated from its prequel, the inevitable references to it are done smoothly and effectively. TV news clips referring to a disastrous law, detailed in the first film, segue into references to Wyatt's Torch, one result of the first Disappearance. The dismantling of the John Galt Line almost poetically parallels the scenes, in Part One, of its construction. Dagne's sneaking the scientist into the underground locker where the mysterious invention is hidden neatly allows her to mention – briefly – where and how she found it, shown in the first film.

The movie's chief weakness, the almost all-new cast, really couldn't be avoided, since the first film's cast was mostly TV actors who weren't available for Part Two thanks to their regular jobs. The cast of Part Two is much the same; look for familiar faces from CSI, Law and Order, Alphas, and others. Makeup art makes the new cast look similar, up to a point, but the differences can't be completely concealed – either in appearance or performance. Part Two's Hank Reardon isn't quite as good as Part One's, its Lilian Reardon is better, its Dagne is just as good and its John Galt is just as bad – and, fortunately, just as seldom seen.

Given all it had to deal with, the script is subtly brilliant – deserving an Oscar nomination, which it probably won't get for political reasons. It even manages a few flashes of sly humor, such as the one-minute scene from a TV political-talk show, featuring a Hannity character – played by the real Hannity – being downshouted by a Black commentator who bears a more-than-coincidental resemblance to Al Franken. It carefully sidesteps any accusations of affecting the coming election by never mentioning the word "president", but only referring – even visually – to the "head of state". It's unlikely that many people will notice that the "head of state" is played by the same actor who played the murderous father on Twin Peaks.

The irony is that the politics surrounding AS II parallel the politics within it. Having learned from experience with AS I, the producer took care to line up theaters to show it well before the release date. Here in Arizona, that meant getting a contract with the second-largest theater chain in the state. It also meant spending some of the film's tight budget on paid TV advertizing, and specifically paying for prime-time slots. Nonetheless, no less than three of the top Internet sites that usually list movie locations and times managed to lose all references to AS II, and I've noticed that the local media have blacked out mention of the film as efficiently as they ignored the Ron Paul campaign.

Nonetheless, the word has gotten out. When I saw the film there were perhaps 50 people in the audience – at the 10:30 AM showing, on Saturday morning, and it was on two screens of a 24-screen megaplex theater. I'd love to know what the numbers were for the afternoon and evening shows.

It's pretty clear that AS II will make its costs, and yes, there will be a final chapter. The "Atlas Shrugged" movies, like the book they came from, will not quietly go away.

--Leslie Fish

New Book Review: "Our Lady of Kaifeng"

2012-10-05T04:13:00.000-07:00

Historical Fantasy novels are thick on the shelves these days, but Historical Surrealism is amazingly rare. In fact, Aya Katz's "Our Lady of Kaifeng", Part One (www.CreateSpace.com), may be the first in that category since "The Saragossa Manuscript", written nearly 200 years ago.

The tale begins, as illustrated by the neo-Fauve cover painting, with the heroine riding across 1941 Japanese-occupied China in a wheelbarrow, heading for a Catholic girls' school run by a group of nuns with male saints' names -- and it gets weirder from there. One of the nuns is spying on the others, and all of them know it. One of the priests is obsessed with finding revelations in an ancient Chinese translation of the Old Testament, as preserved by an old Chinese Jewish family. One of the students is an erotomaniac who falls madly in love with any man -- including a teacher -- who shows her any kindness. There's a covert war going on between the priests and nuns from Italy -- including the Vatican -- who might or might not be siding with the occupying Japanese army, and everyone else at the school. The students make it clear that they don't want to learn how to think for themselves, but only to memorize data that they can dutifully repeat on government tests to win themselves approved government jobs. The heroine turns out to be a 40-year-old virgin, and an atheist, who has a daughter gotten by artificial insemination. The nuns are in the middle of arguing what to do about her when the Japanese army puts the whole school under arrest because America has just declared war on Japan. That's where Part One ends, fittingly, on a cliff-hanger.

The weirdness is, if anything, emphasized by Katz's understated Hemingwayesque style that treats practical school problems, bizarre politics and paranoid diatribes with equal calm detachment. It's furthered by the bizarre characters who stroll convincingly through the equally bizarre situations around them. Since the story is told from the heroine's point of view, this gives the sense of her personality being the same, viewing the weird events around her with an innocent astonishment or an amused equanimity. All things considered, those are probably the most sensible attitudes to take.

Knowing a bit about what happened after America entered World War Two, I can't wait to see Part Two of this series, if only to see how much more bizarre the story gets.

Racism Punks

2012-09-26T19:05:00.000-07:00

During the last year that I was living in the old house on the west side of Phoenix, soon after the housing collapse, a lot of my neighbors fell into serious poverty. One of them, though I didn't know it until later, was a fellow whom I'll call Mike. He'd had a small cabinet-making company which went broke, after which he lost his savings and his house, and took to sleeping in his truck, which he often parked in front of my house.

Another bunch of neighbors down the street hosted a gang of teenage punks. I'd tangled with the punks a few times before -- when I chased them out of my yard for trying to shoot one of my cats, when I chased them out of my driveway after they threw rocks through the front window, and so on -- and there was no love lost between us. The punks also made a big claim of "getting their own back" because, they claimed, they were "oppressed" because they were Mexican. Uhuh.

One night as I was getting ready for bed, I heard a lot of thumping and shouting right outside my house, where Mike usually parked his truck. Making a good guess, I grabbed up my pistol and went running out the front door. Out by the curb I saw two of the punks with short clubs, near the open back of the truck, fighting with Mike, who was empty-handed but had big fists. They stopped to gawk as I came marching toward them, which made me recall that I was wearing nothing but my underwear -- and, of course, the gun.

It was the gun that decided them. The punks turned and ran off down the sidewalk toward their lair. One of them, once he was a safe (he thought) 20 yards away (I usually shoot within the 7-ring at 25 yards), he stopped to turn and yell defiantly: "You're a Racist!"

Rrrrright. I snapped back: "You're not a race; you're a punk" -- and I raised the pistol into aiming position. The punk sensibly turned around and resumed running. Afterward, of course, I realized that what I should have said was: "Gee, I didn't know that @sshole was a race."

Anyway, I went to see if Mike was all right -- which he was, except for bruised knuckles -- had a brief talk with him, and ended by inviting him to come move into my house. He had no money, but he traded me a giant-sized television (which I still have, in storage) in exchange for three months' rent. The punks didn't bother us again.

Eventually, after searching and failing to find work in Phoenix, he moved up to Flagstaff where he had family. The landlord was obliged to sell the house, and I moved out to Mesa. I have no idea what happened to the punks, but I suspect that they finally wound up in the Graybar Hotel.

What I particularly remember about the whole incident is the punks using "racism" as a handy excuse for being punks. I can't help but wonder how many other young punks -- and older ones -- do the same.

--Leslie <;)))>< )O(