Politics

Show Me The Data

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Facts. Funny thing they are.

Data is funny too, since it helps to reinforce Truth. Or at least, it should help to dispel falsehoods.

Those that don’t like guns like to tout that “more guns equals more deaths”.

I’ve yet to see their data that backs up this claim AND that stands up to scrutiny.

But then there’s Linoge, analyzing the data and the data shows that no, more guns does not equal more deaths.

So there you go… there’s the facts, there’s the data, there’s the hard evidence. I know the Truth may be hard to swallow, and I know this Truth may not help your agenda nor support your personal bias. But what are you interested in? Truth? or something less?

on testing and qualification

/ hsoi

ToddG reveals something that many wouldn’t like to know — the truth about police shooting qualification courses.

For the non-gun public, I think the thing they’ll probably be shocked to realize is how little many police forces actually shoot their guns, and how when standards are made “more realistic” lots of cops can’t pass the minimum requirements.

The anti-gun folk say things like only police should have guns… you know, people with training and skill. You would be shocked to see how many don’t have either. Just because your job requires you to have a gun doesn’t mean you can use it (effectively). Conversely, just because you’re a normal Joe Citizen doesn’t mean you don’t have nor can’t acquire good gun handling skills, and their skill level can surpass those who have “gun” in their job description.

This is not to say it’s this way across the board. Many police officers are good shots, and a lot of PD’s are realizing a need to up the ante — which is ultimately the crux of Todd’s article.

What’s sad is when people blame the test instead of looking at themselves. It’s like anything in life. If something fails or goes wrong, where does the blame first go? It ought to be on you, to examine yourself and see what you can do better.

But it’s like any sort of mandated government “test”, be it a police qual or be it standardized testing. There’s lots of politics, lots of wrangling, and lots of weight put onto the test — even if the test has nothing to do with anything in the real world. But because such weight is put onto the test, all “education” then becomes is prepping for the test. So we don’t prepare people for the real world, we just prepare them for a test that really doesn’t matter much in the world — but it matters to some pencil-pusher or politician somewhere.

Well, at least in this area of life it seems some are trying to get it and improve the way things are.

Carry a gun in National Parks? This is why.

/ hsoi

Authorities confirmed tonight it was a stranger who stabbed and sexually assaulted a woman in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park earlier today.

Full story. (h/t Unc)

There was much uproar a couple of years back when it became permissable to carry concealed weapons in national parks (so long as you still had credentials and obeyed the local laws).

Folks wondered why in the world would you need a gun in a national park?

Let’s ignore how much of our national parkland is used for the drug trade and wandering into a marijuana farmer’s camp is probably one of the most unexpected and undesirable things that you could do.

Let’s ignore the reality of wild animals and that your stumbling upon a baby bear will not elicit a warm hug from the momma bear.

And now, we have a stabbing and sexual-assault.

It wasn’t like the woman was in some remote area of the park either. She was on the Gatlinburg Trail, which is “frequently used by joggers, walkers, and bicyclists.”

“Things like this don’t happen everyday. It is definitely a rare incident,” Melissa Cobern with the Public Affairs Office of the National Park Service said.

That may be true. But just how much comfort should the victim take in being told “but it’s a rare event you were brutally stabbed and sexually assaulted”? Statistics are of little comfort when you’re the anomaly.

 

So much can be taken from this

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

Napoleon Rutledge, a 67-year-old Chattanooga man and Vietnam vet, was the victim of an attempted robbery in a grocery store parking lot.

Rutledge refused to be a victim.

In fact, he was mad.

When the gunman held the gun up Rutledge said, “Why you wanna rob me? Why don’t you get a job? What I got, what I get, what I spend in this store, I earned it! I said if you gonna shoot me then shoot me. I got a wife and three kids that you’ll have to take care of.”

The gunman apparently got scared and took off, tho was apprehended along with two others.

Rutledge just doesn’t understand the mentality of people like Malone. “What is wrong with them? I got drafted to go to Vietnam, I didn’t have a choice. They got all the opportunities in the world now to make something of themselves but they don’t want it,” he said.

In hearing this story, I think about so many different things.

First, Rutledge is black, and his robber was black. So those of you wishing to inject race or racism as the root of all conflict are just out of luck here… sorry Jesse Jackson, sorry Al Sharpton, go pander somewhere else. Or better, how about you come and support Mr. Rutledge?

But it also demonstrates that race isn’t the issue. It’s an issue of people who work and earn their keep in this world, that are productive, and just don’t like people who come along and wish to take it from them… that expect a handout, or are unwilling to earn their keep, or are otherwise unproductive in society. And yes, the parallel between this robbery and the robbery going on by our government and so much “liberal compassion”, desire to “redistribute wealth”, and so on well… it’s about the same, both in behavior and in the anger it produces in the victim.

The there’s the coda to the article:

It should be noted this is not how the Chattanooga Police Department recommends you react in a similar situation, but in Napoleon’s case it seemed to work.

If you watch the video, it’s slightly different saying “it’s nice to see the good guy win for once”. Folks, if you want to keep seeing the good guy win, then the only way to do it is to stand up to the bad guy. Handling things the way the Police say will always let the bad guy win. No the good guys won’t always win, but if you always permit yourself to be the victim, you’ll never have a chance to be the victor.

 

Why we’re losing

/ hsoi / 10 Comments

I can go check out the economic experiments in Chile or Hong Kong or Puerto Rico, stick a piece of plastic in the wall, and cash will come out. I can give that same piece of plastic to a stranger who doesn’t even speak my language, and he’ll rent me a car for a week. When I get home, Visa or MasterCard will send me the accounting— correct to the penny. That’s capitalism! I just take it for granted.

Government, by contrast, can’t even count votes accurately. Yet whenever there are problems, people turn to government. Despite the central planners’ long record of failure, politicians promise that this time they will “fix” health care, education, the uncertainty of old age, etc., and people believe. Few of us like to think the government that sits atop us, taking credit for everything and taking our money under threat of imprisonment, could really be all that rotten. And look at all the good things around us! What, besides our unique government, could have brought us such plenty?

But it’s not from the $3.8 trillion a year in spending, the 80,000 new pages of regulations a year, or even from democracy that we get such wonderful options as flexible contact lenses, Google, cellphones, increasing life spans, and so much food that even poor people are fat. We get those things from free markets. Government gets credit for good things even when it does little to bring them about.

– John Stossel, “Why We’re Losing” in Reason magazine’s June 2012 issue.

How does the saying go?

Fool me once, shame on you.

Fool me twice, and I’ll continue re-electing the jackass?

As I read Stossell’s article, I couldn’t help but wonder why people keep turning to government for solutions? It doesn’t matter if you’re Democrat or Republican, conservative or liberal, both of those groups do this very thing. They complain about how horrible government is when it comes to X, but then when they want Y they turn to government as if they think it will give it to them. Then Y gets all screwed up, and along comes time for Z and they keep going back for more.

I mean, most people seem to realize if a restaurant sucks and you get crappy service, you don’t go back. I don’t know people who would say “the food sucks, the wait staff was rude, the drinks way overpriced, but I’m making that my regular weekend hangout!”.  But that’s precisely what happens when people keep turning to government to solve their problems.

I just don’t understand that behavior.

But maybe it’s that “definition of insanity” thing… where you keep doing the same thing and expecting different results?

On the flip side, we are surrounded by the successes of free market, of privatization, and yes I think Stossel’s above example of accounting is a perfect demonstration. Not to mention the computer or smartphone you’re reading this on. But I guess he’s right… we just take it for granted and so we don’t really realize what we’ve got.

And so… we’re losing.

Give Stossel’s article a read.

Objectivist-C

/ hsoi

Are you a Mac or iOS programmer? Do you write code in Objective-C?

Do you know who Ayn Rand is?

If you like both, there’s now the perfect programming language for you: Objectivist-C!

Objectivist-C was invented by Russian-American programmer Ope Rand. Based on the principle of rational self-interest, Objectivist-C was influenced by Aristotle’s laws of logic and Smalltalk. In an unorthodox move, Rand first wrote about the principles of Objectivist-C in bestselling novels, and only later set them down in non-fiction.

You can read all about it here. 🙂  (h/t Ed)

I think my favorite is:

In Objectivist-C, software engineers have eliminated the need for object-oriented principles like Dependency Inversion, Acyclic Dependencies, and Stable Dependencies. Instead, they strictly adhere to one simple principle: No Dependencies.

Heh. 🙂

They obviously missed the memo

/ hsoi

A student on the campus of Rice University was robbed a gunpoint.

I guess the robbers didn’t get the memo that schools and universities are gun free zones. Criminals don’t obey the law… imagine that!

Ain’t politics grand?

/ hsoi / 7 Comments

This was posted at the McMilian Group International Facebook page (h/t to Rog and Dock)

McMillan Fiberglass Stocks, McMillan Firearms Manufacturing, McMillan Group International have been collectively banking with Bank of America for 12 years. Today Mr. Ray Fox, Senior Vice President, Market Manager, Business Banking, Global Commercial Banking came to my office. He scheduled the meeting as an “account analysis” meeting in order to evaluate the two lines of credit we have with them. He spent 5 minutes talking about how McMillan has changed in the last 5 years and have become more of a firearms manufacturer than a supplier of accessories.
At this point I interrupted him and asked “Can I possible save you some time so that you don’t waste your breath? What you are going to tell me is that because we are in the firearms manufacturing business you no longer what my business.”
“That is correct” he says.
I replied “That is okay, we will move our accounts as soon as possible. We can find a 2nd Amendment friendly bank that will be glad to have our business. You won’t mind if I tell the NRA, SCI and everyone one I know that BofA is not firearms industry friendly?”
“You have to do what you must” he said.
“So you are telling me this is a politically motivated decision, is that right?”
Mr Fox confirmed that it was. At which point I told him that the meeting was over and there was nothing let for him to say.

I think it is import for all Americans who believe in and support our 2nd amendment right to keep and bear arms should know when a business does not support these rights. What you do with that knowledge is up to you. When I don’t agree with a business’ political position I can not in good conscience support them. We will soon no longer be accepting Bank of America credit cards as payment for our products.

Kelly D McMillan
Director of Operations
McMillan Group International, LLC
623-582-9635
www.mcmillanusa.com

As if you need another reason to leave Bank of America. Or for some, I’m sure it means a reason to bank with BoA… but hey, you enjoy your victim-rich zone.

But they won’t listen to him

/ hsoi

Kip Hawley, former head of the TSA, “has said that the country’s airport security system is a broken mess making travelling ‘an unending nightmare’ for passengers.”

How refreshing. From the full article:

Kip Hawley, who was head of the TSA from 2005-2009, has argued that the system would be more effective if it embraced more risk including allowing passengers to bring almost anything on board including knives, liquids and lighters.

Hawley criticises the current procedure for reducing airport security into an ‘Easter-egg hunt’ where TSA officers look out for low-risk prohibited items, such as lighters, rather than focusing on disrupting terror plots.

And that it has. Countless stories of people getting lighters confiscated but more “deadly” items getting right through. Where’s security in that? But some politician feels better about it.

If you read the full article at the WSJ, it goes even deeper, and with a reasonable conclusion:

To be effective, airport security needs to embrace flexibility and risk management—principles that it is difficult for both the bureaucracy and the public to accept. The public wants the airport experience to be predictable, hassle-free and airtight and for it to keep us 100% safe. But 100% safety is unattainable. Embracing a bit of risk could reduce the hassle of today’s airport experience while making us safer at the same time.

That’s right. 100% safety is unattainable. But if perhaps if they can focus on major risk instead of Easter Egg hunts, if the citizenry can accept that you can’t live life in a protective bubble and perhaps are willing to accept some self-responsiblity for one’s own safety… maybe we could make life a little less hellish again.