When do lawmakers think that sentences are excessive?

When the sentences apply to the lawmakers:

CHEYENNE — State lawmakers are drafting legislation that would prevent local governments in Wyoming from passing any gun control laws, under penalty of heavy fines or even removal from office.

...

Casper City Councilman Paul Bertoglio, who was mayor when the City Council acted, opposed the ordinance against weapons in city government meetings. But he defended the City Council’s right to pass such an ordinance, citing a provision in state law stating local governments can pursue laws not addressed by the state. [That's the whole point of the proposed legislation now isn't it, punkin? - Borepatch]

Bertoglio also said the punishments laid out in Kroeker’s proposal are “excessive,” especially the threat to have a court remove elected officials from office.

I guess we know all we need to  about how City Councilman Paul Bertoglio rolls.  Sounds like a great justification for "there ought to be a law".  And how about we send a ninja SWAT team to kick in his door at 0200 to see if he has any contraband gun control laws?

D-Day Minus 2

By the time you read this, I should almost be to Alabama, wheels pointed west towards FOB Borepatch.  Two days from now is the Dallas Area Blogshoot, and I need to announce a special guest:

Kevin Baker from The Smallest Minority

Needless to say, I'm pretty psyched to meet Kevin In Real Life, since he's the only one on the 'net who writes posts (almost) as long as mine.  He's not only a Wickid Smaht Bastid, but he's bringing an arsenal big enough to invade Canada.  Of course, he's bringing it to Dallas, so I expect that all y'all will bring something to add to the big ol' shooty pot luck.

Saturday, 10:00 AM until we get tired or run out of ammo.  Details on the blogshoot here.

Hmmm ... the whole situation makes me imagine the following conversation:

Super Smart™ Progressive: But why do you need to cross state lines to go shooting?

Me: It's quite simple, really.  The answer is @#$% you*.

See all y'all there.

* Thanks to Tam for many things, but especially for this line which I find gratifyingly useful.

Lead from the front

Yeah, this post is late, sorry - I was busy.

#2 Son's JROTC Awards Ceremony was tonight, and so I went.  I mean, I've missed pretty much everything like that this school year, being (mostly) 900 miles away down that Highway 20 Ride.  And so I wasn't about to miss one more.

I'm glad that I went.  The Major used an interesting expression in describing the attributes of each of those Cadets: "lead from the front".  I looked sideways at #2 Son and realized with sinking heart that he learns from example, too, and my example has been away for too long.

And so at the reception following the awards, I introduced myself to the Colonel.  I offered to come in and give a talk to the Cadets on information warfare, the field of cyber defense, and what the DoD is trying to do that might be of interest as a career path to High School JROTC Cadets.  Might even be able to turn it into a seminar series.

His eyes lit up.  I think that we have a plan, or at least a discussion.

Because it wouldn't hurt for #2 Son to see his old man do some leading from the front.  You do what you have to do to keep hearth and home whole, but now that I'll be home regularly it's time to set an example by actions.  So he sees that if you want to do something, own it.

So I'm really not sorry at all that I was late posting tonight.  No offense.

The cat nature

This cat haz it.

The picture of the day

(Image source)

LOL.  Via Michael Graham.

Thinking about the election

The Obama campaign looks like the magic smoke is coming out, which is too bad because that will leave us with President Slick Willard.  That is likely to be a disaster, but that will be a post for another day.  For now, here are some musings about the next six months.

1. Romney will continue to ignore conservatives and the Tea Party.

There's little down side in this for him - most conservatives and Tea Party types hate Obama with the fire of a thousand suns, and would gladly crawl across broken glass to vote against him.  They're the opposite of the cheerleader dating the dreamy quarterback - they're the cheerleader going out with any old shmoe to get back at the quarterback.  I fear that this will not end well for them, but it is what it is.

2. This will not be a blow out election.

Don Surber is calling 40 states for Romney, which is courageous.  Not happening, though.  Obama is no Mondale, and the symbolism of the first black President will shore up the Democratic base and keep turnout high in African American communities.  That gives Obama a starting point of a solid 25% to build on - that's half way to victory.  For Romney to win in a landslide he will have to way over-perform with Moderates and Independents.  It's possible, but would take a compelling and bold message to do so - "compelling" and "bold" are not adjectives commonly used to describe Mitten's campaign.


3. Obama's fund raising problems will hurt the Democratic down-ticket races.

Remember the Billion Dollars that Obama's campaign used to boast that they'd raise.  How's that working out for them?  Not go well, actually.  Fund raising efforts are way behind projections.  Combined with a campaign staff sized suitably for the First Ego, the Obama burn rate is high enough that they have a shockingly low cash on hand balance - actually not much more than Romney.  But the First Ego will take his typical "me first" approach, and so promising but poor new Democratic candidates will go begging.  Obama has no coat tails, either political or financial.

4. Romney has no coat tails, either.

Sure, he's Mr. Establishment, but he doesn't have star power.  He also doesn't have a message beyond "vote for me, my name isn't Barack Obama".  As a result, it's hard to see him have the money or the draw to help the Republican down ticket races much.  It may not matter much as the Republican base will be energized to vote for "Mr. Not Barack Obama", but they'd vote for Mussolini instead of Obama. 



Net/net, Romney will owe the establishment, big time.  Congress won't owe (or fear) him much at all.  He'll be a weak President the day he takes office.

5. Most voters will make up their mind on the way into the voting booth.

Most people are entirely sensible, in that they''re not political junkies.  As such, they'll make up their mind in the last week of the campaign.  The Democrats will, as they like to do, try to run some sort of "October Surprise" around Halloween, although since Romney is squeaky clean, it's hard to see what that might be.  But polls before mid-October will be essentially only of interest to the political equivalent of sabremetricians.

6. The Media will shamelessly (and hysterically) shill for Obama.  Won't matter.

The only people who still trust the media are Obama's base anyway.  So the MSM can dial the Obamessiah Love up to 11, and the Romney 2 minutes of hate up to 13, and it won't move the needle.  The old days of the media being worth 5-15 points are gone, and not coming back.  It's arguable, in fact, that the one sided media love fest actually produces negative results for Democrats, as the whole "Ann Romney never worked a day in her life" kerfuffle suggests.  Sure, the comment was idiotic.  What's interesting is why a Democrat thought she could get away with saying it.  MSM FTW!

7. A Romney Administration will be a disaster for America, for freedom, and for the Republican Party.

There, I said it.  That's a post for another day, but all the cheerleaders thinking that dating the President of the Chess Club will "show" that dumb old quarterback need to think how that particular date is likely to end up, and whether they want to end up married to this particular nerd.  More on this in a future post.

Security Smorgasbord, vol 4 no 2

Malware in Macland

More Mac OS X trojan activity:

Last week, Apple released two urgent updates to Mac OS X to:

1. Remove the Flashback malware about which we have already written

2. Automatically deactivate the Java browser plugin and Java Web Start, effectively disabling java applets in browsers

Particularly, the second step shows the severity of the CVE-2012-0507 vulnerability exploited by Flashback to infect almost 700,000 users via drive-by malware downloads.

Actually, it was the right decision because we can confirm yet another Mac malware in the wild - Backdoor.OSX.SabPub.a being spread through Java exploits.

This new threat is a custom OS X backdoor, which appears to have been designed for use in targeted attacks. After it is activated on an infected system, it connects to a remote website in typical C&C fashion to fetch instructions. The backdoor contains functionality to make screenshots of the user’s current session and execute commands on the infected machine.

Apple has been pretty immune to this sort of thing in the past, while their market share was too small to attract the attention of the Bad Guys.  Those days are over.  loadlin, baby!

Malware in Androidland

Borepatch's First Law of security is "free download" is Intarwebz speak for "open your mouth and close your eyes".  We've seen malware in the Android app store, and that doesn't look like it's changing:

Recently we discovered a new Android Trojan in the official Google Play market that displays a video downloaded from the Internet–but only if some sensitive information is previously sent to a remote server. The malicious applications are designed for Japanese users and display “trailers” of upcoming video games for Android.

It grabs the Android device ID, the phone number, your contacts list, etc, and beams it to somewhere on the 'net.  Seems over 70,000 people have downloaded it.  Me, I don't use apps.

Malware in Google Chrome browser extensions

Google has a web store for extensions to their Chrome browser.  Guess what showed up in the store?

Crooks have found a new venue to push malware: the official Google Chrome Web Store. It was recently used to hawk Chrome browser extensions secretly hijacking users' Facebook profiles.

According to Kaspersky Lab expert Fabio Assolini, one malicious extension hosted on Google's own servers contained hidden code that "can gain complete control" of the user's Facebook profile. The extension then used that access to spread malicious messages and register Facebook Likes for certain items, also inviting fellow users to install it. The same operators advertised a service that delivered Likes of companies looking to promote their profiles. It costs about $27 per 1,000 Likes.

Notice a common thread here?  Security - it's not just a good idea.  It's Borepatch's Law.

BAG Day in Chicago, Boston, and Washington D.C.

Here's the self defense weaponry allowed people trapped in the bluest of Blue Cities.



Just cut that magazine down to ten rounds ...

Global Warming is melting the glaciers

Soon, they'll all be gone!  Oh, wait:

Via 2cents, we see that Global Warming makes glaciers grow.  Well, duh!  Global Warming causes everything!



Fortunately, we have psychiatrists to help!  Psychiatrists FTW (Global Warming psychoses edition).  Maybe they can start with all those "scientists" who "hide the decline"?

Life's longing for itself

Congratulations to blogfriend Lissa and husband Mike, who are expecting!  Lissa actually told me this when we met in Orlando a couple weeks ago, but I was sworn to secrecy - but since she's just declassified the information, public congratulations are in order!

I hope that you and Mike love being parents as much as I have.  But I have to warn you - it gos by in a flash.  One day, you're bouncing them on your knee:

The next day (it seems), they're in their Class A:

It's been the best thing I've done.  I hope you find that same joy, and heartache, and joy.  I know that it's clich&eacute:, but this has stuck with me since we were expecting #1 Son.  The older I get, the more it speaks to me, whispering words straight to my soul in the dark of the night.

On Children (Kalil Gibran)

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The Archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the Archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Oh, and some day you'll be able to go away again with just you and Mike.  That will be nice, too.  Until then, I hope it's like this at the Raj Mahal:

Checklist Win

Packing up to head back to FOB Borepatch.  The Dallas Blogshoot is this Saturday, and so I find that my checklist includes items not seen before on other Blogshoot dates:

Rifle?  Check.

Other rifle? Check.

Other other rifle?  Nah, don't need it.

Other other other rifle?  Nah.

Pistol?  Check.

Other pistol?  Check check.

Win.  Mass.Gov gun grabbers could not be reached for comment, because who cares what they think.  Win win.

Maybe I'll bring those other rifles, just because.  ZOMG, he has an arsenal!!11!  And a thousand rounds of ammunition!!!eleventy!!

Win win win.

Like Tam says, Why do I need it, Mr. Mass.Gov Gun Grabber?  Because @#$% you.

Win win win win.  That's a lot of win, right there.

So there's a name for that?

Interesting:

I came across the phrase ‘leapfrogging’ only a few days ago — apparently meaning the Leftist practice of ignoring experience — the concrete, obvious and near at hand; and leaping over it to the ideology — abstract, remote and far away (usually only experienced via the mass media).

...

(Soviet Communism made a core principle of leapfrogging — it was the true Communist’s duty not to alleviate specific instances of distress or injustice, since this might delay the revolution which would end all distress and injustices.

For extra credit, apply the Leapfrogging analysis to libertarian philosophy.

BAG Day Sad Panda

Didn't get one.  Just getting stable financially for the first time in a while, and we did get four guns last year.  Sorry, guys.

Maybe a birthday Garand, after Appleseed.

Snark and firearms

Doubleplusundead has the funniest BAG Day post you'll read today, talking about great guns and great movies.  That is one funny dude:

8.Top Break/Schofield used by Sam Elliot in Tombstone. Great movie, possibly the best Wyatt Earp movie. Mostly because of Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday and Kurt Russell’s mustache. That’s one impressive mustache, even John Bolton is a little jealous of it.

Is the NRA running out of ammo?

Very interesting article by Adam Winkler on how the gun rights community increasingly sees the NRA as out of touch.  This part strikes me as the crux of the matter:

The NRA explained its position [on Heller v. DC] by saying it didn't want to risk losing at the Supreme Court. But gun owners told me they thought the NRA was really afraid of winning. The NRA, they said, thrives on crisis-driven fundraising appeals that warn about government coming to take away all your guns. What would happen to this fundraising machine if the Supreme Court said the Constitution prevented government from ever doing that? To many gun owners, the NRA seemed more interested in its own finances than in protecting those gun owners' rights.

Pournelle's Iron Law predicts this type of behavior, of course:

Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people":

 First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration.

Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc.

The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization.

*COUGH* Wayne LaPierre *COUGH*

I have to say that about the only thing between me and canceling my membership is the NRA's insurance policy for firearms.  But given that we only have maybe a couple grand invested in our guns, that's a thin thread.  Probably I'll send my money to the Second Amendment Foundation instead.

Climate Databases are still a mess

Dog bites man:

Virtually all of the USHCN warming since 1973 appears to be the result of adjustments NOAA has made to the data, mainly in the 1995-97 timeframe.

We've seen this before:

An interesting question is how much of the 20th century's temperature change is due to adjustments? As it turns out, the answer is all of it.

This chart shows the before-adjustment and after-adjustment temperatures for the 20th century, super imposed. All of the warming is due to adjustments, rather than raw data. Almost all of the adjustments are for readings after 1970.

Color me skeptical on the ZOMG Thermageddon panic. I would love for a clear explanation on the adjustments.  And I'd be a lot more sympathetic to the argument for warming if the warming didn't all evaporate when you just look at the original, unaltered data.

Sarah Flower Adams - Nearer My God To Thee

A century ago to this day, the Royal Mail Steamer Titanic struck an iceberg and foundered, taking 1,514 souls to a watery grave.  Many stories of heroism and sacrifice from that cold, desperate night have come down to us; perhaps none so moving as that of the band gathering on the boat deck to play music that might soothe the panic and grief of the passengers.  Bandmaster Wallace Hartley and the entire band perished, but did not desert their post.  The story started circulating almost immediately in 1912, and has given Hollywood some of its most powerful scenes of them playing the Titanic's last song.



Or was it?  Walter Lord, author of A Night To Remember and perhaps the finest Titanic historian devoted an entire chapter to this question in his sequal, The Night Lives On.  The story is, as most stories from that night are, confused and contradictory.

The Hymn Nearer My God To Thee was written by Sarah Flower Adams in 1841, and put to music by her sister Eliza.  But the music was not what you just heard, because the popular hymn was soon re-scored.  The tune in the scene above is properly called "Bethany", composed by Lowell Mason, and was the popular version of the hymn in the United States.  But Hartley was English, and the White Star Line was owned and operated by Englishmen.  In the UK, the tune most commonly played for the hymn was "Horbury" by John Bacchus Dykes:



But that's not the end of the matter.  Hartley was a Methodist, and the Methodist hymnal used a score by Sir Arthur Sullivan.  Perhaps this version was Titanic's ultimate song:



We have conflicting eye-witness accounts from survivors.  Col. Archibald Gracie was blunt when asked whether this was indeed the song [quoted from The Night Lives On]:

If 'Nearer My God To Thee' was one of the selections, I assuredly would have noticed it and regarded it as a tactless warning of immediate death, and more likely to create a panic ...

Others said that the music was light and cheerful, tunes that the band had been playing all voyage.  One in particular was called out, "Autumn", referring to the 1911 London hit Songe d'Automne:



A few have said that the reference was to the Church of England hymn Autumn, but according to Lord that seems unlikely as it was rarely used and removed from the hymnal a few years later.  In any event, the legend lives on to this day.  The disaster called forth perhaps the best from society, and Caruso himself performed at a benefit concert only a couple of weeks after the sinking.



Perhaps most astonishing of all, Bandleader Hartley's body was one of the few recovered, and was brought back to England for burial.  Lord describes the scene:

Seven bands played as his rosewood casket, borne shoulder-high, was carried through the winding streets of Colne, Hartley's birthplace in the winding hills of Lancashire.  Aldermen, councilors, ambulance men, police, boys' brigades, and musicians from all over England fell in behind - the procession was a half-mile long.  Thousands lined the route, most wore black or white, but occasionally there were mill girls in their drab shawls and miners in their blue overalls.  All business had stopped for the day.

They were closer to the tragedy than we, looking back through the glass darkened by a century's passing.  They felt the grief of loss sharply, the sudden and entirely unexpected loss of friends and family.  That's worth a moment of our thought this morning, for the lost souls - men, women, and children - of the unsinkable Titanic.  And so the circle is completed, with an achingly beautiful a capella version of the first version of the hymn that we heard here.  Whether this was the last song that they heard or not, these words seem fitting.

Though like the wanderer, the sun gone down,

Darkness be over me, my rest a stone;

Yet in my dreams I'd be nearer, my God, to Thee

That's gentler than the 1892 Book Of Common Prayer which would have been familiar to most of the doomed souls:

O MOST glorious and gracious Lord God, who dwellest in heaven, but beholdest all things below; Look down, we beseech thee, and hear us, calling out of the depth of misery, and out of the jaws of this death, which is now ready to swallow us up: Save, Lord, or else we perish. The living, the living shall praise thee. O send thy word of command to rebuke the raging winds and the roaring sea; that we, being delivered from this distress, may live to serve thee, and to glorify thy Name all the days of our life. Hear, Lord, and save us, for the infinite merits of our blessed Saviour, thy Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.  

Amen.

Those who go down to the sea in ships

Who do business on Great Waters,
They have seen the works of the LORD
and His Wonders in the deep.

Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine,
Et lux perpetua luceat eis.

Amen

The Titanic sank 100 years ago.  More here and here.

Dallas Blogshoot Reminder - one week

One week from today will be the Dallas blog shoot.

When: Saturday, April 21 2012 at 10:00 AM until mid-afternoon or when people want to leave.

Where: 3100 E. Beltline Rd, Ferris, TX 75125.


What to Bring: It's Texas, and late spring, so bring lots of water.  There's likely somewhere near by for lunch, but I'm not sure where (you might want to bring lunch).  Oh yeah - bring your guns and ammo.

Charity Raffle: We're having a Blogshoot raffle to support our gunnie brothers and sisters trapped behind Enemy Lines in the People's Soviet* of Massachusetts.  Each pre-ban AR magazine you donate to the Cause will get you one chance to win.  I'll bring (mostly lame) prizes, as well as the obligatory stuffed children's toy that we sacrifice to the Gunnie Ghods.  Remember, these have to be pre-ban, meaning manufactured before 1994, or we can't send 'em to JayG and the Crew.  Bring your old stuff - these are surprisingly hard to get in Massachusetts (which is the point).  Stupid Mitt Romney and his "assault weapon" ban.

Obligatory Blogshoot Target: We have a HopeNChange™ unicorn to shoot.  I hear that every time you hit it, you'll get a rainbow Unicorn fart.  Well, it's what I heard.

Carpooling:  The Texas Gun Blogosphere's own community organizer, Southern Belle has generously agreed to help, err, organize.  While carpooling is a commie plot to undermine the fabric of American society, at $4/gal it's pretty dang expensive to do long road trips (ask me how I know!).  We have folks in Houston, San Antonio, and Dallas - and points outside and in between).  If anyone is thinking about NOT coming because of the cost of gas (or the hassle of driving), please leave a comment here or over at her place.  I can bring two people from Austin to and from the blogshoot, and if we can get a few other folks to volunteer, we can bring a Texas sized crew.

A HUGE tank you to our host, U.S. Citizen, for arranging range time for us.  See you next week!

HAHAHAHAHA

All you need to know about the Democrats and Ann Romney, set to music.

Man, those Democrats are so much smarter than everyone else. *Rolls Eyes*