Oh, Henry Louis, We Hardly Knew Ye

Why is it when I read Uncle on buying an EBR now, before the flush, I'm reminded of Mencken's marvelous words, "Every election is a sort of advance auction of stolen goods."

As Kim duToit hath writ, buy your EBR now, or ASAP with your tax rebate; 'cos while you're bein' handed your own money they took, the incongrous legisleeches -- sorry! "Statesmen in Congress" -- under our next Glorious Leader are liable t'be bribin' the pusillanimous with your freedom to keep'n'bear same.

Me, I'm torn -- a lot more rounds for the SKS, or an AK-type semi-auto? Or ought I consider an "intermediate sniper rifle" of the sort the VPC has in their crosshairs or a nice Mini-30? (Or do I repeat myself and if so, since when the dickens was a nice little deer rifle an "intermediate sniper rifle," and who are those "intermediate snipers," anyway? The clumsy ones who couldn't handle big rifles? The ones who aren't small enough and sneaky enough to wriggle up close with a .25? Junior High School kids? Bad shots who can't off a bad'un with a .17 HMR but wince at a .410? A drink and two dances?*) --Whatever I get, I'll buy some SKissable ammo, natch.

Hey feds? I'm gonna spend yer free money my money comin' back on scary-bad go-boom stuff. Try not to wet yourself too obviously, 'kay?
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(In a BoR-related vein, I have long felt that the most succinct statement of the practical application of freedom of religion as a social act rather than a political commandment is Mencken's, "We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart." Sure, it's funny, but there's more there than immediately meets the eye).

* Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot. Really, one might as well have dinner and a smoke while you're at it.

What Is This Thing Called McCain?

Here I thought his success-through-cozening-the-opposition was unique! Hardly. Bravely running with the hounds and hunting with the hare is almost as old as party politics in the United States.

Brother John's a Quid. (War On Guns agrees!)

--And 'm just gonna ask this once, okay? Stop spreading the rumour that he's actually been dead for two years and has stalled taking his final breath in committee. That's just mean.

Sooooper Tuesday

My take on the much-touted, this'll-settle-it primaries this week: the electorate cannot decide whether to vote their IQ or their shoe size.

Given the choices left, who can blame them?

'08: the Year of None Of The Above. >Sigh< If only!

Until then, Dr. Paul is the next best thing. And his platform is better than NOTAs, really.

Why The Electoral College Is Good

Not opinion but mathematical analysis! With models that actually look like the real world instead of using the easiest examples. --Go here and read it. And for the "math is hard" whiners,* fear not, no calculator needed.

All thanks to Geek With A .45, who had an itch this might be the case and found someone who had preemptively scratched it!
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* Yeah, that's kind of mean but if you spent as much time as I do with people who style themselves "engineers" yet have to be dragged kicking and screaming to punch in the numbers and turn the crank...! Thankfully, neither Boss's Boss nor the XO himself suffer this peculiar aversion.

Running Out Of Sugar Can Be Good

(Okay, I set this minor post aside this morning to avoid burying my own lede -- as they spell it now -- but not every post I make is deep and not all of them discuss property rights in terms of underthings, either!)

Used up the last of the Sugar In The Raw yesterday and promptly spaced the purchase of more at gettin'-home time last evening.

So, oh, horrors, I am havin' to sip my fresh Silex-brewed coffee* with high-test sweet chocolate from the organo-mart dissolved in it an' will be enjoyin' mushrooms with scrambled eggs and bacon mixed in instead of oatmeal.

Sometimes it's okay to run out of a staple!
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* The Chemex is taking the week off -- ran out of filters and they're hard to come by. A vacuumatic is almost as good. (Edit: managed to pick up a box of filters -- and a bite of King cake! -- on the way to work. Yayy!)

Stickin' To My Guns

Or, If This Ain't A Lap Dance, My Underwear Is None Of Your Business
Or, Yes, Robinga, There Are Property Rights

And so on and so forth.

Several commenters have framed the question of one's right to keep'n'bear arms on private property as a conflict of rights; some have suggested that because property rights are so routinely violated by legislative fiat, one more ("in the aid of a good cause!") won't matter.

I luvs ya all (here's a big ol' snogg t'prove it: mmmmmwah!) but, well, BZZT! Wrong.

It's turtles property rights all the way down.

I'm in favor of "keep it in your car" laws and other laws that, in the words of the Bradys, "force employers to allow workers to carry concealed weapons into the workplace" because most employers don't have any way to keep folks from carrying -- nor do they go to any other effort besides saying, "Now, now, pretty please don't," which as we all know, works ever so well on the crazies and the ill-intentioned. Workplace rules against carrying work just like laws against carrying: they disarm only those who are minded to play by the rules. Striking them down levels the playing field and strengthens property rights. I explain below.


L. Neil Smith titled one of his essays "Why Did It Have To Be -- Guns," and just to make comprehension easier for everyone, I'm going to make my starting examples about something other than firearms. We're gonna talk about underwear and scary studded biker belts. Okay?


It all stems from property rights: the basic property right has nothing to do with land, with bricks and mortar; the basic right is property in your own person. Yer bod'. The coverings upon it, the coverings over them, and the various and sundry vade mecumbrances[1] you stuff into the pockets and interstices thereof, suspend from it, etc. etc. Stemming directly from this property right is your right to privacy in your person. You will find some allusion to it in the U. S. Bill of Rights, the Fourth Amendment in particular. Can we all agree that while the Fourth restricts its limitations to the government, the right to privacy in one's person and immediate effects is indeed inherent and universal?

If you disagree, consider this: I enter your business, go to work for you or enter your home under circumstances in which I will not be visible to anyone unclad. Do you have the right to dictate to me what sort of underwear I may wear? How do you propose to enforce your will? Is it any of your dam' business if I'm swathed in fine lace, sweating into a cotton knit, or tingling to oiled leather?

Now, if we were to become intimate and you've got some freaky hangup against cammo-patterned boxers and that's what I've got on[2], you'd be on pretty solid ground suggesting I had better leave. Conditions of our interaction will have changed.

Okay, rewind, strike out "underwear," substitute "concealed sidarm." It isn't any different.

The interface between your property rights and mine is right where your floor meets the soles of my shoes. I didn't lose or gain any rights when I stepped onto your floor and you didn't gain or lose any.


Okay, next. Say I like wicked-lookin' biker belts, the big wide black ones with studs 'n' eyelets and yadda yadda (and in fact, I do). And I'm invited into your house with one on and you don't like it. Oopsie. Well, I can go stash it in my car, or if that's not enough, seeya later! Likewise, an employer has some right to dictate what employees may wear, for safety, for the sake of providing some appearance the employer deems needful or fitting, that's pretty basic. Yes, they can tell me not to wear open-toed shoes, or T-shirts with political slogans or mean biker belts, even the superkewl one made of old drive chain. (Shucks!) May a business exercise a similar power over its customers? Well, fine, chum, but you don't make money by chasing customers away.

And if you sub in "openly-carried sidearm," it works just the same.


My car? Even parked on your lot, the inside of it belongs to me -- especially if I keep it locked. That's just practical good sense. (We'd like to think everyone around us respects the property of others, wouldn't we? Yes, and in Happy Unicorn Rainbowland, maybe they do. Not on this planet. Lock yer doors). My car, my house, my purse: mine. And mine to keep secure. What's in 'em is none of your beeswax.


Okay, there's the general case. Brass-tackage follows.


For corporations, my opinion is the bar's higher and they should be held to the standards of the Bill of Rights. YMMV.

Right of contract? Sure. You already can sign away a lot of your rights, ask any bail bondsman. On the other hand, my relationship with my employer's governed by a contract and it says not Word One about weapons; and yet I still respect their fears and refrain. In a practical sense, I'd likely lose anyway were I to press the issue and get caught, the courts bein' far from immune to animism with respect to handguns. On a higher plane, since they do supposedly have some silly rule I'm happy to let 'em suffer any negative consequences that may come of it. I'm usually well out of the likeliest lines of fire. That contract also includes some boilerplate about "...subject to the laws of the nation and state...."


The previous two paragraphs together start to point to the "drug-sniffing dogs that find guns" question. It seems to me that if Artifical or Real Person "N" goes a-sniffin' fer them horriawful, illegal drugs to be found in the private cars parked in the lot, he or she or it is once again acting as an agent of the State and ought to be bound by the Bill of Rights and whatever similar provisions are to be found in the state constitution and applicable statute an' case law, with an eye to things like "probable cause." Oooo, remember when that wasn't snickered at? In the real and present world, keepin' an ear to the ground would not be remiss.

Tam's hippie with a candleshop, same as my generic examples: let him be guided by what he sees. And let Tam and the other customers be guided by their good sense. Flashin' a gun you don't intend to shoot is as declasse' as flashin' your undies at someone you're not plannin' to sleep with.

This stuff is not that hard. There's no "conflict of rights" here. It's turtles all the way down.[3]
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1. "Vade mecum" + "encumbrance." I'm so clever I could just erp.

2. Un-freaking-likely, Pilgrim.

3. This is in reference to a story Turk Turon delights in, about a lecturer on cosmology being confronted by a sweet little old flat-Earther lady who tells him, "You're wrong about the world being a ball. It's flat and it stands on the backs of four elephants and they stand on the back of a giant turtle." "Oh," he asks, "And what does the turtle stand on?" She replies, "I see what you're trying to do, young man, but it won't work. It's turtles alllll the way down."

"Keep It In Your Car" Laws And The Like...

Something I mentioned in passing earlier and about which my opinion is apparently in the minority even amongst libbytarians[1] an' howlin' anarchists of the individualist stripe--

Laws that bar businesses from restricting your right to carry or even possess on their property effective means of self-defense, either in whole or in part.

I'm in favor of 'em, at least in most situations. "What," you gasp, "you favor empowering the State to push around businesses?"

Yep. 'Cos most businesses are already creatures of the State. They're corporations. Artificial persons. Entities that would neither have legal rights nor even exist were it not for the State and as such, they should be bound by the Bill of Rights, same as the State. They already cannot tell you what political party you may belong to or what books you may read. Oh, true, there are books and magazines you might get in trouble for reading openly at work, that it would be plain rude to be readin' at work; but your own books, in your own bag or locker, are none of their business. They cannot tell you what church you may attend or what philosophical beliefs you may hold. How, then, is it any of their concern that you've got a Kel-tec inside your waistband under your coat or a .45 in your purse? (Uness it's not secure; that's a safety issue).

If businesses have a right to tell their patrons and employees what they may carry concealed, then you'd better go whole hog, kiddo: they have a right to dictate the color and style of your underwear, the minute you set foot on their property.[2] If you're okay bein' told what you may or may not have with you to defend your life and property by the folks at Mall-Wart or Smalltime Hot Dog Emporium, then they have a right to scope out all the contents of the car you parked in their lot and kick you out or worse if they don't like what they find. Are you okay with that? Are firearms in the hands of honest, decent men and women any different, special or magical in some way a toothbrush or a penknife is not?

Either you believe guns are self-aware talismans of horror and death just waiting to leap up and murder innocent bystanders (and if so, you'd best hie thee hence to the Bradys), or you understand the reality: that lump of metal, plastic and cordite is just exactly as much or as little a threat as the person who's in control of it.

That doesn't change when you go shopping at the home-improvement store. That doesn't change when you go to work. Neither your employer nor the merchants you buy from is in loco parentis, though a good many of them seem to be loco in a way that makes them think they're your parents.

...Now, I have to go to work in the real world and where I work, they are gun-shy. At present, the only solution to that is to refrain from keepin' and bearin' at work and apply my efforts to changing the law.
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1. Pretty consistently spelled that way and not capitalized so as to underscore that it is the entire messy mixed bag of folks who wanna mind their own business and not be futzed with by an ever-more-restrictive government to which I refer, not one political party or some narrow slice of the spectrum.

2. Unless you happen to work in some industry in which you'll be showin' off said underthings to view. Yes, boys, even strip clubs have employee dress codes.

Attic Antics

Thanks -- once again! -- to the Data Viking, I've got an attic just about ready to turn into a decent room. We wrapped up all but some small and awkward corners of the vapor barrier today, after having completed the insulation last week. (It feels warmer already, probably 'cos we've got an unseasonable warm front rolling in. My sinuses are nonplussed).

The attic had kneewalls framed in and a fair amount of insulation when I bought the place, so we weren't starting from scratch; but it was something I'd never tried before.

It will take some more effort -- not to mention wainscoting and wallboard, scubbing scrubbing [thanks, Tam!] and paint, plus a bit of electrical work -- but I'm now in a position to follow up on my earlier plan to find a like-minded boarder to rent the room. I may have a line on someone. We shall just have to see how it works out.

How Can This Be?

A multi-victim shooting near Chicago?

How can that even be possible? Why, according to the Bradys, Illinois ranked ninth of the 50 states for laws to prevent gun violence. (Indiana's ranking is 32).

You don't suppose this might imply such laws don't stop wicked, violent people from doing terrible things? Oh, hully gee!

Since no mere ordinary citizens subjects in the Land Of Lincoln are "allowed" to carry the most effective means of self-defense ever developed, this sort of thing goes on unhindered; by the time police become involved, the initiators of force have got a good head start. Late word is that in this shooting, the perpetrators are still at large. Oh, there's nothing like that warm, safe Chicago-style freedom from gun violence, nothing at all.

Idiots.

I really want Indiana to recognize the Illinois FOID as a carry permit. The requrements are at least as stringent as the ones to obtain an Indiana License To Carry Handgun and it would make the firearms-fearing ninnies on that side of the line wet themselves.

Idiots! Iiiiiidiiioots.....

I wondered why the Brady Bunch had given my Hoosier state a worse score (8) than Tam's Tennessee (7). (In Brady terms, higher is "better," I guess since it means malefactors have a better chance of finding disarmed victims. The idea appears to be that if you have anything worth stealing, you're a heartless exploiter anyway, so by the standards of their wing of the Party Of Treason, you've got it coming).

The reason why our score is worse is simple: they didn't do their homework. They've somehow missed Indiana's "Stand Your Ground" law and the well-supported 19th Century legal precedent that actually made the law redundant.

Hey, Bradys: We can shoot bad guys who threaten us in Indiana, no matter where they try it. At home. In public. Even at work -- though I admit, state law does not require employers to allow their workers who are qualified to carry firearms. Not yet, anyway. (One can hope we'll at least get a "keep it in your car" law through and until then, I'll be a good little girl, boss. Umm, as long as there's no problem with my pocketknife and all the heavy, sharp and/or pointy tools I use to do my job).

Anyway, the Bradys are wrong, not only overall but in detail. Ooooo, what a surprise! Hoplophobic[1] PSH[2] as usual.

In related news, crime rates continue to be lower in "must-issue" states than in "may-issue" and "no-issue" ones. Who knew?
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1. Hoplophobia, "a morbid fear of individual sidearms," something Freud said was a sign of sexual insecurity.

2. Let's just say it stands for "pants-soiling hysteria." Your version may vary.

So Here We Are

And I have done just zilch -- zip-squat, nada-zero[1] -- in the last week, in the last two weeks, other than fix stardrives and their support widgetry, eat, sleep, bathe and read.

At least I've read. The Book Is My Friend and has been at least since third grade when I discovered A) illustrated encyclopedias and B) Science Fiction. And I have been a no-good bum of a bookworm ever since. ("Put down that book, Bobbi, and go do something." Man, were they ever befuddled when "doing something" involved stringin' antenna wires above the back yard an' popping the occasional circuit breaker, or crawling through muddy, dusty caves or spidering up sheer mountain sides in Wyoming[2]. Hey, you read about this stuff enough, after you get a little bigger, you want to go do it, or as much of it as you can manage).

So what've I read?

- Going Postal, Terry Pratchett -- already mentioned. I need more Discworld books, a shortage I hope to rectify today[3].

- Engaging The Enemy, Elizabeth Moon -- The third of four books following starship captain Kylara Vatta, in a very well worked out setting. I've read the previous two and enjoyed them, this is equally as good. Not world-shattering SF in any sense of the term; it's a well-written, good adventure story that happens to take place in an imaginary future. It's hard SF with three-dimensional characters, something that was in short supply for a long time.

- Three Days To Never, Tim Powers -- Either you get Powers or you don't. I do. Previous books have featured such characters and notions as the ghost of Thomas Alava Edison, a child star who died of fright a very long time ago but stubbornly refuses to admit it, the ghost-trapping properties of palindromes and a loudspeaker that depends on the electrically-variable slipperiness of wet chalk to work. (The latter is an entirely real effect, by the way). This one's a realistic treatment certain aspects of time travel and includes Mossad operatives, a loving father (and one who's not), outright mysticism, emergency tracheotomy, remote viewing, nice ways to conceal guns and probablistically-created clones. It's also an edge-of-the-seat chase tale, with enough suspense for five movies -- and a few good shoot-outs. I don't know if this stuff is for everyone, Powers' imagination puts us in a very strange but familiar world, but I enjoyed it.

- Once A Hero and Rules Of Engagement, Elizabeth Moon -- The first two of four books following the career of Regular Space Service officer Esmay Suiza, a Horatio Hornblower-type heroine from a rather isolated and somewhat backward planet. Esmay's an engaging character; the society of her homeworld (think simplified version of South America, along about 1950) and the wider civilization (a bad-as-17th-Century-Britain late-feudal monarchy, more-or-less, in which the First Families of settled planets are well and truly entitled) I find both plausible and ethically repellent. Still, if you liked Hornblower, you'll like these books, and I do. I just wouldn't want to live there. The first book has rather more depth of characterization than most SF.

- The Mitzvah, Aaron Zelman and L. Neil Smith -- I like L. Neil and I like what Zelman's got to say. It is not all that strong on plot; the story is fairly straight-line and the (very good) points to be made that underpin it kind of poke through like the springs of a well-worn couch. Considering the vivid imagery and characters and that it is their first book togther, it's not bad, merely a little rough around the edges.

- Hope, Aaron Zelman and L. Neil Smith -- This book is a great deal better than their previous work in terms of the mechanics and how plot and message work together. One of the most readable and polished "If libbytarians ran the world" novels I have yet read. If El Neal had been elected President, he'd've sounded and acted a great deal like Alexander Hope. Although the Usual Villians get skewered and Our Guys are both noble and talented, there was some effort made to avoid caricature in portraying either side. Could it happen? I doubt it, and more's the pity. Read it anyway; if you don't have aspirations, you'll remain breathlessly hopeless and the authoritarians will win easily. Don't miss the cameo apperance of Lucille Gallegos Kropotkin!

Just started Micheal Z. Williamson's The Weapon, which is the first of his I've read. Ninety pages in, I'm hangin' on for dear life, as he moves more quickly than any writer I have read. Very reminiscent of Robert A. Heinlein and not by chance. I'm liking it so far.
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1. If you don't know the NATO "phonetic" numbers that go, "nada-zero, una-one, bisso-two..." and so on, consider looking them up. The notion is that most folks can understand them if they speak one of the major languages (other than Mandarin, that is, the PRC not exactly being a NATO member). If you've got numbers in common, you have the tools to negotiate prices. And if you've got that, what more do you need? :)

2. Yellowstone's nifty but I'd just as soon spend my time in far less crowded Grand Teton National Park. Less boiling mud to look at but a lot more to do. Either way, if the Yellowstone caldera decides to blow, you probably won't have much time for screaming.

3. Despite having a tiny bit more stardrive work to accomplish as soon as I'm done here.

Success! (Knock Wood)

At least when I left the Drive Compartment last evening, all three RF finals were runnin' sweet an' warm, percolatin' along at right around 95% efficiency.

This has taken a long time to acheive and were this not a wholly fictional account, a person might be makin' snarky comments about what happens aboard even one of the very finest starships in the entire U. S. merchant fleet when officers decide preventive maintenance is a silly and uncecessary indulgence.

Still very short on time and I need to look sharp so the XO won't feel all icky and soiled when he chews me out for fiddling around, playing and/or wasted time. Er, that is, I would if this weren't fiction.

But hey, the stardrive's running. We might even be at Rigel IV in time for the Oh Please Not That Festival! It's festive indeed -- rather like presidential elections. Almost exactly like them, in fact.