Border Wars

Smugglers in military dress fuel border concerns |Houston Chronicle

On Monday (January 23, 2006), Three Hudspeth County (Texas) Sheriff's deputies spotted along with a state trooper began chasing three SUVs, which they suspected of carrying drugs, on Interstate 10. The 12-mile chase ended at the Rio Grande near Highway 34, where the 3 vehicles attempted to cross the International Border back to Mexico.

One of the vehicles, a Cadillac Escalade, was abandoned with a flat tire before it reached the river. It was later found to contain 1400 pounds of marijuana.
A second vehicle safely reached Mexican side of the river and left.
The third vehicle became stuck in the river. A group of men were seen to unload what appears to be bales of marijuana from the vehicle, which they then burned.

As the American Lawmen approached the Rio Grande in hot pursuit, they encountered a Humvee occupied by men in Mexican Army uniforms. Reports indicate that the vehicle was armed with a mounted .50 caliber machine gun. The Humvee also returned across the river, where it provided oversight protection while the bogged SUV was unloaded.

No shots were fired, nobody was injured.

This time.

The Mexican Government asserted that the nearest military detachment does not have equipment of the type which was reported, and proposed that these were all civilian drug-runners, some of whom were fitted in imitation army uniforms. However, Mexico has ordered that army units may not approach within 3.2 miles (approximitely 5 kilometers) of the Rio Grande without written authorization.

From the Huston Chronicle report:

Mexico's secretary of defense has ordered a full investigation into the incident. However, Rafael Laveaga, a spokesman for the Mexican Embassy in Washington, D.C., said he does not think the men in military fatigues seen escorting the traffickers were soldiers. The Mexican military installation in Ciudad Juarez, which is nearest to where the incident occurred, does not have any vehicles or weapons like those described by the Hudspeth County sheriff's deputies, he said.

''We strongly deny that members of the Mexican army participated in any incident at the Mexican-U.S. border," Laveaga said. ''I think it's fair to say that criminal organizations sometimes wear military uniforms and use military vehicles to provide confusion among authorities of both countries."

Mexico's presidential spokesman Ruben Aguilar insisted again today that the uniformed men were drug smugglers, not Mexican soldiers. Aguilar said the FBI supported that view, but he gave no evidence of the claim.

"These were not Mexican soldiers," Aguilar said at a news conference. "It is known that these are drug traffickers using military uniforms and they were not even regulation military uniforms."

Still, Washington is demanding answers.

The El Paso Times provided expanded coverage, as well as some photos.


Editorial comments: With all of the incidents which have occurred on the Mexican Border over the past several years, it's a wonder that American Law Enforcement Officers haven't been murdered by this border trash on a regular basis. The world looks upon calls by American Citizens to strictly enforce our borders as a mixture of paranoia, racism and 'insensitivity', which is possibly the worst accusation they can think of.

We've been hearing about the poor "undocumented immigrants" who suffer from fear of being arrested for no more crime than trying to better their life by doing "the jobs that Americans won't do."

I've talked about the problem with "undocumented aliens" in this respect before, and while I admit it's a problem which should be resolved with some kind of "guest worker" program. However, I don't think amnesty should be part of the solution. Whatever the reason people sneak across our border, they have started out their new life by breaking our laws. How badly do we need people who disrespect our country and our laws? We already have enough native-born people with this attitude, we don't need any more and we certainly don't need to reward them. The money which they earn in this country is largely sent 'home', which constitutes Mexico's second largest source of outside income after their petroleum industry. The Mexican government makes claims that they are trying to provide incentives in their own country so that their citizens can earn good money without leaving the country, and in fact this was one plank of Vicente Fox's campaign platform. He hasn't managed, this, though, so instead he has officially instituted measures to make it easier for his citizens to invade our borders with relative impunity, and applied political pressure to coerce the American government to accept the illegals who already provide between five and twelve MILLION of the people in this country today.


But the fact is, since 9/11 we've discovered that our greatest fear is the terrorists which may use this route to enter American and attack us from within. If drug smugglers can bring in tons of illegal substances every day (say, two tons of marijuana in three SUVs, and there's enough profit in it that they can afford to abandon a Cadillac Escalante with 1400 pounds of grass), and 'coyotes' can bring in "undocumented immigrants" by the dozens, there's no reason to expect that these same smugglers can be prevented from bringing in terrorists and whatever equipment they require to attack America. Again.

What else is being smuggled in?

Drugs, of course. Has anybody lately mentioned that Methamphetamine addiction was one of the greatest contributors to domestic crime in America today? Where do you think most of the meth comes from? Hint: Look at a map of North America. Look at Texas and California. Their southern borders are the most frequent access for the output of Mexican Meth Labs. Of course, we have our own domestic meth labs. Sometimes the police find them and arrest the people who are working in them, selling the meth, or transporting the meth between states. Look in the newspaper and read the names of the people who are arrested. We have city parks in Oregon where mothers can no longer take their children to play because the Mexican drug gangs have taken it over and are using it as a marketplace for illegal drugs.

Crime is not limited to drugs. Howard Sutherland writes in VDARE.COM back in 2003 about the problems with Salvadoran criminals and their increasing incursion into the United States. The Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) gang is an exceptionally violent group, whose members seem to travel back and forth across the border with impunity. They are not the only gangs composed of "undocumented immigrants", of course, but they are the most extreme examples.

Also, illegal aliens are overloading social services in this country. While many of the people whom the "insensitivity sensitive" Liberals chamption include those who work as day laborers, these are exactly the people who are likely to live in the shadow economy, being paid in cash for their labor and leaving no documentation behind (which is part of why they are referred to as "undocumented".) They pay no taxes, they pay no union dues or withholding, they just show up, work, get paid, and disappear.

They also have no insurance plans. They get sick, they go to the hospital, the hospitals have to take them. When they get better, they just . . . walk away. Who pays for their health care? You do.

Even NPR mentions the phenomenon:

Weekend Edition - Sunday, February 20, 2005 · As the U.S. government tightens security along the border with Mexico, nearby hospitals are seeing an increasing number of serious injuries in their emergency rooms.

Many uninsured illegal immigrants cannot afford to pay for this medical care, so more hospitals are forced to foot the bill.

From smugglers' use of unsafe, overcrowded vehicles to immigrants who can't -- or won't -- pay for treatment, medical resources along the border are being strained. Amid the argument over who should pay, hospitals on both sides of the border are looking for answers.

In fact, since 2005 the system has become so overloaded with "undocumented immigrant" freeloaders that some hospitals may have to close their doors because they can no longer afford to provide so much of their resources to those who will not pay for them. That means the people who can pay, the legal citizens of the community, are being inflicted with a "denial of service" in their own home town.

In response to that health-care crisis, in 2005 the United States Government has agreed to provide up to $45 million to reimburser Arizona hospitals and hospitals in other states for services rendered to illegal aliens. That's forty five million dollars ... a year. For up to four years. How much of this money comes from the illegal aliens who incur the expenses? Your guess is as good as mine, but I'm not sure that $180 million total reflects an investment in good citizenship.

Let's get back to "Border Incursions" before we close this out.

The Analogue Kid at Random Nuclear Strikes provides us with a partian shot from The OTHER Border . . . Canada.

Here's the original article that The Kid cited:

U.S. murder suspects arrested in shootout at B.C. border

Last Updated Wed, 25 Jan 2006 10:47:44 EST

CBC News

A police chase that closed the Peace Arch border crossing south of Vancouver, ended in the arrest of two men wanted in California on murder charges following a shootout.

The incident on Tuesday night temporarily closed the Canada-U.S. border crossing, and caused dozens of Canadian guards to walk off the job, fearing for their safety.

The chase started when two men tried to get into Canada.

Officials say Ishtiaq Hussain, 38, and Jose Antonio Barajas, 22, are now in custody. One of the suspects was wounded in a shootout with police.

U.S. sheriffs say the pair managed to make it to the check point about a metre before Canadian soil

Wait a minute, back up. What was that about ...

The incident on Tuesday night temporarily closed the Canada-U.S. border crossing, and caused dozens of Canadian guards to walk off the job, fearing for their safety.

That's right: Rather than to protect their own borders, Canada just ... walked away. Fortunately ...

Officials credit a brave deputy sheriff for stopping the pair, who were considered armed and dangerous.

Bill Elf, of the Whatcom Sheriff's Department

CBC News has learned that when unarmed Canadian border guards found out the murder suspects were coming their way, they left their posts at two crossings along the B.C. border: the Peace Arch crossing at Douglas, which was closed for a while, and the Pacific Highway Truck Crossing, to which traffic from Douglas was diverted.

Supervisors were left at each crossing to protect the Canadian side.

A spokeswoman with Canada Border Services says the guards have the legal right to refuse to work if they believe they are in imminent danger.

Canada won't protect its borders. Mexico can't keep its people at home. America is subject to international castigation when it tries to protect its borders.

Some people blame it all on NAFTA.

Maybe it's just that the American had to take a good look at the "undocument immigrant" problem, realized the scope of the problem, and decided that there was none of the possible solutions would contribute to political survival.

What? Do I have a solution?

No, nothing short of a police state.

Some people have suggested that America reinforce the borders by assigning military units to guard the borders. These people just don't understand the situation. There aren't enough troops in this country to guard our borders, even if we bring every military unit back from their current assignments and assign border security as their exclusive priority. Besides, who wants to become the island this approach would suggest.

Better minds than mine are working (we hope) on this problem, but don't expect to like the answer they finally come up with.

If they ever agree on a solution. Which it won't be.


(H/T: Fish)

Note: Between the two of them, Fish and The Hobo Brasser provide enough blogmeat to keep me busy even if I didn't tend to be an opinionated, mouthy, pedantic old poop. I don't know why they don't start their own blog. I once offered The Hobo Brasser a "Guest Blogger" option on this blog, but he ignored me.

I wonder why?

Right decision, wrong outcome

Resistance is futile!: Right decision, wrong outcome

This is a terribly difficult thing to write about. I hesitate to attempt it, because I know it will be misinterpreted and because it is such a personal subject. I'm writing this paragraph after I've finished the entire essay, and after you read it you may understand. I hope you do, but even if you don't I have to write it anyway.

Suicide:

If you're not a regular reader of Gullyborg, you may have missed his article last week (Tuesday, January 17, 2006) regarding the Supreme Court's refusal to set aside Oregon's Assisted Suicide Law.

His opinons on that decision elicited a lot of comments, and mine were in support of the Oregon law and the decision of the Supremes.

To briefly summarize the law, it allows a physician to administer a lethal dose of drugs to end the life of a patient.

The restrictions are these:

• The patient ("he") must be suffering from a medical condition which in which the prognosis is terminal
  
• He must be in control of his mental condition to the degree that he is able to make such a decision
• The physician must not make this decision (to assist the patient in suicide) alone; at least one other physician must concur with the medical opinion that the previous two conditions have been met
• The patient must, in the opinion of the physician (or consulting psychologist), be "capable, acting voluntarily, and informed"
  
• The patient must be capable of making his wishes known to the physician (both written and verbal request)
• He must be able to rescind his request
• There is a 15 day waiting period between the time when he makes his request and the time it is acted upon
• He must be an adult: at least 18 years old
• No contract or other agreement, written or oral, can over-ride the request or the patient's decision to rescind it
• The decision to voluntarily request assisted suicide will not abbrogate or nullify any insurance policy
• The physician will not be subject to legal action, including civil action, for acting upon the request; no health-care provider or professional organization can take disciplinary action for the physician's participation; no legal, professional, organizational, contractual or financial penalty shall be applied to the physician ("health-care provider") for his participation

And here's the part that protects the patient; I cite it here verbatim, in the interest of accuracy:

127.890 s.4.02. Liabilities. (1) A person who without authorization of the patient willfully alters or forges a request for medication or conceals or destroys a rescission of that request with the intent or effect of causing the patient's death shall be guilty of a Class A felony.


(2) A person who coerces or exerts undue influence on a patient to request medication for the purpose of ending the patient's life, or to destroy a rescission of such a request, shall be guilty of a Class A felony.


(3) Nothing in ORS 127.800 to 127.897 limits further liability for civil damages resulting from other negligent conduct or intentional misconduct by any person.


(4) The penalties in ORS 127.800 to 127.897 do not preclude criminal penalties applicable under other law for conduct which is inconsistent with the provisions of ORS 127.800 to 127.897. [1995 c.3 s.4.02]

This means, among other things, that the family or friends, or other interested persons can NOT make the decision for the patient. Nor can they influence the decision of the patient through coercion, undue influence or fraud.


Gullyborg is a law student, and contends that this is "a bad law". I'm not sure of the reasons why he believes it is a bad law. He professes no moral judgement about the concept that a person in the last extremities of life should or should not be able to make this decision.

I disagree. I think that this is an entirely personal decision which can legitimately be made by a person in the last extreme of life. I hope that I may never find myself in the position where it seems an attractive alternative to life, but I also hope that if I do -- the option has not been taken away from me because of someone else's philosophical or intellectual or political priorities.

My position is that there are circumstances which may occur, wherein an individual may be fatally inflicted with a painful and debilitating disease or injury which leads him to believe that the only possible end to the agony is death, sooner rather than later.

The law, in my understanding, does not permit a person to choose death. Any person can do that, although they may not be able to enact it. The option of suicide is always available IF the person is capable of ending his own life. That capability may not be available, because the medical condition may be so extreme that he lacks the ability to do so.

The law seems NOT to provide legal permission for a person to end his own life. In fact, ATTEMPTED suicide has traditionally been unlawful. I believe they can put you in jail for it, though I have no doubt that most courts would find it difficult to apply such a punishment to an incapacitated person. Of course, there is no punishment for a SUCCESSFUL suicide.

The purpose of the law is to protect the physician who choses to provide this final mercy to a terminal patient. It also defines the conditions under which the physician can determine that the decision of the patient may be considered to be 'free and informed'.

Nothing more, nothing less.

The response of the Federal Government has been that physicians who "assist" a suicide by medical means may be prosecuted if these means involve the administration of restricted medication ... that is to say, a fatal dose of narcotics, or other federally controlled drugs.

I find that curious, since most states (and, as far as I know, the Federal Government) have historically executed Capital Prisoners by much more painful and barbaric means . . . hanging, firing squad, electrocution.

Now more states are using 'humane' means, which amounts to a three-stage administration of drugs:

1. a drug to put you to sleep
2. a drug to stop you from breathing
3. a drug to stop your heart

If the first series of drugs don't kill you, they'll do the entire procedure over again, until you are dead.

This is considered a progressive, humane method to execute a person who has somehow offended society's laws. Can a law-abiding person expect anything less?

The execution of prisoners may be at the hands of a physician; more frequently, it is at the hands of medical technicians. One presumes that the 'patient' has not been consulted in the decision.

Opponents of the Oregon Assisted Suicide law suggest that it is somehow frivilous, that it undermines the concept of 'sanctity of life', that it constitutes nothing more than an extreme way to "treat depression".

And yet, they may suggest that they want to keep the Medical Profession "out of it".
Curious.

I submit that Depression is not the primary consideration for those who are compelled to make this difficult decision.

No, I would not choose "Depression" as the word to justify this law.

"Agony"

"Indignity"

Yes, those are perhaps more appropriate word to describe the conditions under which a person might make this difficult decision. Add to that the fact that the physician has doubtless told the patient, if the patient is competent to understand the pronouncement, that the rest of his (the patient's) life will be a prolonged condition of pain, to be climaxed by an undignified death.

I have some history with this situation, involving a family member afflicted by both cancer (in several versions, including bone cancer) and Alzheimers. The Assisted Suicide law would not have been an option, because of the mental degeneration. Helpless, unable to feed, dress or express himself, he was reduced to catheters and diapers. He did not recognize family members, but was obviously distressed when these indignities were inflicted upon him.

Make no mistake about it, agony is a condition which cannot be ignored despite the non-fatal levels of narcotics which may be prescribed.

And the lack of dignity of this helpless person may have been alleviated only by the twisted Grace of Alzheimers, although we can't know if he understood what was happening to him. We can hope that he didn't feel the shame of being subjected to a dependency on care-givers who would change his diapers, empty his bladder bag, and provide daily sponge baths; who rolled him like a piece of meat to change his linen daily. It isn't a life which I would wish on someone I loved,

What if he didn't have Alzheimer's Disease? What if he was in full possession of his mental faculties, and realized what was happening to him? Would he be any less fearfull, less agonized by the pain as his bones rotted inside him?

I doubt it.

Personally, the idea of suicide is anethema to me. But more repulsive still would be to find myself in the position where I was in unrelieved and unrelievable pain, with no prospects but a painful death, knowing what anguish my family must be feeling, and yet be unable to do anything to stop the process before it became even more unbearable.

Is the Oregon Assisted Suicide Bill "a bad law?" I don't know. I don't know much about the law.

But I do know something about living, and about dying. Under extreme circumstances, the priorities somehow reverse themselves. It's difficult for us to make the decision for a loved one to live, when life itself it only unendurable agony.

And yet, it's not a decision we can make for him . . . to live in agony, or to die immediately and thus stop the unremitting pain.

If that loved one can make the decision for himself, do we have the right to stand in his way?

Put it another way: if you found yourself in the situation where your loved one had no future but PAIN, would you feel tempted to help them end it with a gun, a knife, a dozen pushes on the "administer" button on their morphine drip? Or would you sternly deny him his right to make the decision for himself.

Only if you had no heart.

But if that person truly loved you, would they be willing to trade their pain for the consequences of the de facto murder you would be committing?

If they were that kind of person, would you have loved them?

The answers are no, and no. And no.

UPDATE: February 2, 2006
It was never my intention that Assisted Suicide become a "recurring theme", although it is a subject about which I hold strong views.
However, while researching an unrelated subject I ran across this article from Talk Left (The Politics of Crime), which suggests that I'm not the only one who believes there is ample cultural and legal justification for assisted suicide.

The article, written April 8, 2005, cites a Connecticut man who handed a gun to a "cancer-stricken" friend, and 'counselled' him on the best way to shoot himself. No evidence that the man actually held the gun or pulled the trigger, and a compassionate judge sentenced the 74-year old 'assistant' to what is effectively no more than administrative punishment. Of particular interest are the comments attached to the article.

I call the judge compassionate because, in passing sentence, he stated "I can only say to you, I'm glad it wasn't me put in your position that day."

When we watch a loved one in unrelenting agony, our natural empathy makes us want to do anything we can to help. When that person tells us that they just want the pain to end, we may assume that their ability to communicate this choice is evidence that they are able to make an informed decision.

Then, we are presented with a quandry: whether it is worth the personal legal penalties to allow your loved one the last grace with dignity, and whether there are alternative methods.

Watching your friend blow his brains out is not the best solution, but apparently in Connecticut it may be the ONLY solution.

Living in Oregon, I am comforted, somehow, that people I love are not required to burden their friends and family with such an awkward choice. The Oregon Assisted Suicide law protects a physician from the consequences of granting this last request.

GeekNews - Jan24

GEEKNEWS: News That Caught My Attention In The Past Couple of Weeks!

Volume I, Edition II: January 19 - January 24, 2006

We've been surfing the blogs lately, and there are some interesting things to read out there.

Tyler at .45 Caliber Justice showed a nifty little US Map with "Places I've Been In America" (or words to that effect.) It's an interesting graphic you can create to show your own travels.

Here's mine (resized via ImageShack, click on image to see full size):


create your own visited states map

Not surprisingly, most of the 'visits' were for hunting, participating in IPSC matches, or travels while I was in the army. That long southern link from Georgia to Texas represents a cheat. After I completed NCO Candidate School (Ft. Benning, GA) in 1969, my then-wife and I drove our nifty 1969 Ford Maverick from my OJT Training station in Ft. McClellan, Alabama back to Oregon via Tennessee, (don't ask me how we ended up on the outskirts of Memphis), Mississippi, Louisiana, then into Texas and on to California, then up to Oregon.

Winchester
Michael Bane featured Stephen Hunter's Paen to Winchester (I mentioned the other day that they were closing their New Haven plant, but not as eloquently.) Bane calls it "Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant", which has a pithy eloquence of its own.

Here's the opening:

Out With A Bang

The Loss of the Classic Winchester Is Loaded With Symbolism

By Stephen Hunter

Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 20, 2006; Page C01

A famous ad that most boy baby boomers will recall from Boys' Life, the old scouting magazine of the '50s, showed a happy lad, carrot-topped and freckly like any number of Peck's Bad Boys, his teeth haphazardly arrayed within his wide, gleeful mouth under eyes wide as pie platters as he exclaimed on Christmas morn, "Gee, Dad . . . A Winchester!"

All gone, all gone, all gone. The gun as family totem, the implied trust between generations, the implicit idea that marksmanship followed by hunting were a way of life to be pursued through the decades, the sense of tradition, respect, self-discipline and bright confidence that Winchester and the American kinship group would march forward to a happy tomorrow -- gone if not with the wind, then with the tide of inner-city and nutcase killings that have led America's once-proud and heavily bourgeois gun culture into the wilderness of marginalization.

And now Winchester is gone too, or at least the most interesting parts of it. The traditional company whose symbol was a fringed rider flying across the plains on a pinto, gripping his trusty Model '73, is finally biting the dust ...

Read the whole thing.

Gun-Blog Beauty Contest
Wadcutter mentioned the voting for best gun blogs presented by Countertop Chronicles, including a gracious thank-you for his own honorable mention. Since I had encouraged you to participate, it occurs to me that you might like to know how the voting came out.

The winners in each category are (TA-DAHHHHHH!)

Category 1: Best Gun P0RN

1: Olek Volk
2: Castle of Aaarrrgghhh!

(NB: Kim du Toit was a dead-heat tie for 2nd place, I don't know what criteria was used for the tie-breaker. NOTE also that this is NOT the link for Kim's "Original" blog.)

Category 2: Most Educational
1: The ArchAngel
2: Mr. Completely

(Runner up: Head's Bunker)

I'm pleased to see Mr. Completely finish so well, as he was one of my premier picks. You'll see a lot of him in the results, although perhaps not QUITE as much as Kim du Toit. Mr. Completely accomplishes his goal of communicating without angst, anger or foul language. When it comes down to it, I'll vote for a Gentleman every time. No, this isn't meant as a criticism to Kim's more . . . aggressive style, and I have not doubt that personally he is a fine gentleman; but while Kim has been blogging for a LOT longer, with a LOT more hits, much of his success has been due to his rants. One tires of that, eventually.

I note that Mr. Completely posted some rather modest comments last Sunday night.

Category 3: Best Rants
1: mAss Backwards
2: Kim du Toit

(3rd place, Gut Rumbles)

Happily, The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler was never a contender.
Unhappily, Geek With a .45 was sadly under-rated. I really think he deserved a better evaluation from his peers. If for no other reason, any man who deliberately moves out of New Jersey because of the anti-RKBA attitude there just naturally deserves to be recognized.

Category 4: Best Legal Analysis
1: John Lott
2: David Kopel

(runner up: Eugene Volokh)

When you think of it, and I did, John Lott was pretty much a no-brainer. The real race in this category was between 2nd and 3rd place, and it could have gone either way in my opinion.

Note that the link for David Kopel also takes you to "The Volokh Conspiracy", which is the child of Eugene Volokh. Kopel is a prominent, but not the sole, contributor. You can also read Kopel in his many articles posted to National Review Online, and at his personal Home Page . Volokh can also be read at NRO and at World Net Daily's Commentary Page)

The Smallest Minority was facing such fierce competition from professionals that he never had a chance. Maybe next year, if there IS a 'next year', professional writers will not be considered unless they can prove that they do most of their writing while wearing pajamas.

Category 5: Best Aggregator
1: Alphecca
2: Mr. Completely

(Runner up: Resistance is Futile, another of my recommendations)

I'm not sure what "Best Aggregator" means, but I assume it means quality of a cross-section of posts. Something like "All-Around Cowboy", perhaps. I note that Cogito Ergo Geek actually got two (2) votes in this category, which would be flattering except that I'm not sure those two fine, upstanding and stalwart individuals didn't read "Aggregator" and mistakenly thought it meant "Agitator". Whatever the reasons, I'll paste it in my scrapebook and ... Thanks For The Memories, Mom! (But you really shouldn't have voted twice.)


Category 6: Best Range Reports
1: Mr. Completely (who lead through EVERY round of balloting)
2: Kim du Toit

(Runner up: Texican Tattler)

NOTE that Mr. Completely was one of my recommendations. Other contenders included Cowboy Blob, Michael Bane (two more of my recommendations) and, a complete surprise to me, Michael Yon. Mr. Yon is a powerful writer, but it wouldn't have occurred to me to consider his Iraqi blog as "Range Reports". On reflection, however ... why not?

See above for a stylistic comparison of the writings of Mr. Completely and Kim.

Category 7: Best Commentary
1: Kim du Toit
2: The Smallest Minority

(runner-up: Ravnwood)

A well-deserved vote for The Smallest Minority, proving that Geek-Length Posts still have a place in this world.


UPDATE: The comment (see the link below) from Mr. Completely informs us that voting will continue until January 31. His advice is to keep on voting!


It's late, I have more to talk about but tomorrow's a School Day and I REALLY need my Beauty sleep. I'll add the rest of it another day, but for now ....

That's All, Folks!

Pirates: Coming Home to Roost

U.S. Navy Seizes Pirate Ship Off Somalia

Finally!

The Marines haven't landed -- yet -- but the Navy is here and has the situation well in hand. Along with a handful of Somalian Pirates.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) - The U.S. Navy boarded an apparent pirate ship in the Indian Ocean and detained 26 men for questioning, the Navy said Sunday.

The 16 Indians and 10 Somali men were aboard a traditional dhow that was chased and seized Saturday by the U.S. guided missile destroyer USS Winston S. Churchill, said Lt. Leslie Hull-Ryde of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command in Bahrain.

The dhow stopped fleeing after the Churchill twice fired warning shots during the chase, which ended 54 miles off the coast of Somalia, the Navy said. U.S. sailors boarded the dhow and seized a cache of small arms.

The dhow's crew and passengers were being questioned Sunday aboard the Churchill to determine which were pirates and which were legitimate crew members, Hull-Ryde said.

By now (24+ hours later, the Navy should have been able to sort out the crew and the pirates should be firmly escounced in the brig.

I have been ranting about pirates for eight months. Last May I reported on a pair of yachts which combined forces to drive off a pirate attack off the coast of Yemen during the month of March, 2005.

Two weeks ago, I suggested that the U.S. Navy should begin actively following up reports of piracy, hunt them down, and capture or kill them.

Apparently, somebody else had the same idea.

Sailors aboard the dhow told Navy investigators that pirates hijacked the vessel six days ago near Mogadishu and thereafter used it to stage pirate attacks on merchant ships.

The Churchill is part of a multinational task force patrolling the western Indian Ocean and Horn of Africa region to thwart terrorist activity and other lawlessness during the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

The Navy said it captured the dhow in response to a report from the International Maritime Bureau in Kuala Lumpur on Friday that said pirates had fired on the MV Delta Ranger, a Bahamian-flagged bulk carrier that was passing some 200 miles off the central eastern coast of Somalia.

<>Yes, that's just the way to do it. Way to go, Navy!

The only obstacle to final justice can be abridged by the shipwrights on the Churchill. Unlike Navy ships of previous centuries, a Guided Missile Destroyer is lacking a necessary accoutrement in The War Against Piracy;

A yardarm.

Those Somalian pigeons need a place to roost.

Extended Reportage:
Quotes are from MY WAY news.
The U.S. Navy website has a similar report.
The "Globe & Mail" has a more detailed report. Proud that the action was taken by "... the only U.S. warship named for a foreigner ...", this Canadian newspaper notes that the Churchill is a sister ship to the U.S. Cole, which was attacked by terrorists and nearly sunk in a Yemen port in 2000.

Study: Most college students lack skills

Study: Most college students lack skills

Working as I do on a college campus, I find this study's results to be entirely disrespectful of the caliber of college students.

Here's the kind of canards the authors present as a representative view of college students:

WASHINGTON -- More than half of students at four-year colleges - and at least 75 percent at two-year colleges - lack the literacy to handle complex, real-life tasks such as understanding credit card offers, a study found.

The literacy study funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, the first to target the skills of graduating students, finds that students fail to lock in key skills - no matter their field of study.

The results cut across three types of literacy: analyzing news stories and other prose, understanding documents and having math skills needed for checkbooks or restaurant tips.

Without "proficient" skills, or those needed to perform more complex tasks, students fall behind. They cannot interpret a table about exercise and blood pressure, understand the arguments of newspaper editorials, compare credit card offers with different interest rates and annual fees or summarize results of a survey about parental involvement in school.

"It is kind of disturbing that a lot of folks are graduating with a degree and they're not going to be able to do those things," said Stephane Baldi, the study's director at the American Institutes for Research, a behavioral and social science research organization.

Most students at community colleges and four-year schools showed intermediate skills. That means they can do moderately challenging tasks, such as identifying a location on a map.

On behalf of College Students everywhere, I find myself obliged to speak up in their defense against this egrigious evaluation.

Sure, I see college students running around on campus in January, "The Cold and Rainy Month", dressed in dungarees and a t-shirt, but they have their book-bags to keep them warm.

Yes, there young women on campus who haven't yet learned that their body shape suggests they should NOT dress themselves in tight-fitting blue-jeans, short tops which allow their waist rolls to overflow the waistband of their trousers, and should absolutely NOT be showing their "Thongs", but who among us would criticize their determination not to sacrifice style in the cause of comfort? What are they going to college for? To get an education, undistracted by chills and shivering in class? Nonsense, they have their priorities.

Granted, they tend to ride their bicycles in the dark and the rain without benefit of safety devices such as headlights, and they cut in front of cars during the rush-hour without concern for the likelyhood that they may not be readily visible to commuters who are driving with fogged-up windshields, but they should be congratulated for their natural assumption that their fellow students are completely 'situationally aware' of the probability that crosswalks, sidewalks, and (rarely) bike lanes are occupied by bicyclists.

The authors of the study should ignore the fact that the parking lots near undergraduate dormitaries (usually occupied by students in the 18-20 year-old range) are cluttered with empty, squashed beer cartons.

Personally, I don't for a moment give credance to the near-anocdotal evidence that the student parking lots, filled to overflowing at the beginning of each term but with several parking spaces available at the end of the term, leads inexorably to the conclusion that students are flunking out of college. Rather, I prefer to assume that this is an indication that the students are becoming more involved with the Green movement, and eschew the use of Privately Owned Vehicles (eg: "Classic Cars", "Mom's Cars", and F350's and Beemers) for their day-to-day conveyence in favor of buses, skateboards, bicycles and Public Transportation.

We have accepted without criticism too many studies which suggest that students come to the collegial environment without basic academic, social and 'survival' skill. I say it's time to take the logical step needed to completely discount these accusatory, HURTFUL studies.

Stop funding the studies.

Oregon is a wet and muddy state ...

One of my favorite movies is "Jeremiah Johnson", a 1972 effort starring Robert Redford as a Mexican War veteran who travels to the Continental Divide of Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado (he gets around a lot) to become a "By Gawd I Are A Mountain Man" in search of peace and serenity. He gets very little of either, as this is a video representation of the book "Crow Killer" by Raymond W. Thorp. (I've read it: Bloody scary, it is!)

Toward the end, in a casual meeting in a snowy Winter glenn, Johnson asks Bear Claw Cris Lapp (Will Geer) what month it is. Cris replies that he's not sure it's February, but probably March, and adds: "March is a wet and muddy month. Some folks like it; farmers, mostly".

I live in Oregon, and I find all months from January through April to be "wet and muddy months". I endure it, because the year-around verdure of Oregon is worth the rain-forest climate we live through for a third of every year.

But it can be difficult for some of us. This from a recent edition of the Salem Statesman-Journal:

Wet cemetery pulls woman in

She says she was stuck in mud at a recent burial site for almost an hour

CAPI LYNN
Statesman Journal

January 18, 2006

MONMOUTH -- The phrase "one foot in the grave" has a whole new meaning for Clara Connelly.

"People are always making a joke about it," she said. "But I actually experienced it."

Connelly, 81, was visiting her husband's grave Sunday at Fir Crest Cemetery when she stepped near the edge of a recent burial and her foot plummeted into the soggy ground, she said. She was stuck up to her knee in mud for nearly an hour before managing to pull free.

"It was a gloomy day, and it was getting to be dusk," she said Tuesday when she returned to the site. "Nobody knew I was there. No car went by. There I was out in the open, doing the splits."

Connelly laid her head on the nearby stone marking the resting place of her sister and brother-in-law and prayed. Every time she tried to pull her leg out, it seemed to sink farther "like quicksand."

Mrs. Connelly eventually managed to work herself free, and from the reports seems to be recovered from the grisly experience.

There's a pun in there, but I won't say it!

Geeks Bearing Gifts

Urban Legends Reference Pages: Politics (Congressional Pensions)

A recent email-frenzy regarding the Social Security program has been making the Internet rounds lately, claiming congressional disinterest in funding the program is because "senators do not pay Social Security" and "they get paid their entire salary, after retirement, for the rest of their life (or words to that effect).

I received a copy of this email today, and decided to research it in depth. For me, the first place to go for information about this kind of email is Snopes.com

The Snopes rating on this rumor is: FALSE

Bottom line, Senators DO pay into the Social Security program, and they do NOT receive their entire salary (with huge payments to their spouses) unto death.

Go to the link and read the whole thing.

The reason that I include this on the blog is that I receive a HUGE number of these "announcements" every month. I use to receive them every WEEK, until I started replying to my family members .... and everyone on the headers of the announcements that they sent them to, besides me, pointing out that the rumor has been investigated and debunked by at least one source which I consider reliable.

Usually, this source is Snopes. Sometimes it's an anti-hoax website such as the CIAC Hoaxbusters website. (This is the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of the Chief Information Officer, Office of Cyber Security, also known as the "Computer Incident Advisory Committee").

Another place to check out these warnings is the Symantic website.

You really need to check these internet rumors out, friends, before you proliferate the hoax by forwarding them to your mailing list. If you receive one of these hoax emails, you would be performing a service to yourself, your family and your friends if you confirm them before you forward the email.

Note that while these are usually started as deliberate hoaxes, in the same mindframe of those who create viral software for internet distribution, sometimes they are simply tongue-in-cheek jokes sent to a small circle of friends. This isn't always perceived by the recipients as humor, and the risk is that it will be forwarded in all seriousness and will be misinterpreted by the next level of recipients.

I can confirm that this is true. In 1999, I received an obviously joke email, and found it so funny that I made minor changes and forwarded it to a few friends.

Within the week, this email achieved certain notoriety by hitting the CIAC HoaxBusters list with a bullet.

It was a take-off of the Trojan v*r*s (deliberately obscured word) announcements, relating to the Greeks, a wooden horse, and the similarity between the words "Greek" and "Geek". I had originally taken my nom de plume from "Jimmy the Greek", naming myself "Jerry the Geek". when I saw this email hoax, I couldn't resist modifying it slightly . . . in parentheses, as I too-often do ... and forwarding it to a few friends. The original never again saw the light of day, but the Geek Version was somehow picked up and forwarded relentlessly for years. You can see my version, still in the CIAC files, here.

When you read it, there can be no doubt in your mind that it's a personal pun, and a joke. I never expected such notoriety. Nor did I expect that the phrase would be picked up and used so universally; a NetScape search on the phrase "Geeks Bearing Gifts" lists over 3400 hits, and you have to get pretty deep into the search-results list (hit #70) to get to the original. Generally, the term is now commonly used to refer to dubious software, most frequently Windows ME. (!)

I've learned my lesson. No longer will I send funny emails to people without making sure there is NO chance that they will misinterpret it as a "real" warning.

This is your opportunity to learn the same lesson. Do NOT forward any joke email unless you have clearly labeled it as something which should not be accepted as fact.

Be sure you've checked it out before you forward it. I've given you three good resources, you can bookmark them and use them to check out the validity of the claims before you impose the confusion on others.

That's what I do.

Also, I own the best Security software I can find, and update it every year. I run the AV update daily, and scan my hard-disk at least twice a week . . . daily, if I'm doing a lot of net-surfing. It's the only way I know to prevent my email addresses from being used to forward hoaxes & bogus files to my friends and family.

PS: Okay, so now there are 3401 hits on "Geeks Bearing Gifts". What goes around, comes around, eh?

Winchester Is History!

USATODAY.com - 'Gun that Won the West' becoming just part of history

Jimmy Stewart raises his rifle in defense of Shelley Winters in a scene from the 1950 film Winchester '73.

Confirmed on January 18, 2006: Winchester Rifles will no longer be made in America.

Or anyplace else.

Currently being produced by a Belgian company "Herstal Group, the Belgian company that owns U.S. Repeating Arms and the right to the Winchester name", the New Haven, Conn. factory which currently manufactures Winchester Rifles for U.S. Repeating Arms will close its doors forever as of April 1, 2006.

No, this is not an early April Fools joke.

Winchester Rifles will continue to be made in Belgian and other European plants, but the traditional designs will not be among the product line.

Citing declining sales, Robert Sauvage, spokes man for the Herstal Group, this week announced that the 200 employes at the New Haven plant will be without a job after March 31 of this year.

The recent history of Winchester Repeating Arms, once owned by Olin Matheson, includes a "massive strike" by Machinists in the late 1970's which caused Olin to sell the plant, and the copyright to the Winchester Name, to the U.S. Repeating arms. That company is going out of business in six weeks.

"It would be like Chevrolet going out of business or Chevrolet being made in Japan or China," firearms historian Ned Schwing said. "Winchester is an American legend, whether you're a gun person or not."

We'll miss them.

Air Bags

Good!

GeekNews - Jan18

I tire of finding an excuse to present BLOGMEAT.

Henceforth, I'll save it up and compile it every couple of weeks.

The trick is to present the MSM news items without editorializing.
However, I reserve the right to slug my own headlines.

Announcing the first fortnightly version of

GEEKNEWS: News That Caught My Attention In The Past Couple of Weeks!

Volume I, Edition I: January 4 - January 18, 2006

January 4, 2005
Old Man Misses Victim Burglar With Evil Gunshot!
Vows To Take Shooting Lessons.
(C-more)

Undocumented Non-Migrants Bravely Defend Against Harsh Police-State:
NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico, Jan. 8, 2005 — A few weeks ago, five men were shot to death in a car repair shop in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico.

In any other city, it might be called a massacre. In Nuevo Laredo, it's called business as usual.

(C-more)

January 12, 2006
The Boston Herald
Bush Is Killing Sean Penn!

Although politically overactive actor Sean Penn has not stepped into battle, the country’s involvement in Iraq is going to slowly kill him.
The Oscar winner told the audience at an anti-war forum hosted by the Progressive Democrats of America in Sacramento, Calif. the other night that the stress of living under the Bush administration is making it impossible for him to quit smoking, the PDA’s Web site reported.
(C-More)

January 13, 2006
Alito Reveals More In One Week Than Kerry Did In One-Year Presidential Campaign
Samuel Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court is gliding toward confirmation despite a week of hearings in which Democrats tried and failed to hobble his prospects with withering questions on abortion, presidential power and ethics.

Democrats argue that the former Reagan administration lawyer is likely to tip the court's balance to the right in replacing centrist Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. But with little success so far peeling votes from Alito's confirmation as the nation's 110th Supreme Court justice, Democrats showed not much appetite for mounting a filibuster on the Senate floor.

Instead, they are seeking to slow Alito's ascension by demanding that the Judiciary Committee's chairman, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., delay the panel's vote a week.

(C-More)

The Charlotte Observer, January 12, 2006
Can we say "Bible"????
A Rock Hill man leaving church Wednesday night used his Bible to shield himself from the blows of a man who tried to rob him, according to a Rock Hill Police report.

(C-More)

Associated Press; January 12, 2006
Man Is For The Birds

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa

A South African anthropologist said Thursday his research into the death nearly 2 million years ago of an ape-man shows human ancestors were hunted by birds.

"These types of discoveries give us real insight into the past lives of these human ancestors, the world they lived in and the things they feared," Lee Berger, a paleo-anthropologist at Johannesburg's University of Witwatersrand, said as he presented his conclusions about a mystery that has been debated since the remains of the possible human ancestor known as the Taung child were discovered in 1924.

(C-More)

January 18, 2006
Ann Coulter Disses Hillary "You Know What I'm Talkin' About" Clinton
Coulter arrogantly expresses disrespect for comments by former White House Distaff, spoken in a Black Church, on MLK Day, to a Black Audience, using Black Argot: Where is the outrage against this unwarranted attack on The First Black First Lady?

So Hillary Clinton thinks the House of Representatives is being "run like a plantation." And, she added, "you know what I'm talking about."

First of all: Think about what a weird coincidence it is that Hillary would have made these remarks in a black church in Harlem on Martin Luther King Day. What are the odds? Did she even know it was a holiday? Bravely spoken, Senator. I haven't been this surprised since finding out Hollywood likes a movie about gay cowboys.

As Hillary explained, the House "has been run in a way so that nobody with a contrary view has had a chance to present legislation, to make an argument, to be heard."

Yes, that's what was really missing on plantations during the slavery era: the opportunity to present a contrary view. Gosh, if only the slaves had been allowed to call for cloture votes. What a difference that would have made!

(C-More)

January 19, 2006
WFRV Television: Madison, Wisconson
Wisconson Governor Bravely Resists Efforts of NRA-Funded Senate to Impose Concealed-Carry Law on Citizens
(AP) MADISON The state Senate approved a Republican bill Tuesday that would let Wisconsin residents carry concealed weapons, setting up what could be a fierce political clash between the Legislature and Gov. Jim Doyle.

The Senate's 28-5 vote sends the bill to Doyle, a Democrat who already has nixed one version of it and has vowed to veto this one.

"The governor believes people carrying loaded weapons around will make Wisconsin less safe," Doyle spokeswoman Melanie Fonder said.

But Republicans say people should be allowed to fight off criminals.

Wisconsin is one of only four states that bans concealed weapons. National Rifle Association lobbyists working with Republican legislators have been trying make them legal here for years.

(C-More)

Hydro Shok!

My brother-in-law, bless his heart, once shot himself through the hand with my pellet gun.

I had left it lying around in my room (this was a LONG time ago, when I was in high-school and still living with my parents), and he had picked it up in an idle moment and, while talking on the phone, pointed the muzzle at the palm of his hand and pulled the trigger. Apparently, he wanted to see what the CO2 air discharge felt like. Well, he was distracted.

When he got back from the hospital emergency room, his only comment to me was that he couldn't believe I would leave a loaded gun just laying around.

Well, believe it. My gun, my room, your hand. Not mutually compatible.

There's nothing new about this story. When people start making assumptions about guns, and especially when they handle guns when they're distracted or "just not thinking", Bad Things Can Happen.

Tonight, I received an email from the Unofficial IPSC List describing such an incident.

His name is Rich Timm. He has been shooting for 27 years of his 32-year life. ONE time he got impatient when he was checking his gun "to see if it needed cleaning", and put a 135 grain .40 S&W Hydra-Shok round though the palm of his hand. That's gonna hurt a lot more than a .22 soft-lead pellet.

Here is the PDF which (apparently) he authored. Warning of "graphic images", which means there are photos taken in the emergency room of the hospital showing the small, bruised-looking entry wound and the back of his hand being . . . missing.

Money Quote:

The wound was the result of complacency.

Be careful out there.

Free Annual Credit Report

Did you know you can request an AnnualCreditReport . . . online, by mail or by phone . . . for free?

You may not remember that I mentioned this federally legislated program last year, in a March article. I laid out all of the details, so you may want to click back and reread it.

I'll wait.

(dum de dum dum ...)

Finished?

Good. Here are a few comments.

• You can only request the report every 12 months, so if you requested one last year you can't request another one until the anniversary date.
• The report is available from three credit reporting companies: Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax.
• You don't have to choose. You can order a FREE credit report from ALL of these companies.
• The information available to each of the reporting companies will probably differ in details. I know mine did.
• If you find information which is inaccurate, which doesn't seem to apply to you (they sometimes get someone else's data confused with yours, because it is often reported by name), or which is outdated (some records can legally only be kept for a limited time, such as seven years) you can dispute it. This is also for free, and generally they just wait a while and then write to tell you that the disputed entries have been removed.
• You do NOT get a Credit Rating with your free report. However, they will happily provide you with that information on a one-time basis. The fee is usually about $25.
• They WILL put you an an emailing-list, and send you monthly offers to provide regular reports. The cost for this service varies, and you can just ignore them or you can take you up on it.
• Did I mention it's free?
  

Often, the credit reporting companies will also offer you Income Tax-return services. That is, you can fill out an on-line form with information from your W2, and they will prepare your tax return for you. I've heard that you can no longer use your telephone to enter your 1040 or 1040EZ returns, so this might be an attractive alternative.

The drawback is: it takes a while to enter the data, but then it takes a while to fill in the paper form, too.

Another drawback to the online Income Tax-return service is that they're not always accurate. You will want to roughly figure your taxes from a tax table, to get a ballpark figure on what your return or obligation ought to be. That way you have some idea of what figure THEY should come up with.

When I took advantage of this service last year, I found that the Federal return they calculated actually saved me money.

However, the Oregon Stage tax return (another $15, if you accepted their numbers), had me owing $1600; my figures showed that the State owed me money, because I had overpaid. I declined to accept the State tax figure they had calculated, and sent in my own . . . which was accepted.

Caveat Emptor: Free is a very good price, but sometimes it's not really free after all.

(Presented as a public service by Jerry the Geek)

The Countertop Chronicles: The Gunnies

The Countertop Chronicles: The Gunnies

Here's your chance to nominate your favorite websites for Gun-Blogger of the year.

Here's the Real Deal:

As originally proposed back on January 7th, I have decided to organize The Gunnies, a web poll to determine the blogsphere's favorite gun bloggers as of the beginning of 2006. Jeff Soyer was the first (or at least the first I stumbled across) to notice that The Bloggies had once again decided to snub one of the largest and most diversified segments of the blogsphere - the Gun Bloggers.

Hence, The 2006 Gunnies Awards.

The Countertop Chronicles is a website worthy of a read under any circumstances, and I can't imagine why I haven't linked to him earlier. That will be corrected in the near future.

In the meantime, go there and vote your choice. While I would be grateful for a plug or two, I can think of many gun-related blogs which deserve recognition. You probably can too, and I encourage you to take a few moments to go to the link and vote either by comments, or by email to the webhost.

Here's how to vote:

The nominees for each category will come from comments posted to this blog or emailed to countertop AT gmail DOT com with the subject line "The Gunnies". All previously made nominations will be factored in (so if you've made one, no need to resubmit it).

And here are the categories:

The Categories (what you all have been waiting for)

• Best Gun Pr0n - This category honors the blogs that consistently showcase the most beautiful images of firearms and firearm related subjects.


• Most Educational - From how to posts, shooting tips, gunbuilding/ gunsmithing tips to historical information, this category honors those blogs that consistently advance the state of actual mechanical and operational firearms knowledge.
• 
  
• Best Rants - This category honors those blogs that fisk the best, bitch the most, yell the loudest, snort the angriest, and do it all with the most style.


• Best Legal Analysis - This category honors those blogs that provide the most concise, accurate, and easy to read/understand analysis of the legal and legislative developments impacting firearms and firearms ownership.


• Best Aggregator - This category honors those blogs that provide the best top level one size fits all access to the widest range of firearms related postings - whether to other blogs or mainstream media sources and whether with constructive commentary or not.


• Best Range Reports - Nothing is finer than a day at the range, whether testing a new gun, participating in an organized competition, out in the hunting fields, introducing new members to the nation of riflemen, or simply plinking away in the backyard, this category honors those blogs that either organize or record range sessions and best spread through actual example the true joy of firearms.


• Best commentary - This category honors those blogs that provide the most insightful original editorial commentory


• best Gun Post - This category honors the single post made to a weblog over the course of 2005 that best exemplified the 2nd Amendment or advanced the state of knowledge of the second amendment and related issues or simply put to shame by its sheer brilliance all other posts in the blogsphere.

• 
  

The hat tip (H/T) goes to Xavier, and my recommendations are, in no particular order:

• Mr. Completely
• Analogue Kid
• Xavier
• Geek with a .45
• Cowboy Blob
• Publicola
• Michael Bane
• Gullyborg
• Front Sight, Press
  

Yes, I've left a lot of my favorite gun blogs out; it wasn't because I don't like 'em, it's only because these are the websites I so frequently visit that their links on my sidebar are wearing out. If I visit a website often, it's posted on my website (for MY convenience!) and that's how I rate my favorites.

YMMV, so don't use MY criteria. Figure out your own reasons why you would nominate a blog for recognition, and in which category. For example, I would put Analogue Kid (Random Nuclear Strikes) high on my list for rants; Mr. Completely for range reports; Rivrdog for aggregator, and probably Gullyborg for overall. (This is subject to re-evaluation, I'm just stream-of-consciousness.)

I still haven't figured out where to nominate Geek with a .45. Maybe in the Best Commentary division. His overall rating is astronomical, but then there's the exquisite Smallest Minority . . . or can we include him in Best Rants?


This will take some thought, obviously I've already petitioned for more time, because the first round nominations are DUE ON THE 18th!

Don't let the grass grow while you think it over.

Wolverton Mountain

My friend Rueul ("Rule") Emery has been hosting various types of pistol matches in the shadow of Mount Saint Helens for a couple of years now. Generally, he tends toward bowling pin matches (are you listening, Mr. Completely?) but now and then he puts on something a little different. Fish, who HAS been to Rueul's matches, suggested that I post his latest announcement to the blog, in hopes that more people will learn about another match available to them in the general area of NW Oregon / SW Washington.

This is not only a chance to promote an unusual pistol match, but I can also see if the MS-WORD connection to Blogger works well enough to format information originally presented in a word-processor format. Apparently, it works fairly well (although I did have to convert the images to *.JPG format and host them through my old pal ImageShack.

Wolverton Mountain Gun Club

USPSA Style 1911 Single Stack / Revolver Match

“Neither Rain nor Snow nor IPSC targets shall…”

Sunday February 26, 2006. 9:30 am walk-thru

Donation: Shoot the match with one pistol for $10, or
then re-shoot with your other pistol…..for $18 total

4 challenging stages, approximately 72 rounds.

Most shooting will be from under roofed bays.

Any standard IPSC pistol will be acceptable, but stages are revolver (6) or 1911 friendly for those who can count to 8.

Hot cider will be available at the warming room.

Contact: Reuel Emery email: reueljoe@yahoo.com
Phone: 360-687-1947

Pre-registration requested: or… just show up.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wolverton Mountain Gun Club Registration
USPSA match Revolver/1911 Provisional Match Date: ______________
Name:____________________ EMAIL: __________________________
Address:_____________________ City_________ State ______ZIP_______
USPSA NO: ________________ Class: ________
Circle appropriate:
MAJ MIN LTD L10 REV PROD OPEN Lady LEO JR SR SupSR
Donation $10 or $18 Make Check payable to WMGC
Mail to: R. Emery
12415 NE 279 St
Battle Ground, WA, 98604






Take Woodland Exit 21, turn East at bottom of ramp, and follow SR-503 east past Burger Ville.

After 22.5 miles, turn right on to SR-503 heading south at Jack’s Restaurant.

Follow 1.5 miles to Williams Rd, turn left, and take 2nd road on left at Wolverton Mountain Gun Club sign.

Incidently, you can see Rueul shoot his brand new birthday gift, which I presume is a S&W Model 625, at last weekend's IPSC match here and here. The files are about 3 or 4 mb each.

Tri-County Gun Club

On the third Sunday of every month, you can shoot an IPSC match at the Tri-County Gun Club in Sherwood, Oregon. I've talked about this club before, of course. It was, for example, the co-host of the 2005 Columbia Cascade Section Match last August. (The weather was warmer, and dryer, then.)

Oh, and don't forget the "Practical Shotgun" match, also in August, and also hotter than Hades.

This past Sunday, SWMBO and I made the 70-minute drive up I-5 to Wilson, took the North Wilsonville Exit to Day road, left to Scholls Ferry Road, Right to Tonquin Road, then 3 more miles to the TCGC "Training Facility". They have a huge facility there, including trap, skeet, sporting clays, indoor and outdoor small-bore ranges, outdoor pistol range, black-powder range, a beautiful clubhouse, bench-rest ranges out to 600 yards, an on-site rock quarry where Practical Rifle matches are held at least once a month, and . . . the Action Pistol Range.

This range not only features monthly IPSC and Cowboy Action matches, but is used as a training facility for several county sheriff's departments and municipal police departments, as well as the National Guard. (The U.S. Marine Corps 6th Engineer Support battalion pays for their range time by using the heavy-equipment of their Engineer Company to perform range improvements. Not only does the club benefit from their essentially free labor, but the Marines have a place where their Engineers can keep their skills sharp with earth-movers of various kinds.)

This club owns 220 acres of forested hills within a half-hour drive of downtown Portland. At a guess, there are about 2000 members, and the annual dues are$120 with a one-time initiation fee of $175. (Information from the TCGC website.)

As is the case for many shooting clubs near major metropolitan areas (Portland is the 30th largest city in America, by population), TCGC has fought a running battle with land developers who want to shut them down so surrounding property can be 'developed'. That means, they (not the gun club, the developers) would cut down all the old-growth fir trees, level the hills to fill the surrounding wetlands, bulldoze roads and build tacky-but-expensive houses all over the place.


Fortunately, TCGC counts among its members a number of successful lawyers who have, through the years, donated their time and legal expertise to fight this urban incursion. It's not a cheap battle, nor an easy one, but it helps that the original 172 acres were purchased in 1944, which establishes a clear precedence over the immediate needs of the developers in this rural area. The nearest town is Sherwood , (which holds an annual Robin Hood Festival), "One of the fastest growing towns in Oregon".



The club has recently more-or-less completed a major improvement on the Action Pistol Range, which provided them with 13 bays. Some of the bays are about 100 feet square, which not only allows them to set up some outrageous run&gun stages but also provides plenty of rooms for rifles to be used.

Because of these developments, TCGC has recently been selected to host the 2006 Area 1 Match (July 16 - 18, 2006) by the United States Practical Shooting Association.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention the outcome of the Sunday IPSC match.

I didn't win, but Beven Grams almost did.

However, I took pictures!

You can view the album here.

Film includes some excellent examples of moving-while-shooting, in Stage 3. It also includes some embarrassing moments on Stage 1, where competitors often forgot to shoot at ALL of the targets. Well, it was a confusing stage.

The album contains a sub-album, with unedited full-length raw film showing the agony and the ecstasy of IPSC competition. Unfortunately, there's more agony than anything else. The files in the sub-album run up to 23mb in length, although the edited *.wmv versions in the main album are usually 4mb.

Knock yourself out.

Nobody got sunburned, it didn't rain, and even thought most of us hadn't been shooting for 6 weeks before the weekend, we all had a great time. What more can you ask?

CCS IPSC - January Match at ARPC

FINALLY we get to shoot IPSC again!

It has been a long dry spell, and I'm not talking about the weather.

We haven't been to an IPSC match since early November, and we, SWMBO and I, have missed the exercise, the camaraderie, and the smell of Gunsmoke.

ALBANY Saturday Classifier Match:
Unfortunately, SWMBO was feeling a little under the weather on Saturday (pun intended), so I had to go to the ARPC Classifier Match on Saturday by myself. I arrived at the range at 10am instead of the intended 8am, because I overslept.

When I got there, Mike "Mac" McCarter saw me pull in, and as he was just moving from Stage 6 to Bay 1 -- near the stats shack -- he invited me to join his squad, as they only had 7 people and all the other squads were 9 or more.

This turned out to be one of the few occasions when I wasn't squaded with The Usual Suspects -- the composition of which varies but is usually composed of a bunch of fat old men and SWMBO.

Mac runs the Junior Program in the Columbia Cascade Section, so I wasn't surprised to see that there were only four fat old men and three lean, energetic teen-age competitors in the squad.

The three juniors were Chris Cardoza, Chris Champ (whom I had not met before), and Andrew Jacobson (Mac's grandson). The 'fat old men' included Mac, John Matlock (president of ARPC), Mark McDonald (son of two other Junior shooters, who were not present today, and Jeff Cardoza (Chris' father). There were also two spectators named Larry and Skip. I never understood the relationship of Larry, but Skip was a preacher whom Mark knew personally and whom Mark had convinced to begins competing in IPSC. Skip was a charmer, and would have been competing this day except that his pistol was in the shop having some work done on it. I look forward to shooting with Skip on another date.

Because this was a Classifier Match, most of the stages weren't very interesting photographically, although they were technically challenging.

I started on SIX CHICKENS CM03-02. This is a 12-round Virginia-count standard exercise with a lot of no-shoot area showing between three 2-target arrays with not a lot of brown paper showing. To my surprise, I shot it without penalties. This built up a lot of confidence, which I later discovered was not justified by my current shooting abilities.

Stage 2 was another classifier, RAW DEAL CM99-33, another 12-round Virginia count classifier which served only to bolster my false confidence.

Stage 3 Crap Shoot was the first of two 'field courses' which was especially designed to allow the shooters to stay under cover against the rain. Actually, and surprisingly, we didn't get rained on during this match. But had it rained, ARPC was prepared to keep us as dry as possible. I appreciated that, even though I didn't score very high due to my conservative approach to the stage. Well, as I said, it has been over a month since I shot a match and I continued to shoot conservatively (read: slowly) until the end of the match, when I shot too fast and missed a target. But I'm getting ahead of my story.

Stage 4 was one of my favorite classifier stages MELODY LINE CM99-08. This allows the shooter to shoot quickly, as long as he or she has confidence and the ability to back up that confidence. I had shot the same stage at Albany in October of last year and got an A-level score. This year, I shot with the same confidence but without the same level of expertise, and missed the last target with the last shot. The Mike dropped me from a solid B-level score to a mediocre C-level score. Some days you're the windshield, some days you're the bug.

Stage 5 was another field course, WHICH ONE NOW, in which both the shooter and the targets were mostly under cover. It required us to shoot the last two targets through a low port, and this caused a lot of problems for most of us. I managed to shoot a few videos of this stage, and this is the primary reason (apart from vanity) for writing this article.

I saw a couple of incidents which illustrated the reason why I so enjoy IPSC competition. Both of them illustrated the friendly environment which is typical of an IPSC match, and I posted the videos on the Jerrythegeek Shooting Gallery so I could share them with you.

In the first film, Andrew (Mac's grandson) does a fine job of addressing the field-course until he attempts to engage the last two targets, through a very low port under a bench. During this engagement, he moves his pistol too close to the 2x4 which supports the bench, and in fact the recoil drives the front sight of his Glock up into the soft wood, where it momentarily sticks. Of course, this causes a jam which costs him precious time. This is the reason why I usually warn new shooters to keep their pistol far behind the shooting port, a lesson which it took me ten years to learn myself. That is, when your pistol is too close to overhead cover such as a shooting port, the recoil often causes the pistol to impact on the material at the top of the port. This slows down the cycling of the slide resulting in some nasty jams. Andrew, unknowingly, provided and excellent example of this phenomenon, and I'm not sure he even yet realizes that he caused his own jam or how it happens. In fact, since we all know that we're not always aware of some of the things we do while shooting a stage, he might not realize it until he sees this video.

After Andrew finished the stage, his grandfather took him to take for his action. In fact, Andrew didn't realize he had hit the overhead so hard that the front sight momentarily stuck into the soft wood, but Grandfather Mac saw it immediately. In truth, I had to watch the video a couple of times before I saw it.

All ended well, as Mac pointed out the error and then clapped his grandson on the shoulder to show that it was all in jest.

If Robert Ruark had held off writing "The Old Man And The Boy" until this weekend, I feel certain that this incident would have been featured as an exemplar of how a grandfather serves a useful service in teaching his grandson how to handle firearms. In fact, if Mac reads this and reminds me, I'll not only loan my copy to him and to Andrew, but I'll also loan him the follow-up volume "The Old Man's Boy Grows Older". These are recommended reading for any man and boy who choose to learn not only how to shoot, but how to act.

After Andrew completed the stage, it was Mac's turn. Mac was careful to shoot the stage clean, and provided an excellent example in "how to act".

If that wasn't enough, the next shooter was Mark M. Mark had scoped out the stage carefully, and determined that if he reloaded between the first two ports he wouldn't have to reload while moving to the third port . . . the low port which cost Andrew so dearly in time.

but in the actual even, when Mark moved to the 3rd port he reloaded anyway . . . and he didn't need to. On the video, you can clearly hear mark say (as he reloaded the dropped magazine):
"I didn't need that, but I done it anyway!"
after he complete the stage, his memory was that he said "Darn!" Entirely not consistent with the actual verbiage, but it shows how we forget the details of how we shoot a stage, and only remember the gist of our thought process.

After this stage, the "Junior Squad" was done with the match and they moved on to other things.

I had yet to shoot stage six, TAKE YOUR CHOICE CM99-12, and I was fortunate that the previous squad hadn't cleared the stage yet. I prevailed upon the good humor of John B. to run me through the stage. I discovered that I must have been in a hurry because I managed to miss one of the targets, again with my last shot.

My experiences in this match taught me some valuable lessons, which I will promptly forget:

• when you haven't shot in competition for a while, you tend to shoot conservatively
• when you shoot conservatively, you tend (if you're an Open shooter) to adopt the rhythm of Limited shooters, and wait too long between shots when you should be striving for fast double-tap times
• conservative shooters also tend to think a lot while shooting. This is anathema to fast stage times. You must strive for a zen-like mindframe wherein you only want to shoot as your mind and your body know you can shoot quickly. You think slower than you shoot. Just walk though the stage often enough that you know what you must do, and when you must do it. Then . . . just do it. Don't think You can ruin your stage by over-thinking it.

Of course, it helps a lot if you get your hits.

Later: the Sunday Match, with a LOT more videos.

UPDATE:
Match results here.