Smoke, Ass, Blow

Radley Balko writes about his interviews with three law enforcement officials who defend arresting citizens caught video recording on-duty cops. If I hadn't followed Balko's blog, The Agitator, and the Only Ones files from David Codrea's War on Guns, for the past few years I would honestly think the article was satire. There actually was a time I would not believe that a District Attorny or Police Officer would say, on the record, the incredibly stupid things Balko reports.

It's getting harder and harder to find any substantive difference between the criminals and the cops.

Gewaltmonopol des Staates

David Codrea criticizes a recent Huffington Post editorial by Josh Horwitz entitled Passing the Sword. Codrea writes:

“The question of whether armed citizens should be entitled to challenge the government with force is at the heart of the current debate over the Second Amendment in the Supreme Court case of District of Columbia vs. Heller,” Coalition to Stop Gun Violence Executive Director Josh Horwitz writes in a recent Huffington Post opinion piece.

CSGV, of course, is the kinder, gentler name giving PR cover for what was once called “The National Coalition to Ban Handguns.”

“The concept of a ‘monopoly on force’ might sound foreign or even frightening to Americans that take great pride in our revolutionary beginnings,” Horwitz continues, “ but it is the fundamental organizing principle of any political entity, including the United States.”

To back up this assertion, he cites, “German political economist and sociologist Max Weber.”

Read the rest here.

First, Max Weber did not say monopoly on "force", he said monopoly on "violence". However, the difference may be too subtle for an intellect as "exceptional" as Josh Horowitz's.

Of greater interest to Americans is that Weber's theory means government uses violence as a matter of right but that any individual or group that may only use violence when authorized to do so by the state. This means that there is no inherent individual right to use violence in self defense no matter how great the provocation. There is only a privilege which can be granted or withheld at the whim of the state.

That is a complete inversion of the discoveries of the Enlightenment and the founding principles of the American Republic where power is inherent in the people and the state acts by permission. If that state becomes abusive then the people have the right to withdraw any previously granted permissions. If this can be done peacefully then it should be. If it cannot be done peacefully then the state has abdicated its legitimacy and the people are within their rights to use whatever means -- including violence -- is necessary to bring the state back into line.

The reason for the Second Amendment was not to insure the right of self defense nor does it grant a right of revolution. It exists to insure that the people will always have the power to "alter or abolish" a government that is no longer responsive to the individuals is was created to serve.

Whoring for Allah

Planet Iran claims to have obtained a document advertising "temporary marriages" for pilgrims en route to the shrine of Imam Reza.

Temporary Marriage (Marriage is among the traditions of the Prophet Mohammad)

In order to elevate the spiritual atmosphere, create proper psychological conditions and tranquility of mind, the Province of the Quds’eh-Razavi of Khorassan has created centers for temporary marriage (just next door to the shrine) for those brothers who are on pilgrimage to the shrine of our eighth Imam, Imam Reza, and who are far away from their spouses.

To that end, we call on all our sisters who are virgins, who are between the ages of 12 and 35 to cooperate with us. Each of our sisters who signs up will be bound by a two year contract with the province of the Quds’eh-Razavi of Khorassan and will be required to spend at least 25 days of each month temporarily married to those brothers who are on pilgrimage. The period of the contract will be considered as a part of the employment experience of the applicant. The period of each temporary marriage can be anywhere between 5 hours to 10 days. The prices are as follows:

• 5 hour temporary marriage – 50,000 Tomans ($50 US)
• One day temporary marriage – 75,000 Tomans ($75 US)
• Two day temporary marriage – 100,000 Tomans ($100 US)
• Three day temporary marriage – 150,000 Tomans ($150 US)
• Between 4 and 10 day temporary marriage – 300,000 Tomans ($300 US)

Our sisters who are virgins will receive a bonus of 100,000 Tomans ($100 US) for the removal of their hymen.

After the expiration of the two year contract, should our sisters still be under 35 years of age and should they be so inclined, they can be added to the waiting list of those who are seeking long-term temporary marriage. The employed sisters are obligated to donate 5% of their earnings to the Shrine of Imam Reza. We ask that all the sisters who are interested in applying, to furnish two full-length photographs (fully hijabed and properly veiled), their academic diplomas, proof of their virginity and a certificate of good physical and psychological health which they can obtain through the health and human services of the township of their residence. Please forward all compiled material and send to the below address by the 31st of the month of Ordibehesht, 1389 (May 21st, 2010).

Attention: For sisters who are below 14 years of age, a written consent from their fathers or male guardian is required.

If the Olympics ever has an event called "Lying with a straight face", the above would be a slam dunk for the gold. On a brighter note Americans could earn a thing or two from Imam Reza about how to treat women: I hear the Nevada brothels demand up to 50% as the house cut.

FBI Seal Illegal to Display Without Permission

In what has to be a local maximum of bureacratic stupidity, the FBI is demanding that Wikipedia remove the FBI seal from its site.

 The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation has threatened Wikipedia with legal action if the online encyclopedia doesn't remove the FBI's seal from its site.

Read the rest here

Just when I started to think the FedGov could possibly not get any further into the borderlands of insanity they proved that you can't keep a stupid bureaucrat down.

On the advice of Patrick at Popehat I invoke this ancient spell of protection:

Ipso facto. E. pluribus unum. Res gestae divi Augusti. Agricola est bona. Shai Gaba Umbala Shoombala OOM!

And a "Klaatu, barada nikto", Just in case.

Taggers for Christ

This is old news but, given my earlier post entiled "Threeper versus Threeper", it is relevent.

Chrissy Saterfield over at World Net Daily experienced journalistic orgasms over the vandalism of a billboard right before the "Fourth of July weekend" (her words, I call it "Independence Day").

Just when I start believing there is no hope for our country I get a little reminder from my God that all is not lost. It was reported June 29 that a billboard sign sponsored by a North Carolina atheist organization had been vandalized. The ad reads, "One Nation Indivisible." It seems someone didn't think the sign was an accurate depiction of our Pledge of Allegiance, so the vandals inserted "Under God" with spray paint – and I couldn't be more relieved. It's nice to know that I am not alone in my beliefs and that some people are still willing to stand on the right side of truth.

Of course she inserts the obligatory disclaimer that she would never encourage such a thing (Nudge, nudge. Wink, wink).

Never would I encourage vandalism, but in this case I think I'll let it slide. Atheists have been vandalizing my beliefs for years, so it's about time the shoe was on the other foot.

If her beliefs are so fragile that a few words are the equivalent to vandalism then the logical side of Ms. Saterfield must be tempted to check her premises. Fortunately for the survival of Christendom, her belief system insulates her from the temptation of thinking.

In the final analysis, there is no Commandment against vandalism I guess there is no reason for Ms. Saterfield to condemn the actions of her co-religionist.

My dose of honesty this week: I am not happy that vandalism seems to be the only way to get an atheist's attention. I'm happy that I can count on other Christians to stand up for themselves and for Christians everywhere. It gives me hope.

OTOH, do I need to care what Chrissy Saterfield thinks? She seem to do it very rarely.

Onward Christian taggers, skulking in the night.
With your holy spray paint those billboard you will smite.
The royal Master Krylon, leads against the foe;
forward into battle see God's graffiti go!

H/T to The Secular Right

Threeper versus Threeper?

Over at Sipsey Street in the comments to the entry entitled The messy interface of church, state and the First Amendment in NM an anonymous reader writes at 3:43 PM:

Not to worry. We know how to deal with atheists.

I have little doubt that a lot of christians would happily see every atheist and probably more than a few of their fellow believers who do it "wrong" dead and "sardine packed". Twice in my life I've been threatened by christians who mistook "atheist" to mean "pacifist" or "unarmed". In both cases the appearance of Messrs. Smith and Wesson convinced them they were wrong on both counts,

Maybe they weren't quite ready to meet Jeebus.

Assuming some JBT doesn't do the job for you, any believers tempted to simplify things for your god by ridding the planet of this pesky atheist had better plan on backshooting or bushwacking me. Otherwise bring lots of friends and plenty of ammunition because -- win, lose or draw -- it will be a long fucking day. I'm already planning to hold a few cases of ammo in reserve just in case you go as stupid as the shit some of you talk.

Mike Vanderboegh writing as Dutchman6 ofers:

Anonymous said:"Not to worry. We know how to deal with atheists."

Mac Bigelow sez:

"What? Force them to love God or kill them? Sounds a lot like your in the same boat as the Muslims to me. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is only for devout christians or more to the point catholics?"

My preference is to annoy them to distraction until they come to Jesus. Tickling is sometimes permitted. No one expects the Spanish Inquisition. -- Mike

I hope you're right, Mr. Vanderboegh, and your fellow believers will not indulge in a bit of cleansing. In which happy case I remind you that, "One man's theology is another man's belly laugh." Tickling will not be required.

The Armed Citizen Suspends Operation

According to this posting, The Armed Citizen is suspending operation.

On July 21st, The Armed Citizen received an indirect and informal notice of a lawsuit against this website and its owners, David Burnett and Clayton Cramer.

The suit, reportedly filed in US District Court on July 20th, alleges that The Armed Citizen and its owners “willfully copied” and infringed on original source content from the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

According to news reports, Righthaven LLC has filed lawsuits against no less than 80 other political websites and individual blogs for “infringement.”

The Armed Citizen website has helped publicize reports of law-abiding people using guns in self defense. Thousands of brief snippets from news reports, with proper attribution, have been posted there.

Instant Hitman

This obviously a joke and in very poor taste but I still found it funny.

Melancholy Mathematics

In a thread over on the Free Keene Forum Bill St Clair comments on the Spider Robinson short story entitled Melancholy Elephants

Interesting Spider Robinson story. But let's do the math. Most popular melodies are only about 8 bars long. Assuming all 8th notes in 4/4, we have 64 notes. It's a rare melody that takes more than two octaves. That's 24 possible pitches in the standard well-tempered scale for each note. But in reality, songs are usually in a major or minor key, so that's 16 possible pitches for each of major and minor. Total 16**24 + 16**24 = 1.6E29. That's a bit less than 3E19 melodies for each of the earth's 6 billion (6E9) souls. That's 30 billion billion songs per soul. Yes, many of those will not be pleasant tunes, but I still think there are enough to last us for at least the expected lifetime of our sun.

(He corrects the obvious error in the above here)

The biggest problem with the above anaysis is I don't have to copy an entire work to commit plagarism but only reconizable parts of it.

Remember the plagarism lawsuit over My Sweet Lord and He's So Fine? (If not here is a quick overview) The suit was based on two musical motifs used together in almost identical ways in both compositions.

A musical motif is a short bit of the entire composition. It may be of any size, and is the shortest subdivision of a theme or phrase that still maintains a recognizable identity.

Think of the first four notes from Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.

A motif must be at least two notes but there is no maximum length. The longest I can think of offhand is the descending eight-note sequence in Dies irae (Day of wrath), a chant later incorporated into the Catholic requiem mass. There may be longer ones.

If I double eight and use sixteen as a working limit then the total number of possible phrases spanning two octaves on a 12 note scale becomes:

24^2 + 24^3 + ... + 24^16 = 1.968e+19

That is not a small number but no means is it an impossible one. If each note is represented by a single octet on a hard drive, the entire possible phrase space represents about four exabytes -- much less with some basic compression.

If plagarism requires at least two phrases be copied then the total is the above number taken two at a time without duplication but without regard to order (combination) which is calculated by:

1.968e+19*(1.968e+19-1)/2 = 1.937e+38

Still several order of magnitude less than Mr. St. Claire's estimate.

Bellesiles Gets Caught -- Again.

While not nearly as bad as the last time when he fabricated evidence to support his thesis, Michael Bellesiles had been caught spreading a false story (Scroll down to the "Editor's note").

Considering his past fraudulent "scolarship", why is he even working in academia any more?

Other Links:

Big Journalism
Disgraced 'Historian' Michael Bellesiles' Fishy War Story

Volokh Conspiracy
Serious Questions About the Veracity of Michael Bellesiles's Latest Tale

Chronicle Review Admits Bellesiles’s Story is False — Blames Student, not Bellesiles.