Phyrfight Intel

This is how it begins. “Reasonable” people like this former US Ambassador start to talk about “how” it could be done. If you don’t find this proposal chilling then you should be one of the first in line to have your RFID implanted.

From:The Post-Gazette

The disarmament process would begin after the initial three-month amnesty. Special squads of police would be formed and trained to carry out the work. Then, on a random basis to permit no advance warning, city blocks and stretches of suburban and rural areas would be cordoned off and searches carried out in every business, dwelling and empty building. Thoroughness would be at the level of the sort of search that is carried out in Crime Scene Investigations. All firearms would be seized. The owners of weapons found in the searches would be prosecuted: $1,000 and one year in prison for each firearm.

Clearly, since such sweeps could not take place all across a city, county, state or the country at the same time, guns would move. But fairly quickly there would begin to be gun-swept, gun-free areas where there should be no firearms. If there were, those carrying them would be subject to quick confiscation and prosecution. On the streets it would be a question of stopping and searching anyone, even Grandma with her walker, with the same penalties for “carrying.”

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That statement came from a professor of science at Carleton University. He along with another professor believe that the debate about climate change has become irrational, on both sides. Everybody needs to just calm down and back-up their arguments with proven facts and/or rationality.

Via Standard Freeholder

From: Tucker Carlson via You Tube

Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy introduced legislation in February that would ban weapons with certain “features”. Tucker gets her to admit she doesn’t even understand the language of her own bill.

American psycho-News-World-US & Americas-TimesOnline

This is a fairly interesting article on the man who committed the vile attack on Virgina Tech University on April 16, 2007.

From: The Patriot Post

In his Commonplace Book, Jefferson quotes Cesare Beccaria from his seminal work, On Crimes and Punishment: “Laws that forbid the carrying of arms… disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes… Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”

The same can be said of so-called “gun-free zones”

Jack Thompson Blames Bill Gates for VT Shooting

“…the worst school massacre in world history was at the hands of Robert Steinhaeuser, who literally trained on the Microsoft on-line, hyper-violent shooter game, Counterstrike… As you know, I similalry [sic] went on NBC’s Today Show with the DC Beltway Sniper still unidentified and at-large a few years ago and told Matt Lauer and the nation that the triggerman would most likely be a teen video gamer trained on a sniper video game. The tarot card was a clue, but there were other clues. I was right, as Malvo trained on your Microsoft game, Halo.”

Just for reference, according to Bungie.net, in the last 24 hours over 500,000 unique players played Halo 2 online. According to Wikipedia, 9.2 million copies of the game have been sold worldwide. Also, according to Valve, at any one time there are approximately 150,000 people playing some form of Counterstrike. How can one honestly believe that these games lead individuals to violent behavior when it is so obviously a horrible fringe minority? On top of that, if you can show me an average young male in the United States who has never played any sort of violent video game, I’d be absolutely dumbstruck.

[Update] It has come to my attention that the version of Counterstrike that Cho was playing was not even published by Microsoft. Counterstrike for the PC was published by Sierra Studios. Though, Sierra doesn’t have enough money to be the victim of Thompson’s lunatic lawsuit frenzy.

From Daily News:

“Then the gunfire started coming closer. Librescu, 77, fearlessly braced himself against the door, holding it shut against the gunman in the hall, while students darted to the windows of the second-floor classroom to escape the slaughter, survivors said.”

At this tragic time we should focus on the heroism of Professor Liviu Librescu, who saved the lives of his students, instead of starting an emotional argument about guns. We should focus on the effect his heroism will have on the students he saved, and what they think about his selfless and courageous act. There is not enough positive news these days and we all need some example that there are good forces out there, working.

From: TJ McIntyre

On the wall outside his former residence – flat number 27B – where Orwell lived until his death in 1950, an historical plaque commemorates the anti-authoritarian author. And within 200 yards of the flat, there are 32 CCTV cameras, scanning every move.

There is an interesting article on Wired.com which discusses the new faux pas of labeling a work of art “science fiction”. I understand that a good amount of science fiction is poorly done and gives the genre a bad name, but science fiction done well can introduce us to new and thought provoking ideas. I can’t understand why a director/writer/author would shy away from the label “science fiction”. Battlestar Galactica producer Ron Moore himself doesn’t like to use that label. I have news for him, whether or not he likes the label BSG is science fiction as well as drama. What BSG does that not many shows can do is use science fiction as a pre-text to get viewers to watch an extremely well done TV drama. As many critics have said before it is the best show on television.

Now a word about bad scifi. Those who continue to watch bad science fiction are part of the problem. Fans should demand science fiction that is well done and not watch science fiction just for the sake of watching science fiction. Science fiction fans as a community should expect the same level of quality in a show or movie that every other genre has.

There is a great post on the Technology Liberation Front blog about when to let kids start playing video games. The poster, Mr. Thierer, is himself a gamer and discusses his thought process on when and how he will let his kids enter the gaming arena. Personally, I think a gamer knows when it is the right time to introduce their kid to gaming.

Documentary

Martyn Burke says that the Public Broadcasting Service and project managers at station WETA in Washington, D.C., excluded his documentary, Islam vs. Islamists, from the series America at a Crossroads after he refused to fire two co-producers affiliated with a conservative think tank. “I was ordered to fire my two partners (who brought me into this project) on political grounds,” Burke said in a complaint letter to PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which supplied funds for the films.

There is a new Battlestar Galactica game demo that runs on Macs, Windows and Linux.
Demo

CAPRICA CITY, Caprica, 31 Ares — The skies were cloudy, the radiation levels moderate, and the cream of Cylon civilization was present in droves for the opening of the first Caprica City Starbucks.

“I always used to joke: How many planets do we have to destroy to get a decent cup of coffee around here?” said a Brother Cavil model while waiting. “Turns out it’s twelve. Who knew?”

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From: Lt. Col. Oliver North/Fox News

Three weeks after Pearl Harbor, nearly 100 American civilian construction contractors were killed and wounded standing shoulder-to-shoulder with U.S. Marines and sailors defending Wake Island. When the tiny garrison was overwhelmed on 23 December 1941, more than 1,000 contractors became prisoners of the Rising Sun and scores were subsequently worked to death and massacred by their captors. None of those who died received so much as a Purple Heart.

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